Speaker: [00:00:00] While reading Seth Godin's book called This Is Marketing One of the things that came out of the listening that I did yesterday was this notion that we expect early adopters to turn into long-term buyers. And h- he kind of basically talks about how, you know, you create a product, you go to market, and there's, there's a whole section of the market who love to try new things.
They're the first to get on board things. They love to try new things, new technology, new programs, new TV shows. That's me. I'll take a chance on anything. I'll, I love being an early adopter. And so we kind of have this assumption, I guess, that [00:01:00] they will become your evangelists for your product.
So if we can get enough early adopters on board, we can demonstrate to them our product, our service, what it is that is our offer our event. And if enough people get on board and buy their tickets of the early adopters, other people will follow suit.
Now, here's the interesting thing I think that came to me when I was listening to this is what's the difference between an early adopter and an influencer? So I started digging into my own customers and looking at a part of my community, how did they get there, how long have they been there who are the ones that are no longer part of the community who have departed? And I just found it really interesting to try and figure out who were early adopters who are no longer there and who are influencers.
So the learning I got [00:02:00] from Seth's book is early adopters are not influencers. They're certainly there to validate, I think. They're there to validate an idea, a product, an offer, because they're the ones that are going to take a chance on it, right? Which is, I guess why, why we do these special prices for new offers, because we want those early adopters to come on board and take a chance, which is, I guess, why early birds work in event ticketing and conference ticketing. I've kind of... for a long time, I'm sort of, like, I don't think we should encourage registration via price. I've never really kind of believed in the early bird model.
I'm not sure that it drives registrations. But I now realise that's because we've been doing it all wrong. [00:03:00] So early bird is the early adopters, the ones that take a chance. You know, I've been to quite a few events this year and conferences that I really didn't know a lot about. They were at a price point that was pretty good.
It, you know, wasn't cheap. Like, I don't, I don't really... I don't think you should make things really, really cheap because you know, you've got to position yourself somewhere on the market. But even if you want to position yourself as a luxury product, a high-end retreat a high value conference, high touch conference, that kind of thing, even if that's what you want to do, I now believe in the...
I now believe in the, I now believe in the early bird model, but not how we've been using it. So people who are buying those early bird tickets are not the people who are going to go out and evangelise your event and get other people on board. [00:04:00] The people that you need to come on board after the early adopters are the ones that, and as Seth puts it, they want consistency, they want safety, and they want to know that they're buying the right thing.
So yes, absolutely get your early adopters. They can, they can test the website. They can test the ticketing. From them, you will get things like, "Oh, I tried to book on this link and it doesn't work. Oh, I've read your sales page and it doesn't... I don't really understand what the offer is. I'm still happy to buy, but, you know, who's speaking?
What kind of a lineup have you got? Am I going to get fed?" Like, they're the people who are going to feed you FAQs. They're not the people who are going to drive the rest of the ticket sales. So now I'm thinking what you need to do is have a different strategy for those two different markets. So early birds, they're the ones your early adopters, but then how are you going to do the marketing for those other [00:05:00] people that need to have seen you show up consistently?
They need to have seen you deliver a quality product on a, you know, on a regular basis. They need to feel safe that what they're purchasing is of good value from you. And yes, price is still a factor here, and I'm, I'm guessing there's varying levels of safety and security that people are looking for. And now I'm thinking it's a bit like the long sales page on your website.
So that theory, for example, is you need a buy now button on various locations on your sales page because everybody needs different levels of information. There's people like me who, again, early adopter, I'll hit the Buy Now button at the top. I like you, I've watched you I'll take a chance, I'm happy to have a go at something, and so I'm looking for the Buy Now button in
the hero section at the top. That's me, I'm looking for that. And I actually get really frustrated if I [00:06:00] have to read, you know, 10 pages of a website to find out how much it is and how can I pay for it. That really frustrates me, and typically people lose me. If I've got to scroll down too many times, i- if I...
If it's more than a couple of minutes before I've made that decision to buy, then I'm out. If I can't find it, I'm out. I, I get bored and I'm gone. And this is what Seth is saying about the early adopter. The early adopter gets bored after a certain period of time. That's why they're not out there e- evangelizing your product, your service, whatever it is that you've got going on with your event.
So you need to identify where those people are where that attrition is happening for those people, and then when do we need to kick in the marketing that starts to attract the people that are looking for consis- consistency? And of course, that marketing needs to start at the beginning as well. So they're not [00:07:00] necessarily going to buy at your early bird, but they still need to keep seeing it.
So it still needs to be a consistent message, a consistent value proposition branding, all of that kind of thing, because they either might buy right at the end of the early bird period, but they might wait. They might wait and sit there and go, "Well, I'm just going to, I'm just going to watch what happens here," 'cause they just want a bit more certainty that the promise that they have offered is going to be delivered.
I might go and do some searching for some reviews of past events, if this event's been done before. They might go looking for some reviews. They might go and stalk you on social media and all the various platforms to see if, if you talk about the things that you're promoting to present. You know, one of the biggest problems I'm finding right now is the promotion isn't matching the product.
So everyone's getting very good at their messaging and their sales [00:08:00] copy But they are not going back and checking that messaging and sales copy when it comes to delivering the product. So making sure that, you know, that you will get one, two, three, four if you come to my event. Making sure that before you design your program, pick your venue, all of the things, that you go back to that promise and make sure that you have actually included those things that you've promised.
But anyway, back to early bird tickets versus ramping up the ticket price. Most people see this, like when they're... Most people avoid this because it feels a bit icky, and I'm the same. This is why I didn't like it before. I felt like, "Oh, so you want me to invest my money in your event, and if it goes well, then you'll put the event on?"
Take concert tickets, for example. You know, when you buy a concert ticket a year out, you're [00:09:00] actually paying, you know, the venue hire, the insurances. You're paying for the contracts to be put into place for the promoter. Obviously, they still have to back it up. I'm not suggesting that they're using your money for untoward, untoward purposes, but it comes down to cashflow, right?
You need some of that money to do the thing that you've gotta do. But I've always had this belief that you've gotta have the money there already. You can't use the money from ticket sales to deliver your event. It's, it's just one of the things that I think is... It's just one of the things that I th- in my ethics I just...
Yeah. I need to be able... I need to know that if something goes awry, if I can't deliver this, I need to be able to, you know, return people's money to them. So what do you do next then? So if we've already... If we've accommodated the early adopters, we've done a campaign for them, we've done a [00:10:00] pricing structure for them, and they've come on board and they've bought the ticket, don't drop the ball here.
This is where you still need to ramp up.
Don't drop the ball here. This is where you need to ramp up even more. So the people that have been watching, the people that have been watching those early adopters, maybe they're the ones that sit in the middle of the curve a little bit, and they needed, they did need those people to validate the product.
So they're looking at it going, okay, all right, people are buying tickets. People are talking about it. Okay, I'm going to... You know, I get to the next step in my decision-making process. And then you've got another range of people who need even more information after that. So just back to that sales page example.
If I'm the one pressing the buy now button at the top, there's other people that they want a bit more information, so they're going to scroll down a bit more, and they're going to read a bit more. They might go away and research you a little bit, but then they're like, "Okay, cool. I [00:11:00] want in on this." Now they're looking for the buy now button.
Then there's another demographic of person who's, "No, I'm s- I'm still not sure. This is a lot of money. It's a big investment for me in time, money, energy. I really want to be sure. I'm just going to sit back for a minute. I'm going to watch the socials for a while. I'm going to see what other people are saying about their experience."
So they're now looking at those other people that have bought tickets and how that experience has been for them and whether it's been a good experience. So that's what they're looking for, right? They want to make sure that those people that went before them have had a good experience. And then you've got the people that wait until the very, very last minute, and this is the biggest problem we have right now, is it's not that people...
Like you've got two sets of people in this demographic. You've got a set of people [00:12:00] who are always like this, always have been like this, and they are scrolling. They are reading every single little word on your sales page. They're researching you left, right and center. They're stalking you all over social media.
They're watching your YouTubes. They're talking to people who know you. They are being very, very specific with their investigation to see whether this thing that you're producing is value for money. There's that demographic of person, they have always been there. And to be quite frank, we've forgotten about them.
We've forgotten about them because we got, you know, 75% of the way with our ticket sales, and so we kind of figure like we're on that wave, we're just going to ride this wave now, and we're going to be fine once we've got to 75. Today, however, as we know, there is so much competition for people, not even people's dollar for the ticket sale, not even competition for going to events, et cetera.
It starts right [00:13:00] way back, competition for their attention online. So even if you did traditional marketing, you didn't do social media marketing or, you know, If you did an integrated marketing campaign, which is, you know, all marketing everywhere, people see it no matter where they are, on billboards, in newspapers, on posters, online, on TV, on radio, you know, they're always hearing about your thing.
Think, you know, big concerts they're often doing this kind of marketing. Even that, when you, you have to go and buy online, and when they click their internet browser to go and find your ticketing website, or they click through from whatever marketing they've seen, they scan a QR code. If your landing page, if your sales page doesn't offer that opportunity to buy really quickly, and you're still trying to sell it to them by the time they get there, again, you're going to lose people.
You're [00:14:00] going to lose... You'll lose people who get bored easily, can't find what they're looking for, and they can't just buy and pay really easily. And there's going to be people right at the tail end of your campaign, really close to your event, that have actually never seen any of your marketing. Or they saw it, went to look at it, and then got distracted by some other thing online that took their attention away from their pathway to you.
You know, a pop-up happened. It was a link from Facebook, like maybe you had a QR code and it took them to your Facebook event, for example. And they look at your Facebook event, but then a message comes through, a Facebook Messenger comes through, and all of a sudden they're distracted on that. A friend sends them a link to go, "Hey, look at this," and all of a sudden they've gone off on a different pathway.
So there's so much distraction around that ticket buyer who would, you know, [00:15:00] probably buy halfway through the process, they're not seeing your stuff till right at the end of the campaign. And this is why it's really important that we have to just keep going, going, going. Keep your foot on the pedal, and I know it's really hard. I know it's really hard to do that, but you have to keep promoting it like it's going well. It...
so one of the other things I want to talk about is this strategy that some people are engaging in and, and it's probably honest.
They really are starting to panic 'cause, you know, putting events on, putting events on is a huge investment. As in investment not only in money, but in time as well. You know, if, if, if putting an event on isn't your normal operating business, if you don't normally do this as a business, and let's say you're you know, you're selling a product and you've decided to put an event on to promote that product, it [00:16:00] takes an enormous amount of time out of your regular business to do this activity.
So sometimes, and what I've seen a little bit lately, lately, is people start to panic because the ticket sales aren't coming and it's starting to go through their head, "I've invested all this time. I've invested all this money. What if this doesn't work? What if nobody comes?" And so they switch their campaign to, "Hey, this is an awesome thing and you should come, and all these other people are coming, too.
We're going..." Like, it's this is happening, that's happening. Like, instead of giving the person the value proposition of why they should come to the thing, they start begging. I... You know, they, they go online and they say, "Look, I've invested so much in this," and "We think it's a really fabulous thing and we'd really love it if you got on board."
But they start talking about how tough it is, how difficult it has been to promote the thing or sell the tickets, [00:17:00] and I'm just not sure. Like, that strategy doesn't work for me. I'm the kind of person that looks at that marketing strategy and goes, "Oh, hmm. What am I missing? What didn't I see?" Like I said, I'm the person that buys at the buy button at the top.
So now if I haven't seen it before and- But what I am seeing is, is this... What I am now seeing is the event owner come online and tell me how hard it is and ticket sales are tough and I put so much into this and et cetera, et cetera. If I start seeing that, that is a signal to me that tickets aren't going that well and I think I've missed something.
You know, contrary to my own belief, attention to detail when it comes to this kind of stuff is not really it's not my thing. I don't read the fine print. Like I said, I am a click and [00:18:00] buy person. I don't read the fine print and I pretty much typically just jump in. If I see this kind of marketing though, that's when I start to go, "Oh, God.
Should I have jumped in?" And if I haven't jumped in yet and this is the first time I've seen it, it's not going to compel me to buy. It's not going to compel me to buy. Just consider that. If, if that's... If someone's told you that going online and being vulnerable and sharing honestly about the struggles of selling tickets to your event, I would suggest that you reconsider it.
Just reconsider that. Because there's a whole market that they might have seen your thing, you know, six weeks ago, gone to buy a ticket and then got distracted by something else. So you've really got to keep up the happy promotional marketing, that value proposition. Just keep telling people what they're going to get.
You've created something incredible. [00:19:00] You've just got to get it in front of enough people. And remember, it's never too much. They are so distracted. We are all so distracted by absolutely everything that even if I did see your thing six weeks ago, I forgot that I saw your thing six w- six weeks ago. And now I'm looking at it going, oh, that's cool. Oh, wow, it's next week. Cool, I'm going to grab a ticket now.
I didn't even know there was an early bird. Like, again, stop promoting that early bird is ending. The scarcity model, I believe the scarcity model is dead. The scarcity model of, oh, buy your early bird tickets now, prices are going to double, or get in now, we're about to sell out, all of that kind of stuff it's not a promotional strategy that aligns with my values.
And the reason is because I've seen it in too many occasions where that was a lie. I've gone to the thing, the room's half full, [00:20:00] and I'm like, "Mm, hang on, you promoted that this was nearly sold out." So all of a sudden, like straightaway, I've got a bad taste in my mouth as soon as I arrive. So it's very important to align what you're marketing, align your marketing and your messaging to the truth.
I, I, yeah, I just want to put that out there that that's very important. But, so just tying that back again into this message that came out of Seth Godin's book, This is Marketing, early adopters are not your evangelists. So don't put the pen down when you've sold all of your early bird tickets, or when you think you've got momentum, because you've never got momentum in this day and age, I don't think. The early adopters are ... The purpose of the early adopter is to test your system, your process, your value proposition, your messaging.
They're the ones that will [00:21:00] come back and tell you what didn't work, what didn't land, give you ideas of what you should do, shouldn't do. That is the role of an early adopter. You've still gotta do your messaging. You've still gotta keep up your consistent messaging for the next round of people, the people that are looking to make sure that you're going to show up and do what you said you were going to do.
They're looking for consistency. They're looking for safety. They're looking for confidence that where they're going to put their money, they're going to get what they've been promised. That is it from me today. I do recommend you go and find Seth Godin's book, This is Marketing. And his latest is This is Strategy, which is also a very good book.
But This is Marketing, I've, I've just found really fascinating. There's, there's been some things in this book.
Even though it's a few years old, there's been a few things in this book that have really challenged my thinking and challenged the way that I do marketing and promotion. Go and check it out. Have an [00:22:00] amazing day
