“Everything has to be audience-first, and our first audience is the business owner so … how can we make even a free community event more friendly for our primary audience, the business owners, while entertaining the guests? It's tough, but there's always steps you can take, even if they're small ones.”
— Chris Blockus, Downtown Somerville Alliance

How Extreme Audience Focus Led to Explosive Event Growth with Chris Blockus

Session 168

How can knowing who is coming to your events change how you hold events in the future? Chris Blockus learned firsthand — by applying lessons from our Master Class on Audience Focus — how knowing your audience can transform the events you want them to attend. He was able to take data from his town’s first Girls’ Night Out event and use it to make the second one even better — from finding the right attendees, getting vendors and businesses on board and developing an exciting theme for the night. The result? Participation jumped by 50 percent.

They discuss:

  • How to use Excel to properly name sort and why that’s helpful
  • Getting people beyond the “grab your friend and drag them over” stage of participation
  • How personalized emails and phone calls can be beneficial
  • Focusing your audience for a big event
  • Catering an event to a primary audience — like business owners — as well as potential guests
  • Techniques to determine the demographics of your ideal event attendees
Resources:

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