Ways to increase attendance at business meetings and events

As a matter of fact, people do enjoy attending events. This is because they want to get informed; to come in contact with the leaders in their field; for networking; for being acknowledged for taking their time to attend; out of curiosity; for entertainment; for gossiping; or just for the free food offered, always in a warm and friendly environment for all participants.

Poor attendance at meetings and events is always your worst nightmare as hosts. You may use an online survey to determine why potential customers do not enroll. You may ask customer service representatives about the most frequent objections. You may even initiate a promotional phone call to find out about the objections with your own ears. However, no matter what you do, the event will be a disaster if you don't come up with ways to overcome these objections.

Designing a successful event aims at increasing your profitability and the potential of your attendees. In your effort to discover the needs and wants of your attendees it is advisable to ask attendee-focused questions that require attendee-centric answers. For instance, questions like 'what would drive greater success in my business?', 'what my customers need?', 'how could I satisfy my customer needs?' may help you design an event that will create interest in your attendees.

Promoting your event requires primarily creativity and persistence. High attendance is important for the success of your event and your business. Emphasizing on your attendees will allow you to generate more awareness for your cause and, ultimately, more success for your event.

Here are some guidelines you may follow to increase attendance when hosting business meetings or events:

> Target the right audience

One common factor that makes people restraining from an event is because they are not really interested. In other words, they do not belong in the right target group. If you host the event for the first time, it will take some time for finding the right target audience so as to achieve high attendance. In contrast, if you are already hosting the event for many years, you may experience a decline in attendance rates as a result of inviting the same people without expanding your guest list. You need to keep an updated attendee database and make sure that you target the right audience. This can happen by asking existing attendees to refer you to potential new attendees so that you increase your attendance rates for next year.

> Invite your audience well ahead the event

Once you start inviting people, you should continue at a constant rate. Inviting people well ahead the event is important because it gives you time to remind them about the event even if they have confirmed attendance. The point is to generate excitement and to make them enthusiastic until the date of the event is hosted. You can mention the event to your guests before sending them invitations and then send an electronic or paper initiation including agenda highlights. After one or two weeks, you may call guests and give them a personal formal invite to the event.

> Build credibility and interest in your event

To participate in your event, people need to be convinced that is worth their time and money. To achieve that, you need to choose major sponsors to advertise your happening, esteemed guest speakers to attract the audience and nicely organized promotional material to communicate the benefits of attending at your event. In doing so, you will able to build credibility into your event, convincing people that is exceptional and worth attending.

> Choose the right location to host your event

Choosing the right location may skyrocket your attendance rates. Don't forget that people enjoy attending events. So, simply offer them an opportunity to detour from their routines and enjoy your happening. When choosing the location for hosting your event, consider a venue that can be conveniently reached because people are busy and do not have too much time. Also, it makes sense to use a venue that has been previously used for other events and people are familiar with. Offer discounts for early enrollment and offer also mail enrollment for people that do not have home computers.

> Provide incentives

Providing incentives raises additional interest. Offer additional discounts for the next year's event that can be prepaid this year. Offer new activities, perhaps workshops, handouts, signed books for a famous guest speaker for the first ten people, who register; anything that can make your event unique, different than the previous years and worth attending.

As there is no magic stick that can increase attendance in your next event, you need to design your events around their needs. In that way, you will host an event that will be a memorable experience for your attendees, who consequently will drive higher attendance to your next meetings.