Good Day,
I am going to start you off with an old joke that has stuck with me for years. A man was in desperate need of money. One night, he wished upon the first star he saw to win the lottery. Every night for a week, he looked out the window, up into the night sky and wished to win the lottery – to no avail. On the 8th night, he looked up and cried out, “Why won’t you grant me my wish?!?”. After a moment, he heard a voice. It was deep, authoritative, and reverberated through the room. “You need to buy a ticket!!!”
I thought about this joke last week when speaking with some of our municipal stakeholders. We were talking out aligning our event calendars to ensure that there is a better chance for someone – anyone – to learn about events taking place in their communities. They were saying that it is difficult to get stakeholders to upload their events to the municipal website. And, the staff members often spend their valuable time doing it for the stakeholders just so the municipal event calendar is full. I was absolutely flabbergasted. Your municipality, your region/county and Central Counties provide FREE event listings for our stakeholders. FREE.
I have heard stakeholders musing about their unsuccessful events over the years and now wonder if it may have been because nobody knew about it. And when I am talking about “event”, I am not just referring to large, shut down the street-type festivals. It can be anything that is happening at a specific date(s) and time at your business. Do you have a musician playing one night? Are you hosting a paint and sip at your cidery? Do you have an author coming in to read from her latest work? Let people know!
The FREE event listing pages is the lottery. Your time to upload your event is your ticket. BUY THE TICKET! No one can make you successful but you. Event listings are a tool provided by us to help you achieve that success. But they only work if you take advantage of them.
When it comes to the Central Counties Tourism Event Calendar on yorkdurhamheadwaters.ca, did you know that:
- It is our highest viewed page (over 200,000 views per year) with some of the highest click through rates (meaning they are clicking to the stakeholder websites)
- The listings are used to create itineraries and social media post content which we then push out through our consumer channels (more FREE exposure for you)
- Each week, we send all posted events to daily / weekly outlets, which have resulted in stakeholder events:
- Being listed in major dailies, like the Globe & Mail
- Being featured on large-following blogs, like Narcity and Blog T.O.
- Being highlighted on radio stations, like 680 News
- If you are applying for our Partnership Program for an event, the application is not eligible unless you have the event listed on our event page
If you did know all of this, you are probably pretty good at making sure you keep you event listings with us current. If you didn’t, I am hoping the information reads like the difference between a 50/50 draw for your kid’s sports team and the Lotto Max jackpot. As a business owner, I really don’t care where people hear about us that motivates them to visit. What I do care about is making it is easy as possible for somebody – anybody – to learn about my business and give us a try. FREE ways are the best because I have a limited cash budget for advertising. A few hours of my time gives us access to tens, if not hundreds, of thousands of potential guests that may choose to see us on the Family Day weekend, or March Break or Twice the Value Tuesdays.
Loading in all of your events ensures that every time a person comes back to the event page, they are going to see your organization. One of the first things I learned in Marketing 101 a million years ago is that it takes at least three exposures to a company before they remember you. When you list your events on event pages, you have already broken through the noise with the majority of eyes that see it because they are looking for events. There is a better chance that they will remember you quicker because you offer what they enjoy doing – events.
At this point, you should now be thinking that yes, you should be loading your events on your municipal, regional and CCT event calendars. And you are right. You should. However, it is going to take a scheduled, concerted effort on your part to prioritize doing this. If you are like me, you are getting pulled in several directions at once and the less desirable/critical activities end up taking a back seat.
Loading in your events needs to become habit, like brushing your teeth or picking up your lottery tickets every Tuesday. What has been working for me is actually putting non-meeting work into my calendar, blocking the time so that I can dedicate it to the task. When people ask for my availability for meetings, I don’t give them that time as an option as it is now dedicated to doing whatever task I have set for myself during that time period. Loading in your events is perfect for this type of time blocking. What I do for loading in our events and responding to reviews is set a recurring “meeting” every second Monday evening for an hour.
The more sites your events are listed on, the more lottery tickets you now have. Increased attendance at your event(s) and on other random days (because people now know about you), is the payout. BUY YOUR TICKET!
Have a great day!
Chuck
