How to grow your virtual event to 15,000+ attendees in less than 3 weeks
This human-powered event marketing strategy helped #GMIDGoesVirtual transform a passive community into engaged advocates for their virtual event.
Performance under pressure. That was the motto as a group of eventprofs took aim at the World Record for the largest livestream audience ever at #GMIDGoesVirtual. Low on cash, short on manpower and with just two weeks to collect 15,000 registrations to attempt the world record, they needed to get the word out and FAST.
Well, spoiler: They got the registrations. And over 12,500 people from 173 different countries participated in #GMIDGoesVirtual.
It’s even more impressive that it all started with just 50 event professionals collaborating using the #GMIDGoesVirtual hashtag. That’s so crazy we’ll say it again - a group of 50 independent eventprofs, in collaboration with industry organizations like MPI and technology providers like snöball, were able to pull off a 12,500 person virtual conference with just two weeks to promote the event.
So, how exactly did they do it?
Empowering their Audience
Let’s check out the nuts and bolts behind #GMIDGoesVirtual. They needed to spread the word for their event and secure at least 15,000 registrations in just two weeks. How did they mobilize their audience and transform them into a group of powerful advocates?
The simplest answer is that they used a scalable technology solution that delivers personalized marketing materials for their attendees. #GMIDGoesVirtual simplified the process for their attendees by removing the need for content creation and channel identification. Everything an attendee needed to do to promote their event had already been done, the only thing left for attendees was to push send.
And their attendees delivered. Using the snöball technology, attendees drove over 25,000 page views and nearly 9,000 clicks to registration. In fact, 59% of more than 15,000 registered attendees came directly from snöball campaigns that were promoted by conference attendees!
“snöball turned our registrants into promotional machines. I think in the post-COVID world, most of the traditional marketing strategies are not going to work. Tools like snöball will soon become essential.”
- Shawn Cheng, MCI
Finding their Community Leaders
All audience members are created equal, except when it comes to promoting your event. The truth is, some people are going to be better advocates than others. Whether that’s due to passion for your community or networking savvy, finding your best advocates is critical.
#GMIDGoesVirtual found themselves in a unique position - they already had community leaders identified! The initial 50 event professionals supporting #GMIDGoesVirtual had already laid the groundwork to get people talking about their event.
Maybe for #GMID this year, we should just try to break the world record for largest, virtual meeting ever held. How many #eventprofs can we get to an online meeting? Everyone just shares their favourite thing about working in this amazing industry. @meetingsmeanbiz @MPI @pcmahq
— Anh Nguyen, CMP (@atnguyen) March 13, 2020
But #GMIDGoesVirtual was able to increase visibility into other potential community leaders. By using their marketing technology, they were able to track which advocates were driving the most traffic to the virtual event. This leads us right into the final piece of their influencer marketing success - building more brand ambassadors!
Building their Brand Ambassadors
One of the most powerful ideas behind #GMIDGoesVirtual’s influencer marketing campaign was using influencers to acquire influencers. A major component of their success stemmed from the access to a constantly increasing and suddenly accessible audience.
“We leveraged the snöball platform to promote GMID Goes Virtual because we knew we needed to reach a wide audience in a short period of time. In order to attempt the Guinness World Records title, we needed to sign up 15,000 people in less than two weeks and without the assistance from the snöball team, we would never have accomplished our goal,” - Anh Nguyen, Principal and Founder of Spark Event Management
They also built ambassadors using the tried and true method of getting people to do anything: FOMO. #GMIDGoesVirtual used a ‘Who’s Who’ section on the sign up page. Each attendee submitted a picture of themselves when they registered and, as the virtual event grew, it became a way to leverage the innate value that each attendee brings to your event. No one in the community wanted to be left behind as their industry forged ahead and broke a world record without them!
Bottom Line
#GMIDGoesVirtual is one of the best examples of influencer marketing done right. They mobilized their audience in record time, while using some awesome tools to help empower them with the right content to succeed. That’s how you do it!
Learn how you can supercharge your event marketing with snöball.
