4 Event Branding Mistakes that Kill Ticket Sales

top 4 event branding mistakes

Not Communicating Values

The most successful events share values with their attendees. Do your events have a clear value? Can you describe your event’s personality, both visually and in your event’s messaging?

A good value litmus test is to ask past attendees to associate one word with your events. If you get similar responses, your values are coming across. If not, you may need to make a change. For example, most Coke event-goers associate the word family with their events, while Pepsi event-goers tend to associate more energetic words like fun and thrills.

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A great way to fix this branding issue is via market research. Look at similar events, appealing to the same audience. How are they communicating their values, in what media? What keywords are they using? What personality can you see, and how does that attract their customers? Answering these questions will help you fine-tune yours.

Event Brand is Different than Company Brand or Past Event Brand

One of the biggest event branding mistakes is inconsistency. You want your event brand to be recognizable and attributed to your company, as after all the event and the company were both created under the same mission statement. While it’s definitely true that overly corporate-focused event brand for the event runs the risk of coming off as self-promoting and fake, ignoring your company’s brand entirely is worse. For example, Apple, a company priding itself on innovation and tech-savviness, would probably not want to brand an event as old-fashioned or traditional and without any emphasis on technology. While corporate branding can frustrate people, a totally unrelatable brand just confuses people, which can in many cases be worse.

Another frequently made mistake is brand inconsistency from event to event. Does each one of your events seem to convey a completely different message? Is there any clear thread that connects them? Make sure that your event messaging can easily be linked to each other. This will not only improve your events’ visibility and encourage attendees to return, but it will allow your successful events to build on each other. Attendees who enjoyed your event will know to attribute their good time to your brand and its messaging. This will help you develop a reputation around your brand.

No Value Proposition

Does your brand offer value, ie something tangible to your attendees, or is it more intangible? How does it stand out to potential attendees?

A common issue for event brands, especially for experienced event planners, is value proposition coupled with differentiation. Branding messages that make it clear why attendees should attend your event rather than those just like it, and if they’ve been to previous events, why should they go to another one?

One great way to fix this branding sin is by stressing a value ‘add-on.’ For example, the Writer’s Digest conference stresses a ‘Pitch Slam’ in their messaging, an hour add-on where writers pitch to agents. This unique feature not only makes them stand out from other writing conferences, but it also encourages previous attendees to come back for this new feature.

Your Software Swallows your Brand

As an event planner, you’re busy with scheduling, your venue, clients, and spreading your message of change. When it comes to ticketing software, you’re looking for convenience and often pick the first software you hear. But what you might not know is that most ticket sales software takes huge portions of sales, cost too much, promote competing events, and eclipse your own brand. The powerful branding messaging behind software like Eventbrite and Ticketmaster will appear on your event page when selling tickets with their software, which can sideline your event’s brand and visibility. A ‘White-Label’ software is often a good alternative. This ticket sales software is essentially invisible, aka ‘white label’, allowing potential attendees to only see your event’s branding when using their software.

Sparxo is a white-label software to post your event and sell tickets for your event anywhere, letting you sell tickets directly from your website with no redirects – all for free!