So after the spring session ended and my teaching classes was off until the fall, I thought I’d make a go of hosting a real seminar/conference, get some real industry professionals to speak, and host an awesome info-packed event for STL businesses.

But I failed.  Kinda.

I started planning this event in late April, picked a date and set forth to find great speakers.  I signed up Scott Allender (@n3bu1a), then talked to Carolyn Shelby (@cshel) and got her to commit to keynoting, and we were off and running.

Within a day of launching the MarketSTL website, I received a few registrations, but no online payments.  Interesting.  A few days later I received a check in the mail.  Then all was silent for two weeks.  Another registration and payment. Then nothing.

In the meantime, I’m posting new event information on the website.  I’m getting the venue all ready and set up.  I promote the hell out of it on Twitter.  I submit press releases to sites like STL Today.  I fill out event info on dozens of websites telling about the event and pointing people to the website.

But all is quiet at the registration desk.  On June 3 I decide it’s time to pull the plug, regroup and give it another go later.  Ugh.

So what did I do wrong?  I did a few things wrong, and I’m the first to admit that I’m not an event planner.  I goofed, but that’s ok.  Saint Louis businesses need this event, and I’m going to give it to them.

What’s kind of funny is that I know of several local SEO companies/people who were carefully watching the event status.  They wanted to see what happened.  If it succeeded, would they jump in and do their own once I’ve tested the waters? Or did they just want to see me fail?  I dunno – but I’m not giving up that easily.

Screwup #1 – Promoting it Online

Ok in hindsight this was a pretty dumb move.  Here I am promoting an event that helps businesses use online methods (SEO, social media) to get more customers and I’m promoting it in the exact place that a vast majority of my target audience isn’t located. A big duh!

Sure – I need to set up a twitter account (@MarketSTL) and submit press releases.  I need to add the event to as many websites as possible.  But in order to promote an event like this,  the real thing I need to do is start doing offline promotion.  I should be hitting up local Chambers and Meetups.  This is where my audience is.  And that’s where you’ll find me over the next few months.

Screwup #2 – Short Leadtime

Launching a website at the end of April and having the event 5 weeks later wasn’t smart.  The search engines haven’t even indexed the site yet, so the only people that will even come across it are those that I physically told about it.  No SERPS to help me, no indexing to push potential attendees my way.  I’m such a dummy.

Screwup #3 – Individual Speakers Instead of Panels

By having a few panels made up of local professionals instead of just one speaker let’s me leverage these personalities to help promote the event even more.  A panel of three would give me three voices promoting their appearance instead of one.

Screwup #4 – Doing it Alone

Here’s a big one.  I thought I could pull this all out of my a$$ like it was no big deal.  Well, it is.  Coordinating all of these things to go off smoothly (all while running a company and keeping clients happy) wasn’t so smrt.

But I’ve learned from my errant ways and now have several people (including my hot wife) to bounce ideas and tasks off of.  Makes it a lot easier.

Other Personal Notes

There are a few other things that I wanted to post which really aren’t screwups, just random thoughts and observations.

Venue

I’m still wishy-washy about the venue.  I chose Caito’s Restaurant because they’ve got a great central location, free wifi, awesome food and they are nice people.  I really like this choice, but wonder if it’s scaring people away because it isn’t at a hotel or ‘conference center’ of some type.  My wife convinced me that for the first event, this is a great place to host it.  If we need to expand, we can.

Semantics

Ok this one you may laugh at but that’s ok.  Is calling my event a seminar hurting me because people think there’s some money-taking scheme attached?  Should I call it a conference? It’s not really big enough to be called a conference, is it?  Maybe a one day business workshop or a convention? I like business workshop.  Convention sounds like it’s huge.  Which do you like?

Affiliate Program

Here’s another way to leverage the online/offline crowd for promoting the event. A payout of $20/ticket could be an incentive for more people to blog about the event, thus I’d get more links, more exposure and hopefully that would lead to more ticket sales.  I’ve launched this program at a payout of 10% commission per sale.  Since I’ve added a second ticket for only $100 more, the commissions will be based upon which ticket you end up selling instead of a flat fee.  More money for you!

Information Overload

Ok, that’s enough for now.  I feel better now that I’ve put it all out there.  I’d love to hear your comments, suggestions or whatever else you would like to interject.

“Know your enemy” – Sun Tzu in The Art of War

If you use Twitter to promote your business (and you should), you are already ahead of most businesses in your industry.  Twitter is a great tool, if you can leverage it correctly.  Unfortunately, I see a lot of businesses using Twitter in ways that, while they think helps them, it’s actually hurting them.

Screwup#1: Missing Traffic Opportunities

If you’ve attended any of my seminars, you know that I’ve said blogging is by far one of the best ways to build your brand, promote your business, and increase your landing page count.  Providing quality information that people are ready to consume will automatically put you in an authoritative position in their mind.  You become the subject matter expert.

So when I see a business post a tweet that is informational about your industry, without a link back to your article, I hang my head in disgust.  Here you have a great piece of information, like a celebrity that uses your product, but you don’t link it anywhere.  You missed the target!

The real enemy here is simply missed traffic.  Twitter gets insane amounts of traffic. Ultimately, traffic back to your website means branding, which leads to sales; and that’s what we’re after.  Even if someone doesn’t need your product today, when they do need it, you want to have your logo/biz name pre-planted in their head.

It’s not enough to put posts on Twitter about interesting things.  Take all those interesting things that you find out and write a blog post about them.  Expand on them, add some great information about why this info is great, and provide it all in a way that is purely educational and not sales-y.

People aren’t stupid. If you’re talking about how blue widgets can kill mosquitos, and they happen to have a mosquito problem, they’re smart enough to click over to your blue widget page and buy.

As I hear all the time when my kids are playing Call of Duty 5, The Enemy has Taken Your Flag!  Don’t let twitter take your flag (traffic) and keep it.  You’re posting the information to help people, right? So make sure the traffic that your Twitter feed is seeing gets to your website.  Don’t drop the ball.

Screwup #2 – Posting Half of a Good Deal

Many business people understand that there’s an advantage to Twitter.  They’ve got the understanding that most people are following you because they’re interested in what you have to say/sell.  You’ve got your target audience in your hands, and they patiently await to be persuaded to buy.

So when you want to offer a deal to people because you’re nice, or because they are raving about your product, don’t post a message telling them that “for a good deal”, they need to contact you.

Why? Well, let’s go back to your audience. Many of these people are interested in what you have to say/sell, right? But they are probably passively interested.  Meaning, they aren’t interested in putting a lot of time into you (along with the thousands of other businesses clammoring for their attention).  So posting a message saying that in order to save they have to contact you, you may have just lost a sale.

Why not just post the coupon online for all to see?  The more your of your audience that sees it, the more sales you’ll get, right?

Screwup #3 – Dumping Your Followers to Competitors

While this one isn’t as big of a no-no as the others, it’s still one that makes me scratch my head when I see it.

You find a great article on something in your industry.  It’s written by a well known competitor, and (unfortunatly) you agree with what they’ve posted.  Or maybe you don’t. Either way, don’t go twitter-crazy and immediately post a link to the guy’s article, especially if you disagree.

If you agree with what was said, consider rewriting the article as your own content (careful here… you don’t want to be accused of plagiarizing or called a Johnny-come-lately) or post something on your site about how your business agrees with what was said on such and such’s site.

If you disagree, you’ve got all kinds of firepower to write up a great blog post.  Inform your readers by (politely) showing how your competitor is wrong, and how your company would do the project right.

In Saint Louis MO? Learn more about Internet Marketing at the Look at Me Seminar in June.