How to Reach Event-Goers With Niche Interests
If your business caters to a niche market, it can be both a blessing and a curse: A blessing because it instantly narrows down your target audience, but a curse since it can be difficult to reach a super-specific group of people when promoting your events.
Fortunately, with a little sleuthing and creativity, you can find your target audience, no matter how specific or esoteric your niche is. You can even be proactive and make it easier for your niche target audience to find you. Read on for tips to get you started.
Go where your audience is.
That means online and offline. If you’re promoting events to parents of young kids, for example, you could start by finding Facebook groups for parents. Blogs, Facebook groups and subreddits often serve as online watering holes for people with similar interests, and they can be a great place to share your event. (But be sure to ask the group’s moderator for permission before you start shamelessly plugging your business. You don’t want to burn any bridges!)
Then, think about where you can make IRL connections with your target audience. For parents of young kids, it could be a weekly story time at the public library, or a parent/child art class at the local rec center. Ask the person in charge if you can leave behind flyers for your event, or see if you can give a two-minute presentation to plug your event before the next story time. After all, your event will likely be taking place in-person, so marketing to prospective attendees face-to-face is a wise approach.
Tap into knowledge from your existing customer base.
Even if your goal is to grow your audience, you don’t want to neglect your current customers. Existing customers can be a great resource for finding other people within your niche.
For example, if you’re a bicycle shop that’s about to a host a race, enlist your existing customers to help spread the word to other cyclists they know. You can also offer incentives for referrals from your current customers, like a buy-one, get-one-free registration in the example of the bike race to encourage more people to sign up.
Use social media to reach a defined audience.
Facebook and Instagram advertising are a marketer’s best friend when it comes to reaching a hyper-targeted group of people. Take advantage of a plethora of targeting parameters to whittle down your audience based on factors like location, demographics, interests and behaviors, like what devices they use or past purchases they’ve made.
If you don’t have the budget to advertise, try running a simple contest to get your followers promoting your event in their feeds in exchange for the chance to win a prize. Chances are, your current customers are connected to other people within your niche who will also be interested in your event.
Use SEO to bring your target audience to you.
When you’re creating events in your Loxi calendar, think carefully about the keywords you use in the title and event description. If you have a keyword strategy for the rest of your website content, carry that strategy over to your event pages to help prospective attendees find you. Insert keywords into your event descriptions, and an informative featured image on your Loxi event page—opt for something eye-catching that will resonate clearly with your niche (and no cheesy clip art, please).
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