How to bring people only "interested" by an event to come to it?

Question

I am organising swing dancing parties in a big city in UK. It used to be free and hosted inside a house. It brought around ten people at each event. We mostly communicate on Facebook. The reached population is mostly people from 18 to 24, mostly women.

When I took the responsibility for this community I started to share the event everywhere I could and made some videos like this first one or this second one. It doubled the number of attendants. Unfortunately the venue don't have the license to host our events anymore and we had last two times to do it outside which brought around five people.

Yet last time I created a swing party for the American Independence and I shared the event a lot and almost thirty were "interested", two third were newcomers in our events but only five people went with only two newcomers.

How to bring people only “interested” by an event to come to it?

It was forecasted to rain and I warn them we might have to find another venue ? Was it a mistake ?

I've rented the venue for next time, Bastille Day, and I plan to make people pay for it now so they feel engage, and in order to have a covered venue. Now I really need all those people to come to the next event to cover the fees !

Update 16/07

I tried to post once a day. Almost 40 people were interested by this event. It brought a few more people but only passing-by. Most of regular comers didn't came, maybe because it is no more free. Maybe the context is not good, it is now summer time, and football world cup context. The people mostly reached are now women from 24 to 35.

To sum up : more people get interested by these swing dancing parties but less people come. My guess is that changing the venue and the summer context didn't help.

Answer 1

From my experience:

1. Post at least every 2nd or 3rd day to the event. The notification will show up to those who are "Interested" so they will be reminded of your event and eventually decide. Post some pictures from previous events, they will get more likes and attract more attention.

2. Post a short video invitation. Express yourself authentically. I got great feedback on this from people who attended our event. Several people said they just came because of the sincerity they felt from our expression in the videos (you could say "overall energy"). If the video contains feedback of people from the previous event, the better.

3. Advertise the event in the Facebook groups. Some groups will not like direct event presentation. In that case, reframe it - present a brief solution to some problem you are addressing at your event (for example), which is related to the group, and post it with a picture and event link in the description.

4. Keep posting photos and pictures from past events with short text and event link.

Answer 2

Email reminders

I used to work managing a community of event planners and event professionals, and the one thing that the vast majority do to make sure an event is a hit is day-of email reminders.

If you don't have an email list of your members, I would consider getting one built. Many individuals in the community I managed claimed that the day of emails reminders was a solid chunk of their event attendees regardless of the event's purpose.

Being a community manager, I have done a fair amount of event planning myself and consistently found that around 40% of my registrations would come from the "Last call to register email." The day of reminders for those who registered would usually account for a 25% bump in attendance for events I held vs. when I didn't do the reminder email.

I know the above is pretty anecdotal, but doing these types of emails or communications has had such a positive impact on the events I ran for so long that I am sure it's close to something you can count on.

Storytelling

This doesn't work for every event, but the more social the event, the better. I have found a lot of success in sending a confirmation email or communication that tells what attendees can expect in a story of how the event will go for them. This usually allows them to imagine themselves and what it will be like when they get there. It's also beneficial for any anxious folks who don't like what will happen at an event.

This requires more work and creativity, but I think it adds a nice touch and gives you a layer of quality that more generic events don't offer.

Answer 3

While the demographics you mention are helpful, I would suggest a few different solutions.

1. Invest in collecting customer experience data after each event, and ask customers what made them interested enough to attend. Encourage people to be detailed in their answers (50-100 word minimum).

At your scale of operation, the things that drive certain individuals to come might be very broad at first, but this should significantly help you to tune into the things that people care about. It shouldn’t be necessary to offer money to people at this stage, so please solicit responses out of people’s goodwill!

You can easily deploy a survey through Google Forms, Survey Monkey or TypeForm to collect responses.

2. Consider looking at the retention rate of marketing to the same people, vs new people over time. By understanding your customer journey, you can better hone in on the specific stage of marketing, attendance, or post-event experience that needs the most support.

3. As you design your survey, measure and prioritize based on the NPS methodology - which was founded for the purpose of increasing customer retention, spend, and engagement!