As LifeStarr started to market to solopreneurs, we followed the tried-and-true playbook of creating quality content that would benefit our target audience (in our case, solopreneurs, freelancers, consultants, coaches, and other one-person businesses). We knew that it would start slow and take time to gain traction. That’s the deal with content marketing. But it was taking longer than we had hoped to build a large audience.
Then we discovered a secret.
Maybe it has something to do with the isolation imposed by Covid. Perhaps it’s just because we were targeting people who tend to work alone (although the data disputes this) but creating virtual events has been an amazing way to:
The reality is that having a monthly event did everything we hoped great content would do… but faster.
And this can be your reality too. Here's how.
It’s important to think through the agenda of your events as this will determine what the result of the event is. I recommend the following:
If you don’t already have a list of people to email or a large social media following, you’re going to need to find some way to engage people to come to your events. One of the best ways to do this is by finding them and reaching out to them. I have had great success using LinkedIn Sales Navigator to identify the right kinds of people and then reach out to them.
I’ve also had some success using Facebook ads, but this has gotten more expensive recently. Depending on your business, you’ll need to decide how to best engage people to come to your events.
If the event is virtual, you will need to choose a tool to host it. If it is live, you don’t have to have an event management tool, though they can be helpful, particularly if a lot of people will attend. I will focus on virtual events as this is the most likely scenario for most of us these days.
There are several event-hosting tools. Some are virtual only; some are designed for hybrid events (both in-person and virtual). Given that we are solopreneurs, we probably won’t be doing hybrid events but who knows?
The problem here is that most of these tools are expensive. Thank goodness for Zoom. While it lacks some of the advanced functionality of the pricier apps, it’s a solid product that has affordable options as you grow. As of the time of the writing, you can upgrade from the free version with its 40-minute time limit to a $149 per year version that eliminates the time limit and allows up to 100 attendees. You can increase this to 300 attendees for $199 per year.
Another contender that is reasonably affordable is Airmeet. They have a free version for up to 50 attendees. But the next level-up paid version is $500 per MONTH with up to 200 attendees.
For a more professional event functionality like multi-track sessions, sponsored lounges, and so on. There are some providers that charge by the event. That’s great if you are doing something annually but, at least from my perspective, the value here is on engaging people on a more regular basis. For higher-end tools that allow you unlimited events, you start looking at prices starting at $1,250 to $1,500 per MONTH. This is well beyond what most solopreneurs will need, but there are exceptions, so let’s explore.
Some things to look for if you need more advanced event functionality are:
Things to Watch Out For With Event Hosting Tools
There are some basic things to be aware of with respect to these event-hosting tools.
Unless you have a grand vision, I recommend starting with something simple like Zoom and seeing how it goes. You can always move on to more sophisticated tools once you’ve established the value of the event to your attendees and to your business.
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