Local events are the oldest form of entertainment in existence, but they’re being flat-out crushed by the growth of online technology.
Before the radio, television, YouTube, and Facebook, people gathered at events to be amused by the talented people of their own local communities.
Even though we may still attend the occasional local event, online technology is an obvious winner in the fight for our attention; leaving local events gasping in an attempt to catch a second wind.
This is very similar to the battle taking place between e-commerce and local small businesses. If small businesses fail to adapt to the rapid changes of technology, they’ll soon have to permanently shut their doors.
On the surface, this may seem like a devastating blow to local events, but for the creative thinker, it presents a highly profitable opportunity that’s being completely unnoticed by many.
You see, just like small businesses, local events are still hanging on. But it’s been a painful and slow journey of making the digital transition.
And where there’s pain, there’s OPPORTUNITY!
There needs to be a bridge built between local events and online technology. And the people who can build that bridge, within their own communities, stand to make a ton of money in the process.
You can make money and begin building a bridge by starting a profitable business as a Local Digital Event Planner.
What IS A Local Digital Event Planner?
A Local Digital Event Planner is a person who coordinates “themed” marketing campaigns and events for local organizations using internet technologies.
Much like a traditional event planner, a Local Digital Event Planner organizes the pre-launch, launch, and post-launch activities for the successful outcome of an event.
Although they may incorporate many of the techniques that a Digital Marketer might use, a Digital Event Planner is fully committed to achieving increased event attendance, online social engagement, and post-event follow up for a single event.
Overall, their job is to deliver a harmonious digital experience for all event followers, whether the event was LIVE or 100% digital.
Online followers should receive enough community content to be fully entertained by the end of the event.
Having Digital Event Planners promoting the totality of local events would, in the long-term, help to entice more residents to actually attend or participate in the events.
As the excitement of local events begins to hit their newsfeeds, people will naturally want to join in on the fun, in hopes they’ll get a shot at becoming a “Local Star”.
And a good Digital Event Planner will gladly welcome ANYONE interested in joining the festivities.
In a sense, a Local Digital Event Planner is a producer of community entertainment and must collaborate with other talents (videographers, writers, personalities, photographers, etc.) for the completion of the online digital presentation.
To further expand on the position of a Digital Event Planner, I’ve come up with 3 profitable ideas you could use to make money promoting events online.
3 Profitable Ideas To Make Money Promoting Events Online
1) Promoting Digital Events For Local Organizations –
One of the great profitable ideas to make money promoting events is designing and organizing digital events for small businesses or nonprofit organizations.
Some business owners invest thousands of dollars monthly on advertising and have very little to show in regards to their return on investment ROI.
They call it BRANDING. Which I believe is a word created by advertising agencies to get small business owners to spend money and expect nothing in return. (That’s another article for another day.)
As a Digital Event Planner, you can offer businesses a completely transparent method of promotion that can be orchestrated to deliver real results.
An event is an event, so by the time, it has completed all will know whether it was a success or a flop.
If planned correctly, a digital event will provide your business client with quality leads and sales.
In addition, it will help establish a positive reputation for the business within its local market.
Digital events give businesses a legitimate REASON to promote.
Instead of promoting the latest sale or discount, a business can wrap their business’s message around a community-inspired cause or an exciting campaign that positions them as a unique contributor to the community.
This approach increases the value of what they have to offer rather than having to substantially decrease their cost.
With digital events, you can choose advertising methods that will best target the business’s ideal customer.
Use video, social media, articles, images, radio, press releases, direct mail, signs, billboards, etc. to drive prospects to your event’s promotional sales page.
Nonprofits will also find your services useful for creating digital fundraising events.
Just think of the many local residents who would give to a cause if it were presented right on their mobile devices.
You could help nonprofit organizations reach more people and because it’s in digital form, the offer will linger for a longer period of time.
2) Create Your Own Local Digital Events –
Make money by promoting digital events based on your own interests, talents, or needs of the community.
Imagination plays a huge part as a Digital Event Planner.
If you can come up with great event ideas to make money that others will support, then you’ll do just fine promoting your own events.
An example of this would be the coffee shop crawl where you could partner with a few locally owned coffee shops giving residents an opportunity to sample brews from multiple locations.
When creating your own digital event you’ll do best by targeting an extremely specific topic or niche.
The more targeted your niche is, the easier it will be to find sponsors to support you.
With this idea, sponsors will in most cases be your main source of income and if you miss the mark you risk not earning a profit from all of your hard work.
So when creating a digital event from scratch, structure it with businesses or organizations in mind that will support your ideas.
The good thing is that you can present your digital event ideas to businesses well before you make a decision to execute them.
If no business seems interested in your profitable events ideas, then scrap it and create another one.
Hosting your own digital events can aid in getting new clients and is a magnificent addition to your portfolio.
You may not always make a big profit, but the experience gained will help in landing new jobs.
3) Blog About Events In Your Community –
When you’re not promoting an event for organizations or creating your own, you can still make money blogging about other local events
If you’re serious about becoming a Local Digital Event Planner, you’ll want to have your own blog.
Your blog will serve as your platform for self-promotion and for posting in-depth articles about the events you work.
As you accumulate event posts on your blog you’ll eventually begin generating traffic from local residents wanting to catch highlights of your latest events.
This alone could lead to multiple opportunities for you to make money with your blog.
Putting that aside, the primary reason to have your blog is to display the posts you write about other popular events in your community.
Reach out to local event organizers and offer to do a story that will showcase the happenings of their event to local residents.
If the event is for a cause or to sell a service/product explain how your article will extend the purpose of their event by driving extra visitors to their website.
The articles you write should be dynamic and filled with photos and videos of the events.
Having good cheap vlogging camera will come in handy and help you capture quality shots of the events.
Your article can also help them document their own achievement and if it’s a yearly event they’ll be able to see the progression of the event.
Your goal isn’t to make a killing writing the articles. It’ll just be a little extra cash at most.
Your goal is to establish yourself as the “Go-To” authority for local events. Which should assist greatly in acquiring new digital event planning clients.
Becoming a Local Digital Event Planner can be a profitable way to make money promoting events online and great ideas to partake in bringing the community together.
