We've run Underdog Con 6 times. Six!
And never lost money. We were profitable in each one.
There were doubts, sleepless nights, and questions around "is it worth the trouble doing this?" Not everything was smooth sailing.
In this post, I'll share lessons from our experience marketing the conference.
1/ Find out the REAL reason people buy
Why do people go to conferences?
99.99999% of the time, it's the networking. The speakers and ticket price only determine the type of people who attend.
How do I know this?
That's because we sell access to video recordings to all our conferences. Very few people buy them. People were more willing to attend a physical conference, for the access they get to people there.
With this in mind – our entire marketing changed. From focusing on what will be shared at the conference, we focused on WHO's going to be at the conference. Big difference.
2/ Set quantitative goals & work backwards
Every marketing campaign should start with a quantitative goal.
- How many attendees do we want?
- How many sponsors do we want?
- How many online tickets do we want to sell?
Here's our marketing sheet:
Once we're clear with our goal, we can plan tasks that will get us to the goals.
If we want 4 sponsors and have a closing rate of 10%, then we need to reach out to 40 potential sponsors.
Business is math.
Pull out a quantitative marketing sheet, put in your goals, and then work backward to do everything necessary to hit them.
3/ You're probably not following up enough.
Most successful people are busy.
You have to be creative to get their attention. And mostly, it's about having persistence and doing enough follow-ups.
We typically email a speaker 5-6 times before getting a yes.
It's not that successful people don't have a heart. But they're swamped with responsibilities and are busy.
But won't they see me as annoying if I send them so many messages? No, they only do if you don't add value.
We knew speakers would love Underdog Con. We believed in our conference so much, that it'll be a disservice to them if they don't speak at the conference.
4/ No one pays the price. They buy solutions.
So you're interested in running a conference. You charge a certain ticket price. That's great, but you're focused on you.
Good marketing happens when you focus on the customer.
If someone pays us RM299 to attend a conference, we better make sure they get back at least RM2999 in value. This is the basis of all deals anyway.
We only buy things when we get back a multiple of value for what we exchange for in cash.
With this knowledge, we changed our marketing message.
- Imagine taking back marketing lessons that will grow your revenue by 2X.
- What about striking a RM100,000 business deal there?
- Or meeting a potential partner, building a RM5,000,000 business?
What's the price of a RM299 ticket?
Remember, people buy solutions.
5/ Proof over promise
Anyone can make a promise. Very few can prove it.
Every potential sponsor I approached asked the same thing:
Who is a previous sponsor, and how many customers did they get?
It's a no-brainer when you have proof your product or service works. The same goes whether you're selling a website, marketing service, or health product.
Don't promise. Show iron-clad proof.
6/ Create urgency
You've probably met someone with terrible health habits – lots of junk food, late nights, no exercise. Then out of a sudden, they get diagnosed with a medical condition and decide to change their life around.
It's human nature.
We're wired to take life and time for granted.
So when it comes to selling a product or service, your customers will only take action if there's a strong reason for them to.
There are many ways we could do this for a conference:
- Limit the number of tickets.
- Set price to increase every few days (This was what we did)
- Have limited bonuses if people bought tickets early.
- Provide discounts when people buy a ticket early.
Whatever it is, you MUST induce urgency into your offer.
7/ Hyper-personalization is the future
Everyone, I mean EVERYONE wants to be heard, valued, and respected.
I received private messages from people who asked if they could be seated in front. I've even received messages from people who ask if there's an EV charger available at the event.
In short – the needs of every customer who buys from you, are different.
Customers want (or really, expect) things to be catered to them on a silver plate. As a business, it's our obligation to be of service to them.
There are many areas we could have improved this.
Currently, using available marketing technology:
- We send personalized emails to everyone signing up.
- We send surveys asking if they had a preference for food (Vegetarian, etc.)
- We send personalized videos to everyone who signed up
We could have done so much more. And I think we should have.
Instead of treating everyone as the same, we should look at ways to personalize the entire experience for them.
The biggest value of AI technologies would be in hyper-personalization.
8/ No advertising is wasted money
We spent RM8,000 in paid ads, advertising the recent Underdog Con. Our customer acquisition c0st (CAC) was RM86.96.
Some said we had a high CAC.
But I did not regret spending every cent of it. Truth is while Facebook recorded a cost per result of RM86.96, we had people looking us up on Google and buying tickets. Some customers bought a few tickets.
At any time - running ads was an opportunity to get ourselves known in the marketplace.
And that's a good thing.
Don't be afraid to spend on ads. I don't get people who brag about how little they spend on ads. They're missing out on an opportunity for expansion and getting themselves known.
All the greats, advertise.
Organize the next Underdog Con with me. Join the Daily CMO team as a marketer, and organize the next Underdog Con (sometime in October). Let's build the best damn marketing conference in Southeast Asia.
Also, in case you missed it, below are deals from the recent Underdog Content Con
Deals from Underdog Content Con
We brought the best marketing solutions to exhibit at the conference. Today, I'm bringing them to you here.
1/ Cult Creative - Access over 13,000 content creators
Hire creators to make content around your product or service. Start from as low as RM2,800 and get up to an additional 20% discount when you sign up with "Daily CMO" as the referrer.
Head to Cult Creative's website. Fill up the form, and write "DailyCMO" in the Company Name field – E.g. Company XYZ (Daily CMO) – to get that extra 20% off.
2/ OtoWA - Whatsapp Automation Platform
OtoWA is the most cost-effective, straight-forward Whatsapp automation platform that I've come across. Start sending personalized Whatsapp messages in just minutes, and see your revenue grow.
Register a free account on OtoWA and write "Daily CMO" in the referred field to get extra messaging credits.
3/ Engine Mailer - Free email marketing software (10,000 emails)
While content marketing is what you want to do, I will still suggest businesses to build their own audience. Enginemailer is an email marketing platform that is super affordable. Pricing is based on # of emails sent, not subscribers.
Sign up for a free Enginemailer account. Then Use code, CMOMAILER10K to unlock a 10,000 emails per day limit.
4/ Cleve.ai - Turn your thoughts into social media posts
Imagine telling a tool your thoughts – what you're thinking, how you felt, etc. And getting ready to post social media content in seconds.
Create an account and try Cleve for free. Get an additional 10% off any plans with code UNDERDOG10
