So You Want to Host a Meetup? Pt.2: Promotion & Audience Targeting

Organizing or sponsoring a meetup can add great value to your company – from increasing sales leads, to hiring your next employee, to becoming a thought leader in your space. Over the past 3 years Heavybit has hosted over 200 member meetups at our Clubhouse in San Francisco. Here are some of the best practices on promoting and targeting an audience for events.

Naming your event

The name of your event should express what the event is about and the value it provides attendees. Don’t get carried away, some of the best meetups have the most obvious names.
Eg. API Craft Meetup is an event about designing APIs. Go SF meetup is an event related to the Go community.

Building your meetup RSVP page

Now that you know when your event is taking place and who will be speaking, it’s time to create your event RSVP page. When building out this page make sure your event page answers the five W’s:

• What’s the event about?
• Why should people attend?
• Who should attend?
• When is the event taking place?
• Where is the event located?

There are a handful of event page services out there, but I’d say Meetup.com is the best suited for meetups.

Promoting your meetup

Now it’s time to let your target audience know about your event. Here are a few ways to get the word out:

• Have your speakers promote the event to their network and audience via social media and a blog post.
• Cross promote with meetups on the same subject
• Share on your social media profiles (Twitter, Facebook, G+)
• Reach out directly to the people you want at the meetup and ask them to share with their networks

Sweet, you’ve gotten people excited about your event. Now it’s time to think about your attendees experience. Check back next week for Pt. 3: Program Design & Audience Follow-up.