Coleman Unlimited LLC

I recently read an article in the ASAE Communications Section Newsletter about an association offering a new conference… one hitch: they had no marketing budget.

What did they do?

According to Jason Della Rocca, executive director of the International Game Developers Association, his association used new media to inexpensively and effectively promote their conference.

Della Rocca’s conference marketing tips include:

• Set up your conference’s website using a free, self-hosted blog system. Check out IGDA’s conference website.
• Encourage subscriptions to RSS feeds on your site. This will keep your members updated without having to do as many “push” marketing emails.
• Post your content on other blogs. Have staff members share information about your event by posting and commenting on other relevant blogs.
• Examine and use your site statistics. You can find out who is linking to your blog and what keywords they are searching for on Google by examining your blog statistics.

The article also suggest recruiting attendees to post articles about your event as it is going on–either on your blog or on their own blogs. Other areas to think about: establishing a Facebook group for attendees and recording videos and posting them on Google video or YouTube.

By the way, the IGDA’s conference was a sellout.

The great thing that I see about these ideas are that they are something association staff can do in-house or they can outsource to a marketing or tech vendor. My husband’s company often helps out groups with their meeting promotion sites, but most haven’t gotten quite this techy yet.

I hope that RSS will catch on soon with association members; I know it would have saved tons of emails at my last association.

Access the full ASAE article here.