The notion of "build and they will come" does not hold for organizing events these days. You should do more than just create a compelling event and blasting it on social media. Social media isn't so social if your event lacks the juice to make it social. So, here are some effective tips and tricks that you can implement for free to make your festivals, conventions, expos, flea markets, car boot sale, or any event more attractive for people to visit.

Resolve The Chicken and Egg Dilemma First

Which should come first - vendors or visitors? For your event, it must be the vendors. I once visited a newly-launched e-commerce marketplace that barely had a hundred sellers and with limited number of items. It only took me under a minute to leave the site. Today the site no longer exists. Imagine Amazon started its business with only a handful of books. You get it. You need to have sufficient vendors to attract sufficient visitors. Now, how do you attract the vendors to join when you don't have visitors? You can conveniently achieve this by using our booth booking platform. It is free to use and you can invite people to book a booth or a stall. Best of all, you can offer an early-bird discount and you can even schedule it.

Get Quantity and Quality Vendors

If you begin planning for your event and are concerned about getting visitors, being a jack of all trades will not work for most. Instead, you should pick and choose the type of vendors who sell at your event. Using StallPaul booth booking site, you can request your vendors to indicate the type of items they plan to sell. You can even ask them to upload a short business plan. Achieving the quantity and quality scale may be difficult for most, but StallPaul can help because it's fully customizable and allows you to sell unlimited booths at no cost.

Talk to Your Local Media

Let's start with a case in point. A friend of mine launched an e-commerce app focusing only on his city. He's offering free delivery for any order. He was asking me for advice on how to promote it within his vicinity. I told him to use the tried and true way of distributing leaflets to offices and homes and it worked. But then we went further. He contacted a local Instagram influencer who has 100,000 followers asking for help to promote his app. Here's the kicker - the influencer came from the same city and agreed to post about his app - for free! He received more orders because of this. The moral of the story is this -  people in a local community tend to want to help one another. This notion stands true especially when you have something good to offer the local community. My friend was offering free delivery.

Focus on Specific Markets

This tip is more effective when there are numerous events already happening in your location. In order to compete, you should find a niche but not just any niche - target a niche with a sizeable market segment. For example, if your city has a large college or university, you may want to organize a gaming event to target those students. Or, if your area has a large business community such as a central business district (CBD), how about creating a food festival where those hard-working workers could indulge during lunch and dinner. Besides, office areas are often boring and filled with only business-related events. Be different and a food festival may get their hunger going.

Don't Underestimate the Power of Word of Mouth

This method works hand-in-hand with the previous tip above. If you target a specific market, you inadvertently would create a viral effect for your event. This is even more effective when the community is closely knitted. For instance, gamers who play multiplayer have to interact with one another. You just want to ensure that when they talk, they talk about your event. Using our food festival example, a colleague who tried a super-delicious Tom Yam-infused burger would definitely talk about it in the office.

Get Your Vendors to Promote Your Event

Once you have your vendors signed up, you could always ask them to help promote your event. This is win-win for both. Always start by giving not taking. Thus, you should begin by offering to promote your vendors' products and booths and in return, request that they do the same for you.

Incentivize Your Visitors (and Vendors)

Not all incentives come with a cost attached to it. Here's one - you could offer discounted booth prices to popular vendors and work with them to offer a special product at your event. This would make your event more exclusive! Approaching these popular vendors would be key because since they are already popular, they may not even think of selling at your event. Thus, you should hone your sales skills when you invite them. The caveat here is you don't have to incentivize each and every vendor or visitor. You could offer limited deals and this could motivate them to close the deal.

Finally, Always Think Win-Win

Win-win strategy is one of the habits of highly effective people. Use it to your advantage. Whenever you want something from someone, whether it's a visitor or seller, think of what you can offer them in return. Good luck and running your event!