In Episode #478, Eric and Neil share their own personal checklist for throwing a successful live event. Tune in to hear them discuss whether to use a free venue or one that costs money, the various methods to get the word out about your event, the importance of getting help when planning and running a conference, and why your should focus on building relationships rather than making money. Time Stamped Show Notes: 00:28 – Today’s topic: Conferences Are Going to Lose You Money Unless You Follow This Checklist 00:34 – Map out how much the venue is going to cost you. 00:45 – For their Marketing School Live event they wound up booking one that costs $2,500 instead of a free one because the venue took care of everything. 01:20 – If they’d used the free venue, it would have been an inferior experience for the guests. 01:29 – You need to have contingencies for how you’re going to get attendees. 01:40 – Email blast only works if you’ve segmented your list. 01:50 – Partner up with other organizations in the area to get more attendees. 02:20 – Invite people from your Meetup group. 02:39 – Use ads. 02:45 – Use Dux-Soup, an automation tool where you can, for example, hit up all your contacts with “marketing” in their title. 03:05 – You’ll lose money if you don’t create the right experience because over time people will come to know you as someone who hosts bad events – and will likely assume that your business isn’t very good, either. 04:00 – Get help because it takes a team to run a successful event. 04:24 – Eric and Neil’s goal was to break even, not to make money off it. 04:39 – If you lose a couple hundred dollars, that’s a win! 04:50 – Don’t just measure how much money you make from throwing the event, measure how much you make in total: networking, long-term contracts, etc. 05:05 – Build relationships from going to conferences and learn from others who’ve thrown events. 05:55 – Marketing School is giving away 90-day FREE trial for Crazy Egg which is a visual analytics tool 06:02 – Go to SingleGrain.com/giveaway to get your FREE copy 06:06 – That’s it for today’s episode! 3 Key Points: A good venue is critical so that you give your event attendees a great experience. Plan ahead how you’re going to get attendees to your event – email, partnering up with other organizations, advertising. The point is not to make money off of a live event, but to build in-person relationships – which will pay off in the long run. Leave some feedback: What should we talk about next? Please let us know in the comments below. Did you enjoy this episode? If so, please leave a short review. Connect with us: NeilPatel.com Quick Sprout Growth Everywhere Single Grain Twitter @neilpatel Twitter @ericosiu Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.