Smart Venue Marketing

Smart Venue
Marketing
Smart Event Book Series

Smart Venue Marketing (Smart Event Book Series)
Title
Master Steve
Author
Somayeh Amiri, Tara Kamangar
Colleagues
Keyvan
Layout
Designer
Silk Road Publishing (Toronto, Canada)
Publisher
Printed Book: 978-1-990236-29-7
EBook: 978-1-990236-30-3
ISBN
www.MasterSteve.com
Website
Attributions:
Images Credits:pch.vector / Freepik
Note: The author of this book gives the right to use
the present content, provided that the source is cited,
to professors, educators, teachers, lecturers, and aca-
demic and non-academic educational centers, for an
indefinite period.
The copyright of this bookis internationallyregistered
for the author.

Contents
Introduction ....................................................................................................................... 6
Chapter 1: Some Points about Marketing Plan....................... 7
a. Setting Goals ......................................................................................................... 8
b. Flexibility of a Marketing Plan .................................................................10
c. Innovation .............................................................................................................11
Chapter 2: The Venue’s Target Market.......................................12
a. Types of Customers .........................................................................................14
b. Identifying Customers’ Needs ..................................................................22
Chapter 3: Competitor Analysis......................................................24
Chapter 4: Smart Income-generating from Venue.........28
Chapter 5: Venue Marketing Methods....................................... 37
I. Promotional Event for Customers ..........................................................38
II. Attending as an Exhibitor in Other Events ...................................... 40
III. Advertising Slogan .........................................................................................41
IV. Branding .............................................................................................................42
V. Harmony and Design .....................................................................................43
VI. Direct Letter .....................................................................................................49
VII. Face-to-Face (Direct) Marketing .........................................................54

4
VIII. Follow-up ....................................................................................................... 61
Evaluating the Follow-up Methods....................................................66
IX.Print Products ...................................................................................................68
X. Advertising Billboard ......................................................................................71
XI. Customer Reward .........................................................................................72
XII. Reward Points ................................................................................................73
XIII. Coupon ............................................................................................................ 74
XIV. Promotional Gift ........................................................................................ 75
XV. Financial Sponsorship ................................................................................76
XVI. Incentive Plan ................................................................................................77
XVII. Combined Offer ........................................................................................79
XVIII. Contest ........................................................................................................ 80
XIX. Affiliate System .............................................................................................81
XX. Using Characters and Models ................................................................83
XXI. Motivating Employees ............................................................................86
XXII. Using Celebrities in Marketing ..........................................................88
XXIII. Media Relations ........................................................................................ 91
XXIV. Online Marketing ...................................................................................93
1. Website ..............................................................................................................94
2. Social Media ..................................................................................................97
3. Search Engine Optimization (SEO) ................................................ 99
4. Content Providing ...................................................................................100

5 Smart Venue Marketing
5. Google Ads ................................................................................................... 102
6. Online Shopping...................................................................................... 103
7. Online Advertising.....................................................................................105
8. Interactive Email ......................................................................................106
9. Online Local Marketing.........................................................................110
10. Collaborating with other Websites ................................................ 111
XXV. Customers’ Opinion: A Marketing Tool .....................................112
XXVI. Presence in International Markets .............................................. 116
XXVII. Task Division in the Marketing Team .......................................118
XXVIII. Identifying Limitations and Their Solutions ................... 120
Chapter 6: Pricing in Venue ............................................................122
Chapter 7: Providing Ancillary Services in Venue .........125
a. Counseling Services on Holding Events ...........................................126
b. Providing Children’s Playground .......................................................... 127
c. Valet Parking Services ...................................................................................128
Tables
Table 1. Problems and solutions ....................................................................121

6
Introduction
For me, the word "smart" means investigating the current stan-
dards from various perspectives. You may have earned valuable
knowledge and experience from academic education and field
works, which offer you some standard procedures. However, if
you slightly change your perspective, you will find some ways to
seize the opportunities more effectively for your success.
As a young man, when I was looking for starting a business,
I was faced with limitations due to lack of capital. Every duress
forces humans to act creatively. On the contrary, when every-
thing is ready and at hand, people act in specific ways. Many of
humankind's inventions are made under such duress. Because
of these limitations, I also came up with some creative methods,
applied them, and yielded some successful results.
The experience I have earned so far by working in the event
business, and the ideas that are applicable in the venue business
are all presented in this book under the title, "Smart Venue Mar-
keting".
As the owner of a venue, you will learn from this book how to
utilize the potentials of such places to attend a larger market and
to generate income.

Chapter 1
Some Points about
Marketing Plan

8 Some Points about Marketing Plan
a. Setting Goals
There is no successful business in the world without a busi-
ness plan. An essential aspect of a business plan is the mar-
keting plan. You need to have a marketing plan for venue
marketing. The important part of formulating such a plan
is to set a series of goals.
¾
Always define several goals. By doing so, you avoid
putting all your eggs in one basket. Also, you avoid
being limited to a single goal which would turn your
entire plan into a fruitless one if you don’t achieve it.
¾
Define small goals that will eventuallylead to accom-
plishment of the big goal. By achieving every small
goal, you gain a portion of success, and the evalua-
tion of process is facilitated, too.
Small goals are daily, weekly, and monthly goals.
At the end of the day, week, and month, evaluate
how much you have achieved your set goals. Also,
measure how far you have gone in accomplishing
the big goals you set for yourself.
If you didn’t achieve any of interim goals, look for
the drawbacks in your marketing plan and fix them.

In a system, a single individual is not
responsible for unrealized goals.
¾
Announce the goals to all the team members. By
doing so, the members realize that they play an
actual role in proceeding and actualizing the goals.
As you progress, try to document and provide their
performance report on achieving these goals.
This is the difference between third world coun-
tries and developed ones. In third world countries,
the job report is not concerned with the result
because there is no defined goal. This is quite a dis-
service to the organization because the company
cannot use the reports to define their future or set
new achievable goals. In these countries, reports
are merely based on a series of slogans, and unre-
alized goals are abandoned. However, in devel-
oped countries, the performance report is simply
a report on a set of realized goals.
There is a large chain store in North America named
Casco. This store has a membership system. By the cashier's
desk of this store, there is a whiteboard on which the day's
goals are written. For example, it is written, "today, we need
to absorb 100 gold members", or, "we need to absorb 500 ordi-
nary members". They deduce from the goal's number every
time they recruit a new member. This board is on public

10 Some Points about Marketing Plan
display. Anyone can see how much the store has achieved
its goals by the end of the night. This method makes all
company members, ranging from the guard on the front
door to the secretary and other people to be engaged in the
job's progress. Subsequently, everybody realizes that if the
company fails, they will all lose their jobs, and if success is
achieved, they will all receive some specific rewards. This
clear understanding helps everyone to contribute their
quota to the company's development and advancement.
b. Flexibility of a Marketing Plan
Your working methods and plans must be flexible.
You may write the business plan and the marketing plan
with consult of educated and expert people, and you may
include all the details carefully. However, if this plan is not
flexible, it won't be practical.
Your plan must accommodate contingency plans in
case something unexpected happens. Even natural disas-
ters such as flood and earthquake may affect your plan.
If, for any reason, you didn’t achieve your designated
goals during the first or second week, you must not stop
the work or fire the employees. Instead, you must have a
backup plan for such situations. This plan will help you
adjust your methods so you can achieve your set goals.
The smart move is to plan for every direction from the
beginning. You may have to blow the entire structure of your
plan, but due to various expenses for planning and starting a
business, calling it off will impose a huge loss on you anyway.

c. Innovation
When you're working on the marketing plan, different
ideas may occur to you. However, the truth is that you have
probably seen these ideas on the Internet or heard about
them from foreign companies.
z
Consider the fact that when you watch a Coca Cola's
ad, you only see the apparent layer of it, and there are
so many analyses behind it.
z
It is wrong to assume that you can copy any good idea
that has been fruitful elsewhere. There is no guaran-
tee that you will yield a good result even when you
copy a certain idea.
z
If you want to copy an idea in your work, you must
first understand it properly. Know all the factors that
influence the idea, improve it, develop it, customize,
localize, and then implement it. For example, there
are many factors such as time, location, and target
market which affect an advertising idea and should
not be overlooked.
z
Integrate the idea with your business setting. You can
easily accommodate an idea with your own structure in
thevenue business becauseyou have limited customers.
Don’t copy others' ideas. Rather, be innova-
tive. However, if you got inspired by others'
idea, you must improve that idea and turn it
into your own unique version.
Notice

Chapter 2
The Venue's Target
Market

You have probably heard of the concept, "customer funnel".
The widest part of the funnel is all the potential customers, and
as you move towards the bottom of the funnel, actual and real
customers appear. Eventually, only regular customers remain.
As the venue owner, you must knowwho your customers
are and what market can utilize your venue and resources
to hold an event. That's how you can earn income by sell-
ing your services to them.
One of the charms of this business is its limited mar-
ket which is easy to identify. The venue's target market
includes other business and not the public. That's why
there is no need for doing extensive research to find out
about certain details such as gender, age, income, lan-
guage, and other features of your customers. When your
audiences are the public, so many factors are involved
which are quite hard to control and manage.
Develop a general perspective on the market
and see which markets have the capacity for
your presence butyou haven’t entered themyet.
Notice

14 The Venue's Target Market
a. Types of Customers
Types of venue customers include the following items:
Event holders. These are some of
your most important customers who:
¾
Generally, they don’t have any
financial trouble because they are
familiar with the event business and
have already considered a budget
for renting the venue.
¾
Are up-to-date, urbane and suave
people. They have sufficient infor-
mation regarding events and don’t
need to be briefed by you.
¾
Have mutual dependency with
your business, and the event hold-
ers themselves come for you. Using
some ordinary tools, you can take
control of a great part of the mar-
ket.
It is recommended to make rela-
tions with many of these businesses.
Don’t just think of leasing the venue;
rather, you need to plan long-term
collaboration.

Governmental organizations and
offices which are some of the best type
of your customers and bring you certain
advantages such as:
¾
They are constantly holding all sorts
of events, including seminars, gath-
erings, symposiums, conferences,
etc.
¾
Since holding events is not the pro-
fession and the main job of such
organizations and they have other
businesses, if they work with you
once and your job pleases them,
they will become your repeat cus-
tomer.
¾
They usually look for a high level of
services with highest price; that is,
they are your special package's cus-
tomers.
¾
They tend to bargain less and ask for
discounts.
¾
They have regular and definitive
plans. Therefore, there is no risk for
sudden changes or cancellation.

Other businesses and companies:
nowadays, many companies and
organizations hold several meetings,
seminars, conference and sessions
annually, and they need an exclusive
venue. You have the venue at your
disposal and they need it. If you prop-
erly introduce yourself to companies,
they will become one of your best and
most recurrent customers. You just
have to make a suitable marketing
plan.
Many groups of venue lessors have
an exclusive department for their
relations with companies because
these companies rent the venue sev-
eral times a year and pay a decent
rent. Of course, they expect better
services, as well. However, the best
of it is that their job is simpler and
straightforward, compared to event
holders and governmental organiza-
tions.

Associations and unions: you can
collaborate with associations and unions
in three ways:
¾
Membership in associations and unions
Many of these centers accept
you as a new member by receiving
a membership fee. In this way, you
can have access to the correspond-
ing association members. Based on
the target market you have chosen
for yourself, look for associations in
which your market is present and
you could collaborate with that mar-
ket by becoming a member of the
association in question.
¾
Offering direct collaboration
It means you transform associa-
tions and unions into your strength
and define benefits for them. For
example, they can announce to
their members that anyone who is
referred to you by them will receive
a discount in using your services. On

the other hand, you pay some fees to
the association in exchange for every
company which signs a contract with
you. Due to this offer, the associa-
tion will do its best to persuade its
members to collaborate with you
so both the association itself and its
members can benefit (this method is
a branch of affiliate marketing dis-
cussed in the following chapters at
great length).
¾
Leasing rooms and venues to them in
various events
You can give them your rooms and
free spaces for rent. To make a prof-
itable use of your space, you should
not leave any part of your venue
unoccupied. You shouldn’t always
wait for big contracts. You can start
small by offering your space to small
and medium enterprises. This will
help you get the recognition needed.
Attendance of charities and NGOs
(non-governmental organizations) is
an introduction for you and for sign-
ing major contracts. You have a space
at your disposal and you can invite
others which is a great opportunity.

Embassies: they are great custom-
ers because they don’t have any finan-
cial issue and they also need to hold
various events during the year. One
of the common events for embassies
is their country's national day. How-
ever, they also have various events
apart from that, and they need a place
to hold their events. Many venue
owners don’t look after the custom-
er's needs, even though it is a quite
simple task. In case of embassies,
by identifying their needs, you can
obviously offer them a package and
announce to them which one of their
events can be held in which one of
your venues. In fact, you give them a
clear and practical offer to meet their
needs.
Customers check various websites
and catalogs, but they accept the offer
which has directly addressed their
needs.

Venues which lack your resources:
when unable to provide certain services
for their customers for any kind of reason,
these venues can refer their customers to
you and gain some benefits. While they
are in fact your competitors, it is always
possible for them to be your customers.
Many hotels don’t have the required
resources to hold an event. These hotels
can be your potential partners. What they
are looking for is to absorb customers
and gain more profits. In fact, they want
to absorb travelers to stay in their hotels.
Furthermore, they want to sign contracts
with you as the venue owner through
their relations. For example, they take the
smaller spaces and generating income
from bigger spaces is left for you (the del-
egation to contractor). This allows you to
make profit from selling space.
You can sign contracts with hotels and
refer them your customers for staying at
these hotels with a reasonable price. In this
case, you will gain a profit, as well. This
means the benefit from this arrangement
is mutual.

International customers: you should
always take these customers seriously.
Your location certainly interests many
people. In the beginning, you don’t know
who from where is interested in your
market. If your venue is comfortable and
the price is reasonable, you would surely
get some people showing interest in your
venue. There is no way you would own a
venue, and some companies in the world
wouldn’t show interest in working in your
location. However, it possible that they
don’t know you or that they don’t risk
holding their events in there.

b. Identifying Customers' Needs
So far, you have categorized various types of customers
for your services. The next step is to identify the custom-
ers' needs.
¾
Your goal of identifying the target market is to
identify the customers' needs and subsequently, to
introduce the venue's resources to the customer in
details.
¾
Identifying the needs of different customer’s
results in providing services in accordance with
their needs. A simple example is designing differ-
ent request forms for using spaces and services.
For instance, you provide a form for the interna-
tional customer, which is specifically design for
this type of customer. By recognizing and isolating
the needs and wants of each individual and com-
pany, you would be able to provide the right ser-
vices for their needs. There is all the difference in
the world between the request form you design for
an event holder and the one you design for a com-
pany because it is assumed that an even holder is
aware of every stage of the work.
¾
By identifying the target market's needs, design
the marketing plan in a way that customers per-
ceive a charming impression of you at first sight
and assume from the begging that you are aware
of their needs.

The marketing team is in charge of identifying
the market's needs. Due to the nature of its activi-
ties, the marketing team may face some of the mar-
ket's needs that are not detected by the development
team. It must be noted that in most companies, the
marketing team and the development team are not
two separate teams and the marketing team is in
charge of the development team's tasks, as well.
Based on the research conducted by the market
development team and the items found by the mar-
keting team, you can design an appealing form for
the market's needs. You must pose certain questions
in the form which make sense for your technical
team and represent the customers' needs in effect.
It is extremely easy to gather information on cus-
tomers nowadays. In the past, such task was quite
effortful and at the end, only outdated information
was gathered. Nowadays, you can obtain any infor-
mation you want by googling. While searching, you
see that Google suggests certain keywords to you,
which are resulted from opinions of millions of
people. For example, in Google bar, you type "what
types of event do embassies hold?"; before you type
the whole sentence, Google makes suggestions for
googling, which are questions asked by thousands
of other people. As simple as that, you obtain a large
part of your information by viewing the answer to
others' questions. Even if you claim that you know
a great deal on the topic, you will realize that many
of those questions have not even occurred to you.

Analyzing the competitors' behavior is an important part
of the marketing plan. After identifying types of custom-
ers and their needs, you need to identify the competitors'
performance in the next step.
¾
Make a list of your competitors. Don’t underes-
timate the competitors and take all of them seri-
ously.
¾
Categorize and rate the competitors based on their
importance, but don’t overlook them.
¾
While researching the competitors' strategies, first
get familiarized with their marketing methods and
make a list of these methods.
¾
Identify their customers. For example, venue X
is your competitor. Every year, this venue prints
a new catalog for advertising and sends it to the
customers along with a gift. This venue only col-
laborates with hospitals and the service these hos-
pitals demand form that venue is such or such a
service.

26 Competitor Analysis
Therefore:
ƒ
Firstly, what are the competitor's mar-
keting methods?
ƒ
Secondly, who are the competitor's cus-
tomers?
ƒ
Thirdly, which needs of those customers
does your competitor meet?
ƒ
Fourthly, what services does the com-
petitor provide for its customers?
ƒ
Fifthly, what peripheral activities do
your competitors do?
ƒ
Sixthly, what competitive advantages
does the competitor have in the market?
For example, in the case with the hospitals, you realized
that the hospital in question intended to gather money for
charity in that venue. In the next stage, you must research
and find out why the corresponding hospital has not come
to you. Have you been in touch with them and failed to
persuade them to work with you? Or are the required ser-
vices for that hospital out of your power? Was there any
defect in your methods of providing services?
If your services fitted the customer's needs, figure out
why that customer did not collaborate with you. More
importantly, if the customer used to work with you and
now works with another company, you need to find out
exactly why it happened.

Identifying these reasons comes handy in writing the
marketing plan. You need to know how the competitor has
managed to absorb the customer. Was it because of lower
prices, better services, or other reasons?
Customer analysis and competitor analysis both result
in a detailed report on the market status. This section can
be mentioned in a venue's business plan.
A venue is in fact a business. Every business must have
a business plan. Many large businesses which have long
worked traditionally don’t have a business plan for what-
ever reason. However, they currently have to make it hap-
pen. All businesses, whether those already working or the
new ones and the startups that are just starting, need a
business plan.
ƒ
Update the competitor analysis con-
stantly.
ƒ
Add new customers and new marketing
methods.
ƒ
Send new information to the manage-
ment department as quickly as possible
so the market development team can
update the business plan and the mar-
keting plan.
If you can't analyze your competitors properly, a part of
your marketing process will definitely come across some
difficulty.

Chapter 4
Smart Income-
generating from
Venue

Every business's goal is to earn income.
Otherwise, it is not a business.
As the venue owner, you need to look at your assets
from various points of view to optimally use your current
potentials.
1.
1. The first perspective, which is definitely your
competitors' perspective, is giving rent spaces to
event-holders.
2.
2. Another perspective is that you have a place at your
disposal. Every day you don’t use your space and
your other current resources, you are losing money.
You can count yourself successful in case you have
somehow utilized all the resources in your venue
seven days a week.

30 Smart Income-generating from Venue
3.
3. Another perspective is to collaborate with others
to utilize the space you have at your disposal and
generate income out of it.
Find organizations which can work with you
outside the event setting. Schools and educational
institutions are among such organizations. Negoti-
ate with them and offer them the venue for educa-
tional purposes when no event is being held. Edu-
cational groups can introduce your team to many
people who will collaborate with you in the future.
4.
4. Another perspective is for you to hold your own
event in the place you have.
ƒ
By owning the venue, you are one step ahead
of other event-holders. Having gathered some
invaluable experience, you can implement
your ideas in the event.
ƒ
You don’t need to think of holding any specific
event. Based on your venue, research the mar-
ket and see which types of events are booming.
One reasonable way to choose the type of
event you intend to hold is to evaluate its busi-
ness market. For example, the food industry is
booming. Hold an event which audiences are
those who work in supplying foods.

ƒ
To hold your own event, in addition to the
research you have done, you need to pay
attention to the market's future and poten-
tials, as well. For example, you see that most
organizations and companies are looking for
where and how told their events. In such cir-
cumstances, the best thing you can do is to
organize an event regarding "how to hold an
event". Not only is this event relevant to event
holders but also peripheral businesses such
as booth design, food distribution, print and
publication, etc. can be your event's audi-
ences.
ƒ
Another method is to hold an event similar
to a popular event held every year. Since the
venue belongs to you, certainly, you are capa-
ble of pulling it better than any other event
organizer who rents a venue.
5.
5. Another perspective is to establish long-term
collaboration with other businesses. Look for a
way to absorb different groups and businesses'
collaboration so you would be in charge of the
venue and they would be in charge of the job.
Sometimes, tens and hundreds of companies work
with you. Doing the footwork and organizing is
their job, and providing the place to work is yours.

6.
6. Another method is to use your venue's potentials to
gain peripheral incomes.
ƒ
Invitees are often given gifts in various sem-
inars and events. You can launch a section in
charge of supplying gifts and offer the orga-
nizers to prepare their required gifts. The
company holding the event certainly trusts
you more than others, and you will be in
higher priority when they want to make pur-
chases.
Design an organized and interesting cata-
log and present your special offers about your
prices and types of services. Before doing so,
talk to different suppliers of different gifts
and make agreements for further cooperation.
These suppliers will supply your goods with
much lower prices than other customers would
do, and you will gain a great profit because
you're the wholesaler and directly make many
customers make purchases from them in great
numbers.
ƒ
Another widely used service in events is print
service. Whether in case of ambient banners,
or regarding the required items to design
booths, and catalogs, brochures, and visiting
cards placed on the table, the major part of an

event is formed by printing processes. There-
fore, print works are one of the major needs
and stressful parts of an event holder's task to
make sure they are prepared on time. If you
provide such services, the event holders will
definitely trust you more than others. You
need to sign contracts with credited suppliers
so you can be confident that no side issues will
be imposed on you.
ƒ
Note that you need to have prepared catalogs
and presentations to introduce your peripheral
services. Before coming to you, event holders
refer to other suppliers, too. However, when
they are assured about your services' quality,
they will work with you.
ƒ
In fact, using this method, you set up a super-
market for event holding and supply all your
customers' needs. This action is effective in
absorbing future customers.
The income from peripheral services is
an extra income you gain and should not
adversely affect your main services.
Notice

7.
7. Try and become the "event house" of reputable
events. Try and be the place to hold prominent and
prestigious events in a way that the name of that
event would be bound up with the name of the venue
you own.
ƒ
Using this method, you both help your
branding and put more thought into make
more sales in the future and generate more
income.
ƒ
Using this method, not only will you have one
of your reputable customers every year or
once in a while and become guaranteed of the
job, but also these events will bring you many
potential customers.
ƒ
Negotiate with famous event holders and offer
them higher discounts and better services, so
they turn your place into their event house
and the collaboration continues.
ƒ
Many well-known events aren’t persuaded
even with an offer like "our venue, your event"
because they are making money right now and
have no will to collaborate for whatever rea-
son. You need to define certain benefits for
these people so you can become their "event
house".

A while ago, I had gone to one of the most famous
hotels in Las Vegas to negotiate a venue. The rental fee
of the venue for four nights was an amount of almost
500000 dollars. I told the owner that I intended to hold
that event in the same venue for the next five (5) years.
This statement changed the conditions and the nego-
tiation. It was agreed that during the whole four days,
we'd hold our event there free of charge and only pay
an amount of about 150000 dollars for the last night's
dinner party. This shows how important it is for a venue
owner to be in charge of the venue for holding recurrent
major events.
8.
8. Many large stores are partners in an exhibition's
food booths. You can also give booths and space to
famous brands to provide services to the visitors and
participants of various event held in your venue. In
such case, you can receive a share of their incomes.
Partnership with prominent and reputable brands
will bring new customers.
Altogether, there are various methods to utilize
a venue's space and resources, and renting them is
not the only way to make money. Your viewpoint
should not be limited to renting the place and you
need to use your venue's potentials to generate
more income.

ƒ
Using some creative methods, activate the
venue and make money out of it.
ƒ
Try and hold all types of events in your venue.
If you merely confine yourself with holding
one or two types of events, you will be faced
with difficulty in the long run. Hold all types
of events that are doable in your venue. For
example, ice hockey rinks are rented for hold-
ing various fairs and concerts.
The world is changing and advances in tech-
nology have affected the nature of busi-
nesses. If you can't accommodate yourself
with these changes, you will lose many cus-
tomers.
Note

Chapter 5
Venue Marketing
Methods

38 Venue Marketing Methods
I. Promotional Event for Customers
One of the methods of absorbing customers is to throw
parties to introduce yourself and your resources to the
potential customers on various occasions.
z
The number of people you invite depends on your
resources. If possible, invite 500 to 600 people and
show the venues to them.
z
Have music, refreshments, and entertainment for 2
or 3 hours.
z
When saying goodbye, give the guests your cata-
log which includes your proper introduction along
with a suitable discount card, so they would be per-
suaded to work with you.
z
Invite people who have something in common. For
example, don’t invite members of embassies along
with event-holders.

z
One of the groups you must invite are event service
providers and suppliers such as people who give
tables and chairs for rent, do decorating, or have
food distribution. These individuals have decent
relations with event holders and can consult them.
You can even turn suppliers into your marketers.
In fact, as an incentive, consider them a commis-
sion fee in exchange for referring new customers.
By paying commission fee, you reach a level where
many event service suppliers become your mar-
keters. The profit these suppliers make from your
commission is sometimes more than the income
they gain from collaborating with event holders.
Therefore, there is a good opportunity to collabo-
rate and absorb customers.
z
As the venue owner, throw such parties two or
three times a month, depending on your business's
size. This is because an event to introduce your
resources, in a way, is a show of your capabilities,
and you engage others with your professionalism.
What has the biggest effect on absorb-
ing customers is that they feel you are a
professional.

II. Attending as an Exhibitor in Other Events
One of the best methods of advertising your venue,
which is not taken seriously by many venue owners, is to
attend other events as exhibitors. By actively attending the
events in which your target market is present, provide a
professional representation of your business's nature to
attract other people.

III. Advertising Slogan
In smart marketing, there is no emphasis on a specific
slogan. Define a specific slogan based on time, place, and
type of your event.
If you choose a proper slogan and promote it in the
market, you stand a chance of raking in more sales. Why?
This is because the slogan will turn into a part of people's
daily conversations, and using word-of-mouth marketing,
customers will attract others, and at the same time, it helps
with your branding.
The advertising slogan facilitates branding in particular.
Every business considers two things in its marketing plan;
first, sales, and second, branding. Branding certainly
boosts sales, and higher sales also will boost branding. It
is important that you pay attention to this aspect of your
venue marketing business.

IV. Branding
Branding is a complicated strategy, and no matter what
you do, you need to take a look at branding. For example,
one of your activities may be only focused on sales, but
there is no way that sales increase without boosting brand-
ing.
Make plans for the branding's requirements such as
beauty and harmony in designs, proper placement of each
visual element, and its presentation on social media.
Plan how to show yourself more to three important
groups of visitors, exhibitors, and organizers of an event.
Stay relevant and ensure these three groups always respect
and wow by your venue and want to hold events there. For
example, put catalogs where everybody can have access
to them, or put the pictures of already held events on the
walls, and show pictures of major figures attending events
in your venue. Establishing setting in this way boosts
branding.

V. Harmony and Design
Consider the significant topic of harmony in all activi-
ties of a large company; that is, all affairs must be consis-
tent with each other. Harmony turns the winding path of
branding into a straight paved road and accelerates the
branding process.
Harmony can be maintained in all of your products
using a common design that resembles your signature,
and a logo can't pull it off on its own. You need to make
your own styles and create attributes that will be unique
to your brand. If you intend to change this style, you need
to do it in all your products. Making such difference rep-
resents your change of strategy in branding.
z
Harmony must be maintained in all of your designs.
In harmony, color, font, type of design, visual iden-
tity and shape of advertising characters are of great
importance. Designing the company's decoration and
venues' entrances also needs to be in accordance with
other elements.
Depending on its structure, a company either
focuses on one of these factors or duplicates vari-
ous factors.
Let's say your company's color is yellow. In this
case, there is no need for all of your products to
be yellow. Instead, it will be enough if this color
is highlighted somewhere and gets noticed. Trans-
form that color into a branding tool, so people

would think of you after seeing it. Therefore, you
don’t need to always make your color prominent
in your products. You must however, sublimi-
nally project the color such that when customers
see it, they will unconsciously associate the color
with your brand/product and be reminded of your
brand.
z
Harmony is especially important when you're mak-
ing waves in advertising, and all of your advertising
tools must be consistent with each other. Let's say you
have the highest number of customers between Jan-
uary and March. You need to make waves in adver-
tising effectively along with a precise marketing plan
from a month in advance. The main part of making
waves is ensuring harmony in your brand.
I frequently visit McDonald's company. During a
specific time of year, this company uses a special car-
toon character in the design of all its products, such
as sandwich wrapping papers, coffee bags, and even
tray liners. Besides, it makes waves during certain
periods by offering special discounts and rewards
and overshadows all of its competitors' sales. Many
people, who are not even customers of McDonald's,
become curious during those periods and visit these
restaurants. Before finishingthe previouswave-mak-
ing, the company applies some special designs and
color themes for Christmas. By experimenting with

colors, this company uses seasonal occasions and
makes waves by maintaining harmony in its designs.
Seizing opportunities in case of occasions is the best
option for making waves. When you make waves,
you even engage those who don’t care about the cor-
responding occasion in that area.
Starbucks is the most famous and expensive
coffee shop in the world. A few years ago, this
company didn’t change its cups during Christmas
time, and as protest, people would write "Happy
Christmas" on their empty cups and give it back to
the Starbucks partners. That's how much occasions
matter to people.
z
The design can be done by your content-providing
group. Still, it is the marketing and development
group that orders the content providing and outlines
the main framework.
z
When talking to the designer, you won't experience
any misunderstanding if you know some general
design ideas. When you know the general concepts,
you can work with the designer much easier. You are
not supposed to become a designer, but you will real-
ize and understand what matters in design.
z
The most important point you need to consider in
design is your brand. Think of your venue's name and
see how you can present it.

z
Designincludesvarioussectionssuchascatalogdesign,
web design, email design, poster and flyer design,
online media and press advertisement design, online
media banner design, and promotional gift design.
In all marketing corners, design is always with
you. The marketing team in charge of defining
branding and design strategy needs to offer their
ideas to the design group for preparing the designs.
This can help the design team create unique design
that will be acceptable and fascinating.
z
When you plan to prepare a presentation for a meet-
ing, you need to provide the designer with some
explanations about the topic and highpoints of the
meeting and ask the designer to highlight some
items and make the aforementioned points clear and
understandable. Simple designs using PowerPoint,
which are common skills, won't impress the audience.
You need to use a professional designer to show your
professionalism.
z
The goal of designing marketing materials is to con-
vey a message. This message represents your line of
work in marketing.
You can convey your message in two ways:
ƒ
Through common advertising materials
which are typically provided to intro-
duce an event venue.

ƒ
Through designs which you provide
based on an advertising campaign which
is going to be run during a particular
period such as three or six months.
The design you prepare for a specific
advertising campaign has its special style
and advertising slogan, but the design
you typically and annually prepare for
introducing your business is some of your
common designs. Therefore, the design
must contain a message about you.
z
The next principle in a proper design is simplicity and
clarity. The design should not be cramped. If you have
one page, you need to put enough material for only
one page. You should avoid putting 25-page worth of
catalog on a single page, turning the design into some-
thing unintelligible, and making your brand over-
looked despite all the expenses on design and print.
Your main message must be noticeable in the design.
z
The colors used in the design must be consistent with
yourworks' general setting and must be in sync with the
dominant culture in the market location in question.
In India, near 300 people work for me. The interest-
ing thing is that these individuals' designs are based on
India's culture, while we work internationally. We had a
hard time justifying them not to use their culture's color

themes. You must therefore consider global audience
when designing a theme for your brand.
If you design a catalog for international custom-
ers, its color theme is most likely different from
the one you design for the domestic market. If
your audience is the market of a specific country,
in applying color themes, you need to consider
that country's culture. Design is so important that
even the audiences' conditions are influential on
the applied colors.
z
The design for each advertising item is formulated
based on the type of audience. The first point to con-
sider in designing a large banner is that it needs to be
seen from a long distance. Therefore, you need to know
what signs you should put in various parts of the ban-
ner. For example, a banner is placed where its top third
has the best view. You need to design the important
points in that section. Designing a half-page ad is differ-
ent from designing a full-page ad in the press because
they are viewed differently. Designing a colored ad is
also different from designing a black and white ad.
z
Another point is the applied font in the design. Some
people use weird fonts in design. There shouldn’t be
more than two or three different fonts in the design.
Consider the fact that your goal of design is to con-
vey a message, and that you are not practicing how to
work with fonts!

VI. Direct Letter
We mentioned before that the good thing about venue
business is its distinct and limited market. Therefore, you
are easily able to prepare an introduction letter for them.
z
Categorize the customers into six or seven groups,
and for each group, introduce your services in some
way. The smart move is to make the introduction
based on the type of customer, and in fact, there is no
introduction suitable for all companies.
z
Prepare an exclusive letter for each customer, if pos-
sible. You can make more divisions in categories of
yourcustomers and prepare an exclusive presentation
for each subgroup. For example, for making relations
with embassies, you provide exclusive letters for each
group of East Asian countries, central Asian countries,
Europe, Africa and other parts of the world. Custom-
izing your introduction method puts you ahead of the
game among your competitors.
You have two groups of competitors:
ƒ
The first group are high-earning large
companies.
ƒ
The second group are small companies.
Whenyoucustomizeyourintroductionmethod,
both groups of your competitors fall behind you.
The first group doesn’t care about it, and the sec-
ond group can't afford it.

B2B marketing is like a sniper who pre-
cisely aims at the target, not like some-
one behind the machine gun shooting
aimlessly.
Sending letters to your customers is a kind of
corporate marketing because you exactly identify
the other party and introduce yourself based on
the details of your target company's needs.
More than 90% of advertising letters you send
for companies are put in the trash. Even if the letter
is archived, it makes no difference for you because
that special period is lost. Most of the remaining
10% are still put in the trash after being opened.
However, when you send an exclusive customized
letter, the other party will not put it in the trash
because they see the name and logo of their own
company on the letter.
While working with companies, you have no
choice but to customize. By customization, you
stand among the 10% who are noticed. However
you want to be among the 1% who are taken more
seriously, those to whom they call and schedule an
appointment.

Your introduction must contain certain features.
¾
The most important feature of a letter is its
conciseness and lack of loquacity. Other-
wise, your letter suffers the same fate as the
letters put in the trash.
¾
The letter must convey its targeted mes-
sage during the first two paragraphs. You
can elaborate things in the next paragraphs.
The first two paragraphs are written with
the same style a news lead is written. The
news lead makes the reader decide whether
to read the news or not.
¾
Your text must be inclusive and exclusive,
containing all the necessary information.
When the customer demands more infor-
mation from you, it means the initial rela-
tionship has been established. You don’t
need loquacity in this case because you
have said everything and there is nothing
new to add. You need to talk about the cus-
tomer's needs and continue the relation-
ship.
¾
Your letter must persuade the reader to
make the first contact through phone call
or email. Your contact info must be avail-
able, so the customer can easily contact
you.

I hold numerous events during the year, and this is
somehow my expertise. When I send an introduction let-
ter for a company, I insert the website address in all of the
pages so the customer can visit the site any time he/she
wants. We prefer that the customer views us online
rather than reading our introduction letter because
we have more moves to make online and it's more
diverse and appealing, as well. Address is often
excluded from the contact info, which usually con-
sists of email address, website, and phone number.
Sometimes, even phone number is not included in
some businesses because forwhatever reason, phone
lines may be busy or there may be no proper answer-
ing, and such issues disrupt the process of getting in
touch with the customer. Such problems barely hap-
pen in websites. The information in the introduction
letter depends on your strategy and type of business.
The general points you need to consider in
sending the letter are as follows:
9
The envelope size: this must be the same as the
letter and there must be no folding. Such con-
sideration is highly influential on getting noticed
quickly and coming out as a professional.
9
The envelope design: design is definitely import-
ant, too, and the envelope must be in harmony
with your other settings in the website, email,
etc. Maintaining harmony boosts your brand-
ing, as well.

9
Clarity of the letter: your letter must be crystal
clear, so the audience doesn’t have to spend
much time on finding your info and message.
9
The letter design: the more organized and con-
cise your letter is structured, the faster your
message is conveyed. Consider a standard tem-
plate for your letters and invitations and always
stick to it.

VII. Face-to-Face (Direct) Marketing
Work meetings often happen based on prearranged
appointments. Face-to-face conversation is conducted in
your company or in the other party's company, or in an
event. There are three different strategies for each of these
places, which are discussed as follows:
1.
1. Meeting in Your Event Setting and Company's
Establishment
¾
Every company must own a presentation room.
This room is specifically for introducing the
company's services to the customers.
¾
You must have an Internet connection, a large
monitor connected to a keyboard and wireless
mouse in this room. It's better to provide the
customer with a set of keyboard and mouse, as
well.
¾
Keep in your computer all the presentations you
have sent to the customer in a categorized order,
and be prepared to answer all of your custom-
er's questions.
¾
Show the pictures and videos to the audience
simultaneously, as you are having the conver-
sation with them. A single picture can be as
expressive as hundreds of words.

¾
Notice that your presentation on your ser-
vices must be in two versions: brief and
lengthy.
¾
By default, always start with a brief presentation
and convey the message in three to five minutes
using short sentences. Don’t bore the audience
with a long introduction.
¾
Prepare the setting for conversation; that is,
you shouldn’t be the sole speaker. The audi-
ence shouldn’t carry the thread of the conver-
sation. The more proper way is to pose ques-
tions and receive one-word answers such as
yes/no.
¾
The longer version of your presentation must
be between 15 and 20 minutes, and use videos
and photos; have 10 to 40-second short videos.
In this type of presentation, talk more with the
audience and engage the other party in the pre-
sentation.
¾
When you are presenting, if the audiences are
not following you and their minds aren’t occu-
pied in listening to your words, you are losing
the game. When the audiences lose the thread
of conversation, they won't ask many of their
questions, and in this case, the conversation
won't result in a deal.

¾
Have rehearsal before the presentation and pre-
pare some parts to ask the audience questions.
Without a rehearsed presentation, you defi-
nitely can't have a good meeting and persuade
the customer to make a deal. Whether in a brief
or lengthy presentation, have some key sen-
tences to engage the audience with you.
¾
Prepare proper refreshments in the presentation
room.All individuals must receive the best accom-
modations and refreshments, no matter what ser-
vices the customer will get from you. Prepare var-
ious types of beverages, snacks, and chocolates to
surprise the customer company's representative.
¾
The setting a customer sees at first sight must
be appealing and it must astonish the customer.
Creating such attraction is an introduction to
show the venues. Using this method, you make
the customer take a positive perspective towards
you as it goes on.
¾
Put catalogs and brochures in a part of the room
where all the attendees can use them.
¾
Put in a folder all the items such as the cata-
log and all types of presentations that you have
already sent to the customers and leave the
folder on the table in front of them. If there are
more than one attendee in the meeting, you
need to prepare a folder for each one so they
don’t have to pass it over.

¾
Have a schedule for the meeting. If it's not clear
how long the session will last, consider the least
possible time and talk about the main topics at
the beginning of the meeting so the presenta-
tion wouldn’t be abandoned halfway through
and the audience wouldn’t suddenly leave the
session. After that, you have an opportunity
which can be dedicated to talk about further
matters such as the other party expressing their
views. These views are necessary to make your
presentation robust and clear. The meeting in
which you are the sole speaker doesn’t result in
any pleasant outcome.
¾
After this stage, bring the customers along and
show them the venue. You know what kind of
venue and services the other party requires.
Therefore, when describing the resources, pro-
vide explanations which are in line with meet-
ing their needs.
¾
Many venues are equipped based on an event's
needs. Even in a seminar hall, the stage changes
according to the event's content. Therefore,
while fully prepared, explain to the customer
about the resources and options that will be
added to the place. It will yield better results if
showing the venue happens when a similar dec-
oration is still on because the customer doesn’t
need to use his/her imagination in this case.

2.
2. Meeting in the Customer's Place
The second type of presentation meeting is
when the meeting is held in-person in the other
party's company.
¾
In this type of meeting, a large part of what was
mentioned before must be observed.
¾
Bring sufficient catalogs and presentations in a
folder because you don’t know how many peo-
ple will be present at the meeting.
¾
Start with a brief presentation, unless the meet-
ing is set to take at least an hour. In such case,
start with the long presentation.
¾
Prepare yourself for some possible issues. There
may be no suitable presentation room in the
corresponding company, or they may have not
any monitor or Internet connection. Therefore,
bring a laptop or tablet with you.
¾
Since you are not in your own venue spaces,
you can't show the venue. Therefore, you need
to prepare meticulous and detailed photos and
videos and show them in the meeting.
¾
Consider that the other party is not an expert
in event venues. Therefore, provide accurate
information about your venue's features and
resources and the method of collaboration.

¾
Provide photos and videos which are used for
advertising and prepared for marketing. The
priority is not the lovely design but the details
of the information you present to the custom-
ers.
¾
At the beginning, show a 30-second video about
the outline of services you can provide. Then,
present photos and videos which show the
venue clearly from various points of view on a
large scale.
ƒ
Long shot photos can't be useful. Use
photos which show the exact dimen-
sions and sizes to the other party.
ƒ
Show a close-up of certain details such
as the venue's resources and stage, and
compare some features such as the
venue's height and the stage's size with
something comprehensible for the
customer. For example, show a ready
booth and the distance from the ceil-
ing.
¾
After the meeting, send the videos' links to the
contracting company in an email. Otherwise,
the audience won't remember this informa-
tion.

3.
3. Face-to-Face Conversation in a Place Besides Your
Company or the Customer's.
The third method for face-to-face conversation
is when you accidentally meet a customer or you
are going to talk to the participants in a fair. The
main characteristic of such in-person meetings is
the short time, and you won't have much time to
use laptop and tablet or even to sit around. In the
best scenario, your time will be 15 minutes.
¾
Go after short questions and finish what you
have to say in less than 5 minutes. Spend the
rest of the time on having a conversation and
answering the other party's questions.
¾
Design a proper presentation for showing on
mobile screen and bring it along so you can
show some photos during the conversation.
Your website also must have a mobile-friendly
design so the audiences can use it effortlessly.
¾
Before leaving the audience, give them the com-
pany's catalog and yourvisiting card and take their
contact info so you can follow up on the deal.
After the face-to-face meeting in any of these
three conditions, you enter the , follow-up stage.
In this stage, you remind the other party of the
agreements you two made based on email, mail,
and phone communications and in the face-to-
face meeting. You will send other emails again,
but this time, it's more of a to-and-fro way, and
grounds for collaboration become ready.

VIII. Follow-up
Having a follow-up strategy is one of the essential
tasks to gain success. When you have properly gone
through all the previous stages and conveyed your
message to the audience, they may still not contact
you for whatever reason. This is the same situation
for you as if your catalog or letter has been thrown in
the trash. Therefore, you need to apply the follow-up
strategy.
In the follow-up strategy, you should not apply
a method that results in the audience blocking their
communicating channels with you or making them
see you as taking too much of their time.
In the venue business, customers are in a position
where exceeding follow-up does not work. A smart
person is someone who finds a way to gain the cus-
tomer's approval in addition to doing the necessary
follow-up. Based on the knowledge you have about the
customers' needs, prepare a customized presentation
for them and advance the follow-up strategy accord-
ing to that knowledge.
There are three communicating methods for fol-
low-up: email, phone call, and face-to-face meet-
ing.

z
Follow-up Via Email
Nowadays, the world of email has become quite
different, and it's not like you send a text to the
audience and it would be the end of it. Currently,
all email templates have appealing designs and are
so-called HTML emails. By using new tools, email
design has become so professional that it looks like
a webpage.
The email you send to follow up on your prospect
must be customized. Based on audiences' needs and
wishes, send only what is interesting to them.
When you consider email as a follow-up tool,
you need to send an email once in a while. One of
the common mistakes is that people would design
an interesting email and send it to the audience
repeatedly. Even if the email has been interesting,
it only seemed so for the first time. After that, the
audience won't open the email and they may even
block you.
Every email you send to the audiences must
have a new design so you can absorb them. If
your act professionally while handling your cus-
tomers, the audiences of your emails still may
talk about you on various occasions and refer you
some customers even if they don’t become your
customers.

z
Follow-up Via Phone Call
Following up via phone call is always a difficult
method because you often encounter a barrier named
secretary and they hang up on you. Don’t assume that
everything will be fine without any planning. To start
this process and be successful, you must have a work-
able plan.
In the first step, you need to develop a scenario
for your phone call and know what you need to say
when you call. The marketing team and the con-
tent-providing department must formulate this sce-
nario.
Following up without having any scenario doesn’t
make any sense. This scenario is like a play for a radio
drama. The smart move is to perform the follow-up
scenario based on the moods and personality of peo-
ple who do the follow-up. A successful person is the
one who has his/her own character during the phone
call. Your voice and your speaking style determine
your character.
A while ago, I asked one of my colleagues to introduce
me the event in a video file during an event. He did it in
six minutes. After I reminded him of his mistakes, he pre-
pared a 4-minute file. He reached an inclusive and exclusive
introduction based on a text he had already prepared. Using
present tools, you can listen to your voice and evaluate your
performance.

During a phone call, all the aforementioned points
about email must be observed.
¾
It should be interesting.
¾
It must contain a special offer.
¾
It must provide useful information.
¾
You need to mention some points in accordance
with the customer's needs.
¾
In each phone call, you need to have a new point
to make. For example, talk about the interest-
ing occurrences in your venue during the past
month. In addition, remind the customer of gifts
or catalogs you have sent and the fact that you
have talked to the company's person in charge
during the fair. This will allow you to familiarize
yourself with the representative of the company
or your audience.
One of the most important points in phone call is to
find the person in charge of the matter in question. For
example, when you realize that you need to deal with the
management or PR department, you must contact the cor-
responding person in these departments. Avoid spending
energy on talking to irrelevant people.

z
Following Via Face-to-Face Meeting
You may have sent your catalog or written presen-
tation for a company and received no response. In this
case, you can ask for a face-to-face meeting and pro-
vide additional explanations. You can hold the face-
to-face meeting in two ways:
¾
Invite the audience to attend your selected place
and have a meeting with you.
¾
Ask for an appointment from the audience and
hold the meeting in the customer's workplace.
During the face-to-face meeting, you can prop-
erly resolve ambiguity for the customer, but find-
ing an opportunity to hold a face-to-face meeting,
especially in the case of large companies, is not
that easy. You need to use the follow-up methods
which have been discussed previously.
The first type of follow-up is conducted to
absorb the customer. However, after working
together and holding the event, you still need to
follow up and stay in touch with your customers
throughvariousmethods.Don’tletthecustomer
forget you. Look for ways to cause customers to
always refer to you for future events.
You can send your customers a gift such as a calendar for
different occasions to be remembered bythem again. It's bet-
ter to send the gift along with a catalog or a sign for them so
they'd remember your venue and resources more strongly.
Note

Evaluating the Follow-up Methods
Evaluate the feedback you receive from each one of the
following three methods. For example, what attitude did
the audience show toward you? What percentage of these
people have become your customers?
Every one is the best judge of one's own
performance.
z
It is recommended that the marketing team prepare
some forms and every member of the follow-up and
marketing teams be assigned to report the results in
that form at the end of each follow-up session.
Follow-up assessment form must contain ques-
tions that can collectively give you a clear evalu-
ation. For instance, it shows how much positive
result each method has yielded for you, or what
revisions the phone call scenario requires, or how
many emails have been opened?
z
Nowadays, email applications have many options and
tools. After the emails are sent, they report you the
detailed results and remind you of your mistakes. You
can trackhowmanyattached links are clicked on. Based
on these methods, you can modify your methods.

z
You can design some simple forms and pose a few
questions in each one of them. For example, some
people have hung up on you. Let's say out of 50 peo-
ple, 40 people hang up the phone, and 5 people told
you they didn’t have time, and the other 5 people
accepted your scenario. Check how many of these last
5 people have worked with you.
The smart move is to try and turn everybody
into your customers. If someone didn’t become
your customer, you need to check what is wrong
with your method and why you failed to absorb
the customer. If someone is looking for a venue
with a seating capacity of 1000 individuals and you
also own a venue with the same capacity, you need
to spot the flaw in your work in case this customer
did not collaborate with you.
A smart person identifies his/her own mis-
takes, accepts them, avoids repeating them, and
eventually analyzes his/her errors. Such a process
certainly results in victory. Learning from one's
mistakes turn threats into opportunities because
you know what you should have done.
In this business, you always need to act based
on principles and worry about your slightest mis-
takes; especially if you have a large company and
don’t fix your mistakes, you will experience losses
that are not compensable.

IX.Print Products
All types of catalogs, flyers, coupons, and other print
products are a part of print advertising and marketing.
These print products can have various applications.
You can distribute them in different events or public
places.
z
Your establishment must prepare a catalog and file
for introducing its services to be distributed among
the audiences in the meetings. This catalog can be
changed every year, but your company and venue's
main items must be observed in the catalog. These
items are as follows:
¾
Introduce all the sections and resources of the
venue.
¾
Mention the venue's size and details.
¾
Determine what types of events can be held in
your venue.
¾
Mention what figures and companies have been
there.
¾
Mention where the venue is located.

z
In addition to the catalog, make a list of prices and
give both of them to the customers.
This list must be comprehensible for every-
one and there must be no need for any further
explanation. This means the list must be self-ex-
planatory. The more accurate, updated and com-
prehensible this list, the higher your chance of
success.
For example, you write that Tuberose Venue has
160 seats, its size must be mentioned in details, the
model of its chairs, and the model of its visual and
acoustic system must be added, various business
events can be held in this venue, its daily price is
2000 Dollars, it has extra services which are dis-
cussed along with their prices.
z
Maintain harmony in print advertising.
z
The design for the catalog and the list of services'
prices must be appealing, simple, and comprehen-
sible.
z
The design must suit the target market. Since the
event business is mostly a B2B type of business
and your customers are other companies and
event organizers, your design and print advertis-
ing must be different from the one for the pub-
lic.

z
Before printing the print advertising, pay attention
to distribution, not the other way around. Some-
times, a large amount of money is wasted because
you haven’t had any plan for distribution before
printing.
z
Photo in a catalog is of great importance and you
must properly show your venue and resources.
Print full-page panorama photos of the venue so
the audience can better see your venue's features.
z
Be creative in designing print advertising and try
and add other applications to it so the audience
wouldn’t throw it out. For example, print a calen-
dar for various occasions on your flyers' back; such
product is useful for event organizers.

X. Advertising Billboard
Billboard is one of the costly advertising methods and
high-budget companies usually use it. However, this type
of advertising is not cost-effective in the venue business.
In general, billboard and ambient advertising are not quite
practical in this business because your customers are not
the public, unless under certain circumstances; if an event
is being held in a hotel and you want to show your venue
to the hotel guests, you can rent a billboard in front of the
hotel.

XI. Customer Reward
Rewarding the customer is meant to attract more par-
ticipation. Almost all of the venue's customers are con-
stantly holding events. Therefore, you must do something
to turn them into your permanent customers and make
them refer to you for every event. To do that, you must
be ready to go extra mile to offer your customers more
options and value for their payment. You engage the cus-
tomer with you by giving points and rewards.
The benefits you define for your customers in exchange
for spending their points are called reward prizes and are
quite practical in marketing. To do so, you need to design a
system and give points to customers in exchange for every
time they rent your venue.
The procedure is as follows:
z
Consider a certain point for the customer in exchange
for every venue's rental contract. For example, con-
sider every event equal to 50 points and give reward.
z
Then, consider a reward for each certain point. For
example, when the customers get 1000 points, they
can rent one of the venues for a 4-hour event free of
charge, or consider every 500 points equal to free
refreshments for the event's guests.
Designing such a system is an extremely sensi-
tive task that can be done in two ways: first way,
is to use ready-to-use applications. The other way
is to design your company's exclusive application
and manage it properly.

XII. Reward Points
Increasing sales happens in two ways: gaining new
customers and persuading old customers to buy again.
You need to spend a lot to absorb new customers, but old
customers come back to you with much less cost. Loyal custom-
ers do word-of-mouth advertising for you because they have
gained some benefits from you, whether directly or indirectly.
Using reward points is one of the most important tools
to attract customers' engagement.
z
Customers can't leave you because they must spend
their points and they know you owe them.
z
Using reward points as a trick makes the customer a
bogus figurative creditor.
z
By giving points to the customer, you explicitly tell
them that, ' I owe you, so stay loyal to me.' Even if the
customers are not loyal and sign contracts with differ-
ent venues, theywill still have to stay loyal up to a point
and refer to you again to use what you owe them.
Customers see the points in their accounts and
realize how to use these points. For example, a cus-
tomer has 1000 points, and if he/she gets another
500 points, he/she can get a free service from you.
Therefore, this customer signs contract with you
again to get his/her points to 1500.
z
The smart move is that when the customers received
the prize for their points, some extra points are given
to them to continue the cycle and keep the customers
your permanent creditors so they keep referring to
you under that pretext.

XIII. Coupon
Coupon is an essential tool for any business, which still
remains in place even in the modern world. You can pro-
vide a coupon for 10-20% discount and encourage the tar-
get market to use it.
z
Coupon makes the customers have a reciprocal rela-
tionship with you.
z
Coupons can be given on a public occasion such as
celebrations or on a special occasion such as the anni-
versary of opening your venue. The special occasion
can be related to the customer, as well. For example,
you can give a coupon for 20% discount on the occa-
sion of the 50th
anniversary of the founding of a bank
so they can hold their celebration in your venue.
z
Customize your coupons and offer them based on
the target market's characteristics. For example, the
coupon you offer to organizations must be different
from the one you offer to event organizers.
z
The type and design of each coupon and the services
you offer with them must be different.
z
Consider an expiration date for the coupon. This
makes the customer use it sooner. In addition, after
the expiration date, these coupons won't be a trouble
for you anymore.

XIV. Promotional Gift
z
Distributing promotional gifts is one of the influ-
ential moves in advertising. Give out gifts to partic-
ipants in the events which are held in your venue.
z
Since the venue business is a B2B type of business
and your audiences are more limited, you can give
more expensive gifts in the same proportion.
z
Be careful in choosing the gift and knowthat not every
gift is suitable for your business. For example, T-shirt
is an appropriate gift in some events such as concerts
because it covers a wide range and people use it under
the influence of the present atmosphere. However,
this product is not well-received in conferences.
z
You can have mutual collaboration with other com-
panies in case of promotional gifts, as well.
z
Promotional gifts must be quite useful so people
utilize them. If they aren’t useful and interesting,
they will be thrown away.
z
Is the gift needed to be designed in a way that it
makes the customer dependent? A gift can be a tool
to make customers dependent, but it is a highly
costly method and you can't offer gifts to all of your
customers. Buy a limited number of gifts and cover
a limited portion of your customers.
z
In the marketing plan, allocate a budget to promo-
tional gifts. Choose the gift based on the budget, its
usefulness, and its exposure.

XV. Financial Sponsorship
Attending events is one of the best ways to gain recogni-
tion and introduce yourself to the target market.
z
Financial sponsorship is one of the methods of
attending an event.
z
You can sponsor the events that are held in your
venue.
z
You can hold an event with other businesses and
sponsor it. This method is costly and you are usu-
ally unable to sponsor an event with low cost, but it
will be a highly effective method if you can provide
its budget.
z
Suppose you can't pay for the sponsorship. In that
case, you can use other methods of attending an
event such as renting a booth or advertising in
events' magazines.

XVI. Incentive Plan
Incentive plan helps with making waves.
z
Discount is interesting for customers and encour-
ages them to refer to you in order to use a discount
code.
z
Discounts can be offered during a certain period or
on special occasions.
z
The incentive plan must be in accordance with
your target market. Your business's target market
includes the event's participants and organizers.
Therefore, your advertising offer must be in accor-
dance with them. For example, offer your custom-
ers to print a banner as an incentive plan for the
event held in your venue.
z
Provide the incentive plan with a good reason at an
appropriate time to persuade the customer to use
it. For example, offer 20% discount on the anniver-
sary of the founding of an organization.
z
Use your own services in the incentive plan.
z
The incentive plan must be in accordance with the
target market and in line with accomplishing a goal.
For example, give the venue for rent with lower
rental fee during the season when fewer events are

held and the venue is not reserved. In this case, you
put the venue for reservation on unoccupied days
and customers can rent the venue with lower rental
fees, as well.
z
If you intend to introduce your brand's new service
to the market, you can sometimes offer it for free.
For example, you have added a new meeting room
to the venue. Offer it for free to the exhibitions
which have rented your venue so they can hold
talks and interviews in that room.
Free items may not impose any significant
prime cost on you, but when being given as gifts,
they become more valuable. Using this method,
not only do you attract more customers, but it also
boosts branding. In addition, you get to introduce
your new service using your current services.

XVII. Combined Offer
If your brand is not well-known, promote yourself by
working with well-known brands. For example, you can
provide a combined offer with other brands which are
popular among people.
Even if your brand is well-known, you still can have
combined offers with other well-known brands.
This type of collaboration saves you costs. In addition,
you can use your partner companies' market and share
your markets with each other and attract each other's fol-
lowers.
For example, create a group with print offices and
catering companies, and provide a combined offer. For
example, if event organizers buy their entire required
services from this group to hold their event, they
will receive a certain percentage of discount on ser-
vices. This type of partnership is common in wedding
arrangements, as well. The customer is unconsciously
persuaded to order all services he needed from this
group. The wedding venue and some businesses such
as filming services, hairdresser salon, flower shop, and
confectionary create a group, and if customers buy all
the services from this group, they will receive a discount
on the services.

XVIII. Contest
Running various types of contests or prize draws is one
of advertising methods.Whether in the website or on social
media, this activity effectively engages people because it
leads to prizes. Now, it's much better if this prize drawing
is connected to your services.
One of the interesting things the venues can do is run
contests and prize draws and offer prizes in the day of the
event in hallways and places not taken by the event. The
contest can have a general topic, but it will better if the
topic is related to the events which are being held.
z
The topic of the contest should be about your ser-
vices and resources, but you can have other second-
ary messages, as well.
z
Have ideas for the contest and make it more com-
plicated level by level. In this case, you engage peo-
ple even more than before. Contests on social media
yield an excellent result.

XIX. Affiliate System
Another influential move the venue owners can make
for marketing is to create a customer referral system. In
this case, anyone who refers new customers to your busi-
ness will receive a commission on sales. This move is com-
mon in many businesses such as this type of business.
Venue businesses have a simple and established system
for working with brokers, and applying this method is usual
for them. Working with brokers creates many jobs and ben-
efits brokers by providing new customer referral fees.
z
Determine the presentable commission fee to the
brokers based on different amounts of your venues'
rental fees.
z
You can increase the commission fee in case of any
increase in rental fees. You can also mention that the
more the sales at the end of the year, the higher the
commission fee even for previous sales.
z
Another method is to announce how much commis-
sion is given for each type of event or determine each
venue's commission fee. Consider more commission
for less popular venues so brokers refer many cus-
tomers to you.
z
Define a system that helps you understand by which
broker each new customer is referred. Using this sys-
tem, you can pay the commission fee accordingly.

z
The smart move is to teach brokers how to introduce
the venue and attract customers.
z
Another method of broking is online broking. Define
a system in yourwebsite and name it "affiliate system".
Through this system, any person who wants to adver-
tise you through theirwebsite or social media receives
special codes and shares the venue introduction link
online using that code. This unique code allows you
to recognize and monitor who refers you and who is
visiting your website.
Furthermore, you know who has referred every
person who enters your website or application
through those links and fills the request form to
collaborate, and you consider a commission for
the referent.
This is an interesting and modern method that
creates many jobs. Even people with physical dis-
abilities and from all around the world can do this
job from home.
Today's world revolves around such innovations. There-
fore, venue businesses can benefit from this method to
promote their venues and make more sales with the help
of online brokers. At the same time, they create jobs and
income for brokers and others.

XX. Using Characters and Models
It's better for venue businesses to have their own signa-
ture and style in order to promote the venue and its other
resources and use this unique feature in advertising.
z
Choose your introducing symbol depending on your
presentable services and type of customers.
You can create this signature using a character
or any other thing as your venue's symbol. The
symbol you choose must represent your works
and you need to use it in all types of advertise-
ments and presentations and promote it in your
target market.
The website Hotels.com has chosen a man with a
long beard and a wild face as its symbol. This char-
acter takes various roles, such as a sea captain or a
passenger. Sometimes, he appears with a suntanned
face in a photo, implying that he has become tanned
while taking a sunbath! Interestingly, this person
whose face is not that charming has become widely
accepted as this company's symbol.
Therefore, choose your venue's signature
based on the venue's location, business own-
er's mindset strategy, and customer.
Notice

z
Having a unique style for introducing your services
is an important marketing tool. When audiences
remember your unique signature, they actually
remember your brand. Character or signature sticks
in customers' minds longer than a brand does. This
is especially the case in the venue business because a
venue is not like a restaurant or shop to be in touch
with customers daily. Avenue must take some actions
to be noticed better and faster and become memora-
ble without doing anything special.
z
The symbolic character should not be dependent
on a certain person so it can be present in the long
run. One of the large chain shops had a well-accepted
character who was an old man. After this person
retired, no one could replace him. A character must
be flexible and its age, outfit, and other features must
be modifiable.The character's outfit must be available
in large numbers so it can be replaced if necessary. If
the character is a live person, you need to be able to
replace him/her with someone else by makeup. This
will help your brand to be able to always resonate with
a certain character. It allows customers to identify a
character with you for long, and it also creates har-
mony for your brand.
z
In marketing, a symbolic character pays off very
quickly. An important part of content providing is
using this character. Sometimes, the members of a
company themselves turn into symbolic characters.

There is a printing office in the U.S. in which
the owner circles around the office and reports
its news every day. One of the main reasons this
printing office has developed is that its manager
has become a symbolic character. The manager
also has a drone that is applied to report from
inside the factory.
There is another company that uses its mem-
bers as models. Using this method, employees
are introduced interestingly. When the audience
becomes familiar with the marketing team mem-
bers' faces, making sales becomes easier. This is
the power of show.
Applying this method in the venue business is
also interesting. Every employee can show up in
such videos and talk about their departments.

XXI. Motivating Employees
You need to apply some methods to motivate employ-
ees so that they'd double their efforts in accordance with
achieving the company's goals in addition to their assigned
duties. One of these methods is the matter of employees'
self-assessment.
z
At the beginning of every week, introduce the
employees who had the most success during the pre-
vious week. By doing so, you set up a healthy com-
petition and value the employees' work. Such move
results in your organization's growth. This also moti-
vates the employees and shows that their efforts are
being noticed by the management.
z
Consider cash and non-cash rewards and prizes for
model employees.
Let's say the marketing group's actions resulted
in the realization of the targeted goals two months
sooner and reduced the organization's expenses by
100000 Dollar. Here, the smart perspective is to
distribute among the employees the extra benefits
resulted from their work.
The first way is to divide the surplus budget
among the corresponding department members.
In this case, the task will be done before the dead-

line during the next months because the employ-
ees know that they will reap the benefit of their
work.
In the second case, if your organizational sys-
tem is too complicated and there is a heavy
bureaucratic process going on, and if for what-
ever reason it is not possible to divide the entire
extra amount, at least a part of this money needs
to be distributed among the employees as a
reward, and all employees need to be included
in that success.
Using this method, employees become indirect
shareholders of the company and the difference
will be tangible in the company's ultimate perfor-
mance. By applying such method, the company
can advertise itself, announce its statistics with
transparency and show that the extra benefit in
question has been fairly distributed among the
employees.
Sharing with employees the organization's profit
earned by their efforts and turning these employees into
indirect shareholders of the organization highly affects
the improvement in your organizational system's per-
formance.

XXII. Using Celebrities in Marketing
Celebrities are a great marketing tool for any busi-
ness, but it is a double opportunity for venues because
prominent figures visit different venues to attend dif-
ferent events.
I've seen many hotels and venues around the world,
which have used this tool in an interesting way for free.
These establishments have prepared some posters of
celebrities attending those places and put them on the
walls; by seeing them, the clients wonder, "Gosh! Were
these people here, too?"
This move is also common in restaurants. Restau-
rants are kind of a venue but more professional. When
a picture of a celebrity while eating is put up in the
restaurant, it is a good advertisement for that celebri-
ty's fans.
¾
In the venue marketing plans, have a chap-
ter defining a strategy to make relations with
celebrities and use them for your venue pro-
motion.
¾
To use these individuals in your advertising,
you can sign an advertising contract with them
and use them as an advertising tool. However,
any celebrity's presence in the events held in
your venue is a type of indirect advertising for
your venue.
¾
This method is even doubly practical for ven-

ues. Since in this business, your customers are
companies, showing the presence of celebrities
in the venue boosts your branding in addition
to the fact that the corresponding companies
can become your customers out of interest for
those figures.
¾
You must document the presence of celebrities
in your venue. Know beforehand which celeb-
rities will attend the events held in your venues,
take their photos and videos, and indirectly use
these contents in advertising.
¾
To use celebrities' photos and videos in direct
advertising, you must sign a contract with
them.
¾
You occasionally need to change where the
posters are placed or put them up using new
designs. Your design must be interesting
enough so that you can turn your available
space into a permanent photo gallery. People
will be encouraged to visit the place.
Learn how to make an appealing, admis
sible, and professional figure out of
yourself. "Give yourself airs and graces"
for no reason has no grounds.

Therefore, the presence of celebrities in various
events held in your venue creates some advertising
potentials such as:
9
Documenting the celebrities in your own ven-
ues without any cost;
9
Turning these documents into a suitable and
interesting design in the setting and hallways of
the venues;
9
Showing the photo gallery to the prospective
customers;
9
Branding your venue and place.

XXIII. Media Relations
The role of media is very crucial in this business. In addi-
tion to promoting your brand, media bring you customers
directly and indirectly. The advantage of your business is
that you and media have mutual needs.
z
Invite media and press so they get to know your
activities and hold their events in your venues if
necessary.
Media hold various events during the year and
they need the space. On the other hand, media
have their unique yet exclusive audiences, and
some of these audiences can become your poten-
tial customers. The more you utilize this group's
assets, the better results you yield.
z
Pay attention to media from two aspects: first, as
customers, and second, as a platform which will
post about you in the future.
z
Get to know each media platform's audiences,
where they are located, what type of people they
are, and the audiences of which media are com-
mon with your target market.
Media are categorized into several groups:
¾
First, online media
¾
Second, print media
¾
Third, broadcasting media

z
Determine those media platforms which have a
more effective range and send your press releases
to them. Invite them to your work parties. On their
own, these actions are an advertisements for you.
z
Formulate the news of holding every event in your
venue in form of a press release in the marketing
group and contact media under this pretext.
z
Another type of establishing relations with media is
advertisement. In the present world, all businesses
need advertisement. Ask media to provide you their
advertising space with a better price or advertise for
you in exchange for services you provide for them.
z
Advertise in media platforms which audiences are
your target market. For instance, the Ministry of
Foreign Affairs publishes a journal and sends it to
the embassies. In that case, you need to order an ad
in that journal.
z
Ordering ad makes a good impression on the mar-
ket and it is an important branding tool. In the
venue business, print media are a suitable platform
for advertising. You can order an ad on technical or
general journals based on your audiences' diversity.
For example, a company that holds a seminar is
probably in constant touch with economic journals.
In this business, TV commercial is not useful,
but making short videos for online setting has
good feedbacks.
In conclusion, you must be focused on online media
and print journals.

XXIV. Online Marketing
If you don’t have an online marketing strategy in the mod-
ern world, it will be like you don’t exist, even if you provide
exclusive services and everybody needs you. Businesses thrive
online nowadays and people basically live online in today’s
world, it is therefore, important that you have online pres-
ence. With that, you will be able to reach more customers.
When you lack online presence, the least problem is that oth-
ers would consider you as someone who has lagged behind in
the modern world. Online presence has several parts, such:
1.
1. Website
2.
2. Social media
3.
3. Search Engine Optimization (SEO)
4.
4. Content providing
5.
5. Google Ads
6.
6. Online shopping
7.
7. Online advertising
8.
8. Interactive email
9.
9. Online local marketing
10.
10. Collaborating with other websites

.

. Website
Have a website with a professional, simple, and chic
design. A venue's website must contain the following infor-
mation for the audience:
¾
Yourvenues' options and resources: show in the website
all types of venues and presentable options you have.
¾
Price of available services: post a list of prices on
the website so you don’t have to waste your time
answering the customers on the phone.
¾
The information on events held in your venue:
that is, design a section for photos and videos from
previous events.
¾
A calendar of events that will be held in your venue:
this calendar must be constantly updated. All the
events must be included in there to affect absorb-
ing the customer. This will allow you to show your
business as a professional establishment.
¾
Full details of all the events that will be held in
your venue during the next one or two years: this
information includes name, topic of the event,
and the company's website address. By doing so,
the event organizers become happy that you are
advertising them. In addition, you benefit from
the event's brand and absorb the event's followers
without that company's knowledge.

¾
Online display of the available dates for reserva-
tion by customers: of course, the customer must
know that any second, another customer may
reserve the place until a contract is signed, but res-
ervable venues must be shown.
¾
Display of presentable services to three groups of
exhibitors, financial sponsors, and event organiz-
ers. These services include options of the place,
parking, transit services, near hotels, and other
accommodation services. These descriptions can
be posted on 50 to 60-page PDF files.
Ensure you provide all the options that visitors,
exhibitors, and financial sponsors need and post
their descriptions on the website.
¾
Displaying available services to event organizers:
Value this group of customers because your busi-
ness depends on these people. Take them seriously
and consider them a main headline on your web-
site where upon clicking the headline, they can see
your services and how to collaborate. By provid-
ing such information, you both take a big step in
attracting customers and prevent needless phone
calls by customers.
¾
The links to social media pages must be clear on
the website and the option for sharing the website's
posts on social media must be provided.
¾
Showing your contact info so the customer can get
in touch with you, if necessary.

¾
Use an interesting design to show the venue and its
features. This design must clearly show all the details.
All the venue's maps must be available. A virtual tour
through the venues must be provided, so you don’t
have to show the place via some photos and maps.
The audiences must see what path they go
through from the moment they enter the parking
lot and what they face on their way. Virtual tours
encourage people to visit the place, and customers
can see the venue easily without taking your time.
Virtual tour puts you in a superior position in
comparison to your competitors and reflects you
as a more professional business. This type of vir-
tual tour must be shared on social media, as well.
¾
A website is a type of catalog, too. Therefore, as
more interesting the web design gets, it will per-
suade more people to collaborate with you.
¾
Content providing is an important part of market-
ing plan. Every website constantly needs content.
A content can't remain on the website for too long.
Every new happening can be an excuse for provid-
ing content. You can repost the website's contents
exactly as they are.
¾
Your website's address must be on public display
and your catalog must be available for everyone.
¾
Dedicate a part of your website and social media to
a section in which audiences can share their pho-
tos and videos.

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