Congratulations! You have had a successful conference! A lot of people came to your event and enjoyed themselves and you generated quite a buzz on social media. You chose a great conference venue in Cheshire, you managed to get high quality speakers and the catering went off without a hitch. A lot of great presentations were made and everyone learned a lot and made good networking connections. Now the conference is winding to a close you are starting to think about next year’s event. How will you encourage people to attend next time?

Announce It

While you still have their attention, make an announcement about next year’s event. The people who came to your conference this year will likely be your biggest supporters and will want to purchase tickets for the next event.

It’s okay if you don’t have all of the details completely hammered out yet for next year, it’s just important that you make the announcement that the event WILL be held. You can keep in touch and give them the further details as soon as you have them.

Offer Discounts for Early Birds

If you want to reward conference attendees for signing up for next year’s event, offer them an early bird discount. You can offer special discounts for people who sign up before certain dates. This sense of urgency will encourage people to buy their conference tickets sooner. Also, it will give you a very early indication of whether or not you will be getting guests next year so that you can start planning ahead.

Provide a Discount for Repeat Attendees

You want to reward your loyal supporters, so why not offer a discount on next year’s tickets to anyone who attended this year? You can announce this at the end of the conference and let attendees know that they will receive a cheaper rate next year if they show proof that they attended this year. This is a great way to encourage your guests to come back again year after year.

Use LinkedIn to Promote Your Conference

LinkedIn can be a great way to promote your conference in a way that is targeted to your industry. You will be able to contact other professionals who work in the same realm as you, as LinkedIn is specifically made for networking. The people who are using it are interested in connecting with others in their industry, so there is a good chance that they would be interested in a conference.

Ask Attendees to Write a Blog Post

If you had guests at your conference who have their own blogs and a large following, ask them if they wouldn’t mind writing a blog post about their experiences at your conference. They might already be doing so if they think what they learned at the conference would be valuable to their readers. If one of your influential attendees writes about your conference, make sure to share their blog post on your social media channels and thank them for mentioning your event.

When bloggers write about your conference this is a very powerful form of advertising, as it relies on social proof from an unbiased third party, which people are much more likely to trust.

Create a Website for Next Year’s Event

It’s a good idea to get the website for next year’s event done as quickly as possible. Even if the event is a year away, people might be curious and looking for information about it. The sooner you get it up the better, so that possibly attendees can start planning their travel and looking for deals on flights and hotels in Cheshire. Make sure that you provide as much information as possible and also offer contact information so that attendees can ask questions if they need to. You can then mention the website at the end of the conference and let attendees know that they can keep track of any updates about next year’s event by checking that site.

These are just a few of the ways that you can encourage your guests to come back to your conference next year, so that you can create a loyal following and have a successful, well attended event once again.