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rezzy
10-18-2010, 05:11 PM
Hello all,

After a long hiatus, I have returned to my favorite place on the internet, touting a small question for the small business geniuses here.

Ive have a friend that has a conference and he's looking for ways to advertise it without breaking the bank.

Hes tried placing various online ad campaigns.

KristineS
10-18-2010, 05:39 PM
Has he tried Facebook or Twitter? Or course if he hasn't built a following there, that probably won't be as effective.

What sort of conference is it? Has he figured out where people who would be likely to attend his conference would be congregating online?

rezzy
10-18-2010, 10:33 PM
Has he tried Facebook or Twitter? Or course if he hasn't built a following there, that probably won't be as effective.

Yes, he has tried those as well as Facebook ads. They have netted small gains at best.



What sort of conference is it? Has he figured out where people who would be likely to attend his conference would be congregating online?

Its a conference targeted for independent web developers, programmers, etc. Part of the problem, he/I arent sure where youd find these people.

vangogh
10-19-2010, 03:25 AM
Welcome back Bryan. I had been thinking about sending you an email recently to see how you were doing.

Most conferences I see have a built in audience prior to starting a conference and some even started as informal meetups that grew large enough for conferences. Oddly enough last week I watched a video with an interview of someone who's in the conference business. You might be interested in watching.

Interview with Ryan Carson (http://doctype.tv/ryancarson)

He wasn't specifically being interviewed about conferences, but he did have some things to say about them.

Without much of a budget I think the best approach would be to first start a community online. Your friend could arrange something where once a month a bunch of people get together via some software system and try building things up that way first. As the online community grows there will likely be some demand for offline conferences.

However it sounds like your friend already has the conference planned. A client of a client of mine was promoting a conference and we built a site for him about 6 months in advance so he could spend the time promoting his site, which promoted the conference. As far as finding developers and programmers it really shouldn't be hard. There are countless forums devoted to the topic. dzone (http://www.dzone.com/links/index.html) might be a good place to start. Just remember that people in online communities aren't going to want to be marketed to. You'll have to spend more time getting to know them and networking with them.

rezzy
10-19-2010, 10:38 AM
Hello Mr. Vangogh. Ive been meaning to write you as well. I was curious how development with your projects has progressed. Hopefully you have some good news to report.

He's in the stretch now, so Im curious hows it going to go. Hes starting to feel the pressure and is looking to just get people there. He is about 3 weeks away and from what Ive heard this is the time where people start registering for it.

Thanks, for the sources, Ill take a look

vangogh
10-19-2010, 12:15 PM
I'm not sure how much he's going to be able to do with 3 weeks left to go. I think most people usually want more time to make plans to go to a conference, especially if it's not local to them. At this point he might just want to get the work back out to everyone he's already gotten it to.

KristineS
10-19-2010, 03:47 PM
Y
Its a conference targeted for independent web developers, programmers, etc. Part of the problem, he/I arent sure where youd find these people.

Seems like web design forums or SEO forums might be a place to look. Many of those sell banner ads too.