Advocacy marketing mistakes that cost event organisers money
We recently published an article on why advocacy is a powerful, measurable growth engine for events when it is done well - a must-read for everyone involved in marketing conferences and exhibitions.
And the truth is that most event organisers have already ‘tried advocacy’. They have a process or a tool and they’ve executed by trying to get their attendees, speakers, sponsors and exhibitors to spread the word about their event. And when results fall below expectations they often assume that advocacy just doesn’t work - or the tool is at fault.
The problem is not advocacy as a channel, or the tool being used.
The most common issues we see are:
- Lack of strategy - including unclear objectives and lack of reliable marketing measurement and benchmarks to know ‘what good looks like’ at any point in the campaign.
- Speakers confirmed too late and not well managed and supported overall by event organisers - so they’re less likely to want to go out of their way to advocate.
- Lack of clear and consistent process and rigorous execution - where no one is held fully accountable for essential activity and outcomes.
These issues now matter much more than they used to.
Email deliverability and engagement have fallen sharply (even when using well-managed databases); websites are bleeding traffic as AI-generated answers in LLMs stop clicks to websites; and paid media is getting more expensive.
Without careful activation of social proof and earned media via your event customers (i.e. advocacy), there is a huge hole in your approach and your commercial outcomes will suffer.
Treating advocacy as a priority should be a no-brainer as it is effectively one of your cheapest and in many ways most reliable marketing channels!
Here is your practical checklist of what NOT to do when running an advocacy programme for your events.
The ‘big 4’ advocacy marketing mistakes to avoid
Mistake #1: Treating advocacy as optional
The most damaging mistake is not prioritising advocacy at all. Many organisers set up a tool, send one email to speakers and consider the job done. Advocacy requires the same consistent effort as any other marketing channel.
Mistake #2: Assuming people will promote without prompting
Even the most enthusiastic speaker or sponsor will rarely share anything with their network unprompted. They’re busy people. They need clear asks, easy-to-share content and timely reminders.
Mistake #3: Forgetting that peers pay more attention to one another than to you
If your advocacy strategy starts and ends with sharing event information from the social accounts of your team members, you don’t have impactful peer-led advocacy. This is a good thing to do. But the most impactful advocacy only happens when relevant people in your audience, your speaker panel and your cohort of sponsors and exhibitors spread the word to their peers.
Mistake #4: Not setting up tools correctly
Buying an advocacy tool is the first step - the easy part. Using it well is another thing altogether. A tool that is deployed too late, configured poorly, or not activated and managed consistently, will underperform - and the results will make it look like the advocacy tool or channel doesn’t work, when the real problem is execution.
What high-performing event advocacy programmes do differently
The difference between a low-performing and high-performing advocacy programme is not budget. It is attention and execution. Here are the winning attributes that the best advocacy programmes have in common:
Winning attribute #1: Clear participation goals
High-performing programmes set targets - for example, what percentage of speakers, sponsors and partners you need to activate. Well-run advocacy programmes need to achieve a minimum 10% advocacy rate (AR = proportion of potential advocates who actually share). If you can achieve 40-50% your marketing team is doing exceptionally well!
Winning attribute #2: Easy-to-share content
Advocates share content when sharing requires almost no effort. Pre-written social posts, personalised images and one-click sharing makes all the difference.
Winning attribute #3: High quality content
Volume alone is not enough. The content advocates share needs to make them look good! Speakers and sponsors are putting their personal credibility behind your event when they share - the content needs to be worth sharing and ‘zero risk’ to their reputation.
Winning attribute #4: Consistent reminders
Advocacy is not a one-time ask. The most effective programmes build a structured sequence of prompts throughout the campaign, timed around key milestones: event launch, programme announcement, speaker reveal, registration deadline. At each touchpoint, telling the story of the event to bring your advocates with you and give them something new and interesting to share every time is important.
Winning attribute #5: Executive buy-in
When advocacy is treated as a priority at a senior level - not just delegated to the most junior team member and then forgotten - the results reflect it. Senior level involvement also makes it easier to engage sponsors and partners, who often respond better to requests from more senior members of events teams. And senior executives in event organisers need to appoint someone responsible for advocacy and hold them accountable - as with every other important activity in their business.
Winning attribute #6: Recognition and gamification
Leaderboards, thank-you messages, and even small gestures of recognition and gratitude for those who advocate for you will reinforce participation. People like to know their effort was noticed.
Advocacy is one of the lowest-cost, highest-impact channels available to event organisers - but only when it is set up and run properly. If you would like to talk through how your advocacy programme is performing, and what a well-executed one would look like for your events, get in touch.
