I am involved in several conferences each year, either in promotion, attending or speaking. I find many conference hosts are looking for that particular format, hot speaker or subject or a new venue to create a profitable event. Many of us look at our marketing the same way. Some of us call it a silver bullet, Dr. Deming called his version; "Instant pudding."
I use conferences or workshops as an example because they are the most recognized event style marketing efforts. I also used this thought process, event driven marketing, when I first start working with clients. This allows us to complete a launch cycle either using Explore-Do-Check-Act (EDCA) or CAP Do (a version of PDCA). During the process, we may choose to do interviews, podcast, blogs, PR releases all very typical marketing tactics. At first glance, there is not a silver bullet. However, the silver bullet is in the execution. As Dr. Deming said, there is no "Instant Pudding."
Many of these events are for trade organizations, and most of the work is done by volunteers. I am involved in one at the moment, The ASQ Charlotte Section Annual Conference 2013. Promoting the event and coordination is not easy as the committee members also have real jobs. This particular group has done a very good job and I look forward to participating in an outstanding conference. Review this blog post to get a taste of the process: Quality Conference of the Carolinas and a recent podcast, Is Influence your Path to the Leadership Table?.
What I have found about most events is the lack of building a path for information flow, and as a result, hindering the natural flow of marketing. Road blocks are put in place for people to access information and create flow. This mind map will give you a general idea. The mind map is not meant to be inclusive of all marketing efforts or distribution of content. Review PDF Version.
What I do for clients or what I believe a conference host should do is provide a bank of information resources that are very explicit on how they should be used. At a minimum, you should have a press release for the event and a brochure. Often times, duplicate content for press releases that center on individual tracks can be useful. I like to do interviews with key people for the event through YouTube or just a normal podcast. These items should be collected either in a Dropbox or a FTP account to share. At a minimum the links should be distributed.
How to make it viral? Your ability to provide a ready resource of information for the participants of the event is critical. It takes all stakeholders to include attendees to make an event successful. If you review the mindmap, you will see that each block contains online and offline branches. You must engage and set expectations for stakeholders to distribute through these channels. When you look at a list of speakers for your event do you provide them with a press release for their track? Sponsors often times provide the largest constituency of attendees. Do you create content directly aimed at that group? A deeper dive may be to provide attendees and sponsors ideas on how to get the most out of a conference. Such as the guidelines discussed in this blog post, Turning your Conference Learning into Action.
How does apply to regular marketing? Using event style marketing allows me to capture what clients are presently doing and apply it to something tangible. It may be something as simple as a webinar or in a grander scheme, a product launch. In a Lean way, we capture present marketing tactics (identify value add) and stakeholders (map value stream). Solidifying both into an uninterrupted flow (create flow) to create a viral network (establish pull). We repeat the cycle improving (seek perfection) on the next event. As Dr. Deming said, there is no "Instant Pudding."
is used in 30+ cities around the U.S. to teach business owners the critical skills they need to accelerate growth. 
explores how companies are using these ideas to achieve big things. Peter provides examples from Kid Rock to General Motors in an enjoyable and easy read. However, when you look under the hood Little Bets is grounded in an amazing amount of research. 
. His articles have appeared in Harvard Business Review, Tech Crunch, The Financial Times, and as an expert blogger for Fast Company. 
, looking for a few ideas on how to approach Lean concepts to marketing and more specifically CMOs. Of course, we all know trying to apply a discipline to a bunch of right brain thinkers is a difficult task but what I found might surprise you. Review this slide show for an introduction. As far as reading the book, it is fun read pointing to numerous examples of the disparity between the roles. However, I think the book falls short of pointing out what to do about it. The book champions the marketing cause with little supportive or quantize evidence. Oh, that’s the problem my left brain is working. 
authored by the 37signals team. 37 Signals creates simple small business software and their products include Ruby on the Rails and Backpack. Their motto is goodbye to bloat and provide simple, focused software that does just what you need and nothing you don't. Rework is…
”. The book won a 2005 Shingo Prize for Manufacturing Excellence in Manufacturing Research. In 2008 he published a book titled, “
”. This book demonstrates the application of Lean Thinking to the third primary value stream, “problem solving”. 
5. Spongy, vague goals: Leave out the vague and the meaningless babble of business phrases (such as "being the best") because they are simply hype. Remember that the objective of a plan is its results, and for results, you need tracking and follow up. You need specific dates, management responsibilities, budgets, and milestones. Then you can follow up. No matter how well thought out or brilliantly presented, it means nothing unless it produces results. 
