BigChurchDayOut
13,000+ people drawn together with the help of social media
On 24 May, over 13,000 people will take to a field in West Sussex for The Big Church Day Out. When I heard about the event, I was keen to help the organisers harness the power of social media to help spread the word. Tim Jupp, the keyboard player from Delirious, is one of the key figures behind TheBigChurchDayOut (that's not a typo, it's clever branding!). I met with Tim and Kirsty, another BigChurchDayOut organiser to chat through some marketing ideas.
The connection was instant. They were excited about more people learning about their great event, and I was excited about working on an event that was truly massive in proportion. We set out to create a social media strategy that would get people talking about TheBigChurchDayOut and that would draw them to TheBigChurchDayOut website.
The first step was to identified the event's target audience. I then immediately set up Facebook advertising aimed at that specific group. Facebook allows 'social media actions' on their advertising. This means that if Bob Smith's friend Dave joins TheBigChurchDayOut Facebook group, then Bob Smith will see Dave's name above our advertisement. This credibility is invaluable when using social media to generate excitment around an event.
The social media advertising immediatedly resulted in an 84% increase in traffic to the BigChurchDayOut website and an uptake in ticket sales. As excitment continued to grow leading up to TheBigChurchDayOut, I continued to use social media to generate discussions and to keep TheBigChurchDayOut logo in front of our target audience.
We had been hoping for at least 8,000 people at the event. Now, with another 3 week still to go, TheBigChurchDayOut has hit the 8,000 mark. I'm expecting at least 10,000 people in total will show up, and hopefully more! In the next three weeks we will be continuing the social media pushes. I'll let you know how it turns out.
Update: TheBigChurchDayOut has sold out! 13,000 tickets have been sold with no more available.
