In this article I want to share with you what I did to promote my future talk and workshop at the Service Design Global Conference.

Is it worth it to be a speaker?

Being a speaker at conference is a great honor. But it costs a shitload of money. Sure, the conference organizers offer you the ticket for the conference, which is worth about 1000 bucks. But still you have to pay for the flight and the accommodation there. 

So money wise, being a speaker at a conference is a loss for me at this moment. That's why I decided to turn this opportunity into a marketing measure for the Swiss Innovation Academy.

What's my marketing plan?

My goal is really simple. After my presentation and workshop at the conference, I'll share a special link for people to get the slides. For the conference, I'll just leave the link on the last slide. But for the workshop I've prepared some goodies that I'll put in enveloppes where I've written a personal message for each of the 50 participants.

Preparing the enveloppes with the great help of the cat

In order to download the slides, the interested people have to leave their email adresse. That's when the magic happens 🙂

One of the landing pages to get the slides

After that, during the next year the person who has downloaded the slides will receive about 6 emails. These emails are mostly free resources that I have on the Academy website. But they are often linked with upselling.

A part of the email automation that happens once people download the slides

So for example, when someone goes to download one of the new ressources, a little message will then say: "Hey you can get this product for 50%".

How the email automation works in Podia

What type of content did I prepare for social media?

I've prepared up until now about 36 content pieces for social media. These posts are divided in the following categories:

1. Did you know: Videos teasing a part of the content that. I will present during the workshop or talk

2. Backstage: Show how the preparation for the conference is going

3. Friends: Great people from the conference that are also speaking 

4. Ask: Ask for tips and advice

A few of the content pieces in my Notion App

How did I create the videos?

The one element that took the longest to organize where the videos.

I've prepared 8 videos. 2 which are trailers presenting what will happen in my talk and in the workshop. And 6 of these videos follow the "Did you know format" I talked about before.

The behind the scenes of the videos

The videos are done very cheaply. I just went to the local supermarket and bought some table picnic wrap for the background. I shot the videos using the Video Teleprompter app on my phone. With this app I can simply put my text on the phone and view it in a teleprompter mode while it records me with the selfie camera. Cheap, quick and dirty. But it does the job.

How long did it take?

It took me about two days of work to prepare the plan, prepare the content, shoot the videos, write the emails, prepare the landing pages, etc.

The overview for this project in my time tracking app

I want more details!

Okay, you are really a little curious animal! But that's okay. So if you want the total behind the scenes look you can check here the marketing plan for the email automation, and here you can check the content I've planned for social media.

I hope this article gives you a bit more context about all the work that goes in preparing a talk and a workshop 😉

In the next months I'll share more about how I prepared the talk and the workshop, and what was the real return on investment for me.

Cheers!

— Written on August 27, 2019