Top 4 marketing lessons from the Upriserz event (+ an example of “Not like this!”)

Reading time: 5 minute

On January 8, 2023, Million Dreams, the Upriserz community event, took place.

Those in the room got both their dose of motivationas well as that of inspiration for a year that promises to be challenging.

Wannapreneur, entrepreneur or freelancer…whatever your role, you still went home richer with ideas, plans and dreams.

It couldn’t have been any other way, when the event’s agenda contained 12 hours of TEDx-style talks and a surprise guest appearance (spoiler: it was none other than the mayor of Cluj, Emil Boc).

This was followed by a workshop given by Lorand, plus an interview with Roz Savage. Let’s not forget the customer & author awards, the Upriserz team presentation, plus magic tricks performed by Lorenzo Cristian.

So lots of things to capture your attention in the 12 hours (not counting the valuable networking)!

So it was pretty easy to miss the subtle marketing ideas and lessons that the Upriserz team served up so beautifully.

Now that everything has settled down, it’s appropriate to talk more about them. And let’s all learn from them 🙂

But first, I’ll tell you that you’re reading a piece written by a guest at the Upriserz event, not an article written by the Upriserz team.

So, in the following lines I want to show you what were the top 4 subtle marketing lessons from the Upriserz event that as the founder of Crossline Marketing Agency and co-founder of Simplizi (the first marketing template library) I appreciated.

I invite you to read on if you attended the Upriserz event (to see if you also noticed these free and very cool lessons) and if you didn’t (to make up for what you missed:)

A little context

The Upriserz event was held for 2 years online, we already know why.

Of course no one wanted a pandemic, least of all the Upriserz team, but there’s no denying that the absence of the live event has made the 2023 edition highly anticipated.

Nearly 1,400 people were in attendance. 10% of what the online Upriserz community is all about, Lorand wrote in a Facebook post.

There would have been more attendees (the team received applications long after the seats were filled), but that’s how many fit into the room at the Wonderland Resort.

What can you take away from all this?

That scarcity works, especially when it’s not forced or when it’s created so that it’s believable.

Limiting the product or the time it’s available (the Upriserz event is only held once a year; in the last 2 years it’s gone online due to the pandemic) is a powerful way you increase interest.

Now that we have the context, let’s move on to the top 4 subtle lessons from the Upriserz event that I appreciated and want to share with you.

Lesson 1: Put loyalty before vanity

I said above that there were about 1,400 people at the event. When you read that number, there was definitely a reaction.

Either the number pleasantly surprised you or you thought there could have been more people at the Upriserz event.

Just because I want you to see what the number means, I’ll leave you with the image below.

And this one by Sergiu Penciu:

Yes, the hall was full. And although we’re not talking about thousands of people, we’re still talking about a loyal audience. People who came from many counties of the country + those who boarded the plane for the Upriserz.

What to take away:

That it’s not so important to have a community of thousands, more important is the loyalty of your community.

So choose loyalty (devotion) over vanity (big numbers).

And the next time you look at your followers gained for real and it seems to you that a thousand people is too few, please go back to this image.

Lesson 2: Move the spotlight from you to them.

There’s nothing new in what I wrote above, it’s a marketing fundamental. Talk less about you and your brand and more about your audience.

But I appreciated how the Upriserz team did that, in an Upriserz event, where it was easy enough for everything to be…well, about Upriserz.

The first moment was right at the beginning, when Lorand did the little poll, to find out how many people came from the country, how many from the diaspora. (Another one was during the guest premiere).

In that first moment, people in the community felt validation, recognition and a sense of belonging.

Sure, at first glance the survey was meant to break the ice and loosen up the room.

And it did that, along with moving the spotlight to the Upriserz audience.

Lesson 3: Strike while the iron’s hot

Did you check your email during the event?

For those who did, there was the surprise of a message from Adele, the Upriserz Community Experience Officer.

The message was meant to reiterate information about EduTravel, an opportunity presented during the Upriserz event.

Short, to the point, focused on the key information, so as not to get lost.

What we learn from here:

Let’s take advantage of the door we open. To strike while the iron is hot, that is, to make the sale complete when we create the right moment for it.

Lesson 4: Give them the free appetizer and let them buy the main course

The 12 hours of the Upriserz event had a little bit of everything on the Upriserz platform.

Information, inspiration and motivation.

Enough to be appealing and present the product in the best possible way.

Enough to get you to renew your subscription, so you can still enjoy everything you got in the form of a teaser, in the room. 🙂

Lesson to take for your own business, especially if you’re selling a new product, harder to explain: offer something free at the beginning. You’ll simplify the sale.

And since we’re talking about how you make selling easy, I also want to link to something I didn’t appreciate, a gesture that arouses distrust and irritates the public.

That’s spam. Unfortunately one of the participants in the Upriserz event chose exactly this as a method of promotion.

The attendee I’m talking about was handing out business cards during breaks in the event to anyone who passed by on the stairs leading to the hall.

In addition to blocking people’s access, it also caused the specific irritation we get from peddlers.

Of course, everyone chooses the manner of promotion, but personally, I think it’s important to choose actions that place you in the category of So Yes and don’t offend your audience.

Finally, I invite you to include the 4 positive examples in your work and avoid the example of So No!

Either start with one of the examples or schedule yourself to try each one, you’ve already seen how well they can work!

And if your goal for 2023 is to simplify the promotion story and shorten the hours you devote to it in your firm, I strongly encourage you to work with a new marketing product that we launched late last year and for which the feedback is extremely good.

Details about it HERE.

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