{"id":84759,"date":"2026-02-05T16:52:29","date_gmt":"2026-02-05T16:52:29","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/make.wordpress.org\/community\/?p=84759"},"modified":"2026-02-05T18:21:53","modified_gmt":"2026-02-05T18:21:53","slug":"marketing-lessons-from-wordcamp-asia","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/make.wordpress.org\/community\/2026\/02\/05\/marketing-lessons-from-wordcamp-asia\/","title":{"rendered":"Marketing Lessons from WordCamp Asia"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"has-acid-green-3-background-color has-background wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>TL;DR:<\/strong>\u00a0An experimental one-week burst-fire promotion for <span tabindex='0' class='glossary-item-container'>WordCamp<span class='glossary-item-hidden-content'><span class='glossary-item-header'>WordCamp<\/span> <span class='glossary-item-description'>WordCamps are casual, locally-organized conferences covering everything related to WordPress. They're one of the places where the WordPress community comes together to teach one another what they\u2019ve learned throughout the year and share the joy. <a href=\"https:\/\/central.wordcamp.org\/about\/\">Learn more<\/a>.<\/span><\/span><\/span> Asia increased traffic and engagement but did not meaningfully change ticket purchasing behavior. The strongest results came from the WordPress News post, followed by Showcase entries and cultural blog content, while contributor stories and standard announcements underperformed. Future event marketing should prioritize well-timed News posts, showcasing sponsors and local WordPress sites, and cultural content.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Hello, Make\/Community readers! <a href=\"https:\/\/profiles.wordpress.org\/bjmcsherry\/\" class=\"mention\"><span class=\"mentions-prefix\">@<\/span>bjmcsherry<\/a> and I have been actively involved in the promotion and marketing of flagship WordPress events (WordCamp Asia, WordCamp Europe, WordCamp US, and <span tabindex='0' class='glossary-item-container'>State of the Word<span class='glossary-item-hidden-content'><span class='glossary-item-header'>State of the Word<\/span> <span class='glossary-item-description'>This is the annual report given by Matt Mullenweg, founder of WordPress at WordCamp US. It looks at what we\u2019ve done, what we\u2019re doing, and the future of WordPress. <a href=\"https:\/\/wordpress.tv\/tag\/state-of-the-word\/\">https:\/\/wordpress.tv\/tag\/state-of-the-word\/<\/a>.<\/span><\/span><\/span>) for the past few years, ensuring that the official WordPress marketing channels (social, email, blogs, livestreams, etc.) deliver relevant event information. We also aim to provide event-to-event recommendations in a world where each event may be in a different location and have a different set of contributors.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">While\u00a0our well-established, long-term drip of event content has effectively garnered attention and engagement, we recently experimented with a burst-fire strategy for WordCamp Asia (WCAsia) to increase urgency, break through the online noise more effectively, and drive additional ticket sales and sponsorships.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Our tactical goal was to make WCAsia content unavoidable by saturating the official WordPress marketing channels, generating conversation online and through word-of-mouth. To avoid completely exhausting our audience and their awareness, the experiment ran from Wednesday, 21 January through Wednesday, 28 January 2026, to maximize our use of mid-week engagement highs. We took the following tactical actions:<\/p>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li>Posting <a href=\"https:\/\/wordpress.org\/news\/2026\/01\/wordcamp-asia-2026\/\">Be Part of WordCamp Asia 2026<\/a> to\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/wordpress.org\/news\/\">WordPress.org\/news<\/a>\u00a0(these posts also appear in WordPress dashboards, are shared in the Make WordPress <span tabindex='0' class='glossary-item-container'>Slack<span class='glossary-item-hidden-content'><span class='glossary-item-header'>Slack<\/span> <span class='glossary-item-description'>Slack is a Collaborative Group Chat Platform <a href=\"https:\/\/slack.com\/\">https:\/\/slack.com\/<\/a>. The WordPress community has its own Slack Channel at <a href=\"https:\/\/make.wordpress.org\/chat\/\">https:\/\/make.wordpress.org\/chat\/<\/a><\/span><\/span><\/span>, and are emailed to News subscribers).<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>Increasing our social posting cadence to 3 posts per day across\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/make.wordpress.org\/marketing\/handbook\/social-media\/\">all platforms<\/a>\u00a0(including video shorts), filling all empty slots (those not taken by other announcements) with WCAsia content.<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>We encouraged others to get in on the excitement, further expanding our reach to other social audiences.<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>Social profile banners were updated to highlight WCAsia.<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>WCAsia organizers made multiple posts to the\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/asia.wordcamp.org\/2026\/updates\/\">WCAsia blog<\/a>, including posts about local restaurants and culture (some of the best-performing content from past events). See <a href=\"https:\/\/href.li\/?https:\/\/asia.wordcamp.org\/2026\/mumbai-on-a-plate\/\">Mumbai on a Plate<\/a>,\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/href.li\/?https:\/\/asia.wordcamp.org\/2026\/namaste-india-guide-to-indian-culture\/\">Namaste India! Guide to Indian Culture<\/a>, and <a href=\"https:\/\/href.li\/?https:\/\/asia.wordcamp.org\/2026\/about-the-venue\/\">About the Venue<\/a>.<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>A reminder email was sent to global WordPress <span tabindex='0' class='glossary-item-container'>Meetup<span class='glossary-item-hidden-content'><span class='glossary-item-header'>Meetup<\/span> <span class='glossary-item-description'>Meetup groups are locally-organized groups that get together for face-to-face events on a regular basis (commonly once a month). Learn more about Meetups in our <a href=\"https:\/\/make.wordpress.org\/community\/handbook\/meetup-organizer\/\">Meetup Organizer Handbook<\/a>.<\/span><\/span><\/span> participants.<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>Reminder emails were sent to past WCAsia attendees.<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>Two new Showcase entries from India were published and promoted on social platforms: <a href=\"https:\/\/href.li\/?https:\/\/wordpress.org\/showcase\/tata-motors\/\">Tata Motors showcase<\/a> and\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/href.li\/?https:\/\/wordpress.org\/showcase\/prime-minister-of-india\/\">Prime Minister of India showcase<\/a>.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\">Outcomes<\/h2>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">The following data is from Wednesday 21 January through Thursday 29 January 2026, and sourced from Jetpack and the internal ticket reports on <a href=\"https:\/\/href.li\/?https:\/\/asia.wordcamp.org\/2026\/\">asia.wordcamp.org\/2026\/<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li><strong>Views: <\/strong>15,406 (+46%)<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li><strong>Visitors:<\/strong> 5,408 (+83%)<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li><strong>Tickets sold: <\/strong>49<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n\n\n\n<h3 class=\"wp-block-heading\">Insights<\/h3>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Here is what we observed on the course of the experiment:<\/p>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li>Overall impact, while comparatively impressive (visitors up 84%), was minimal in absolute terms (roughly 2.4k more visitors). Similarly, while there was a spike in ticket sales (49 tickets sold) compared to recent weeks in January, average weekly ticket sales since October were 69\/week. We did not radically shift purchasing behavior.<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>The biggest impact appears to coincide with the publication of the\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/href.li\/?https:\/\/wordpress.org\/news\/2026\/01\/wordcamp-asia-2026\/\">Be Part of WordCamp Asia 2026<\/a>\u00a0News post, and its subsequent social and email campaigns. Other timely, broad-appeal content performed well (high views and engagement) during this period:\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/href.li\/?https:\/\/wordpress.org\/showcase\/tata-motors\/\">Tata Motors showcase<\/a>,\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/href.li\/?https:\/\/wordpress.org\/showcase\/prime-minister-of-india\/\">Prime Minister of India showcase<\/a>,\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/href.li\/?https:\/\/asia.wordcamp.org\/2026\/things-to-do-in-mumbai\/\">Things to do in Mumbai<\/a>,\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/href.li\/?https:\/\/asia.wordcamp.org\/2026\/mumbai-on-a-plate\/\">Mumbai on a Plate<\/a>, and\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/href.li\/?https:\/\/asia.wordcamp.org\/2026\/about-the-venue\/\">About the Venue<\/a>.<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>Standard announcements (calls for organizers\/volunteers, ticket announcements, etc.) and contributor stories did not perform well, and in fact performed below baseline performance for content. The poor performance of contributor stories also aligns with that of the now-discontinued <a href=\"https:\/\/wordpress.org\/news\/category\/interviews\/\">People of WordPress series<\/a>.<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>The channels driving\u00a0the most traffic\u00a0to the site were, in order: Search, Facebook, LinkedIn, X, and Instagram. Compared to the previous week, LinkedIn and X were the standout platforms during this experiment.<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>Social engagement rate dropped, as expected, but total engagement did increase, suggesting that we were not algorithmically punished for the increased posting cadence during this experiment.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n\n\n\n<h3 class=\"wp-block-heading\">Actions<\/h3>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Here is what we\u2019ll be recommending to organizers of flagship WordCamps in the future:<\/p>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li>Saturating our channels had little impact, so we should maintain our typical posting cadence (I.e., posting more will not meaningfully increase ticket sales; event <em>awareness<\/em> is not holding event <em>attendance<\/em> back).<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>Attention and contributor time are limited resources. I recommend that unpopular content, such as contributor stories, be adapted or dropped. There may be an opportunity or audience for this content if we shift focus to the work\/contributions rather than the individuals.<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>I suggest that attention be directed to timely, broadly appealing content, such as the cultural blog posts and relevant Showcase entries. These should be produced early (months ahead of the event) and promoted often, communicating the spirit of the location and the event. Calls for volunteers and organizers can be bundled, rather than released in stages, and then announced in a WordPress News post.<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>For WordPress News, there should 2 News posts in the lead up to the event: 1 post calling for organizers, volunteers, sponsors, etc. early in the planning process, and another post sharing the event, calling for attendees and filling any gaps.<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>While much discussion has been held around <em>marketing<\/em> these events, our thinking should be shifted toward producing a <em>marketable<\/em> event. What performed well here suggests that we should lean into packaging and promoting the venue\/city\/culture, education\/career opportunities, and sponsor\/business connections.\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li><strong>venue\/city\/culture:<\/strong> Cultural posts have repeatedly been well-read, which is understandable given the number of travelers attending the event. These posts create excitement around visiting the host city. It would be worth exploring what kind of relationships could be built with local restaurants and businesses. Marketing not just the event, but the entire experience (inside and outside of the venue), shows promise.<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li><span style=\"margin: 0px;padding: 0px\"><strong>education\/career opportunities:<\/strong>\u00a0The growth of\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/wordpress.org\/education\/\" target=\"_blank\">WordPress education initiatives<\/a>\u00a0and the performance of WordPress content on LinkedIn reinforce<\/span> WordCamps as a place of learning. Adapting the messaging around speakers and talks to focus on their educational value (What will I learn from this speaker?) will likely entice further ticket sales.<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li><strong>sponsor\/business:<\/strong> We\u2019ve seen both Sponsor Hall content at past WordCamps and local showcases perform well. These are strong indicators that sponsors bring not only cash, but life and engagement to the events. Sponsor and comms\/marketing teams should be more closely integrated. Rather than simply announcing sponsors, we should be celebrating them.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\">Other data<\/h2>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">As we continue experimenting with how to promote flagship WordCamps, and WordCamps in general, I\u2019ll share more info here. Once some learnings and practices are well-established, this information will be moved to a more permanent handbook. In the meantime, please use the comments to ask any questions about this experiment or make additional suggestions.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Thanks to everyone who makes these sorts of experiments possible (too many to list). Without all the contributors, organizers, content authors, and designers, all of this wouldn\u2019t be possible.<\/p>\n<nav class='o2-post-footer-actions'><ul class='o2-post-footer-action-row'><li class='o2-post-footer-action'><a href=\"https:\/\/login.wordpress.org\/?redirect_to=https%3A%2F%2Fmake.wordpress.org%2Fcommunity%2F2026%2F02%2F05%2Fmarketing-lessons-from-wordcamp-asia%2F%23respond&#038;locale=en_US\" title=\"Login to Reply\"  class=\"genericon  genericon-reply\"  data-action=\"login-to-reply\"  data-actionstate=\"default\" >Login to Reply<\/a><\/li><\/ul><div class='o2-post-footer-action-likes'><\/div><ul class='o2-post-footer-action-row'><\/ul><\/nav>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>TL;DR:\u00a0An experimental one-week burst-fire promotion for WordCampWordCamp WordCamps are casual, locally-organized conferences covering everything related to WordPress. They&#8217;re one of the places where the WordPress community comes together to teach one another what they\u2019ve learned throughout the year and share the joy. Learn more. Asia increased traffic and engagement but did not meaningfully change ticket [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":227158,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[39,48,1873,24],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-84759","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-events","category-global","category-report","category-wordcamps","mentions-bjmcsherry","mentions-eidolonnight","mentions-unintended8","author-eidolonnight"],"revision_note":"","jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p2U65r-m35","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/make.wordpress.org\/community\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/84759","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/make.wordpress.org\/community\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/make.wordpress.org\/community\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/make.wordpress.org\/community\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/227158"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/make.wordpress.org\/community\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=84759"}],"version-history":[{"count":11,"href":"https:\/\/make.wordpress.org\/community\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/84759\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":84776,"href":"https:\/\/make.wordpress.org\/community\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/84759\/revisions\/84776"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/make.wordpress.org\/community\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=84759"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/make.wordpress.org\/community\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=84759"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/make.wordpress.org\/community\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=84759"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}