Event planning is an award-winning yet a very hectic task. Event planners often look out for how-to guides and already designed templates that can lessen the burden on them. The aim of event planners is to achieve the targeted goals and to make the event a huge success with a strategically designed event marketing plan.
Event marketing is an integral part of the event, without which half of the people won’t even know that any event is happening around them.
Organizing business events, exhibitions, and conferences, event organizers try to extend their reach to the audiences of their respective industries and increase the footfall at the event.
Here are a few pointers which will help all the event planners in planning an effective marketing strategy for their events.
Set Achievable Goals and Initiate the Event Marketing Plan
The idea to organize an event must have some thoughts as in what is the aim of telling or discussing with the audiences. Event Attendees always have a question in their head — What’s in it for me? What benefit will I have after attending the event? There must be a value of proposition for them to attend any event.
For the event organizers, the following questions matter the most like What’s the goal of the event? How many event attendees you are expecting? What is the expecting event ROI?
After calculating the approximate answers to the questions, event organizers can set their target goals accordingly and plan the event marketing strategies.
Design Event Website and Event App
What to market? Any event if it is happening must have a visual or a physical proof of it that event planners can market around to spread the word. In the era of event technology, all the events design their websites and most of them even opt for the event apps!
Event websites display all sort of details of the corporate events, meetings, conferences, exhibitions and tradeshows like what is it about, venue, date, time, schedule, speakers, registration platforms, tickets, gallery and so on.
Users can also have a look at the event website to know the details of the event and buy tickets directly from the website once they have browsed it thoroughly.
Event apps on the other hand also play a crucial role as most of the people browse and buy tickets online on their smartphones so an app is a better to-go option. Event app marketing can also get sufficient event attendees.
What’s your Content Plan?
Content is the king of event marketing! Without any form of content, it is hard to market any event. Content does not just include blogs or articles or written form of content but also graphics and videos.
For event marketing at least the strategy must include the following forms of content depending on the type of event:
– Teaser graphics
– Video Content
– Trailer video/podcast
– Flashback from the last event (if any)
– Behind the scene (BTS) images and video bytes
– Interviews or short video bytes of speakers/influencers
“Engagement is the new impressions. It matters as much, if not more than someone’s reach.” — Influencer Marketing Hub
Don’t Forget the Budget!
Not forgetting the Money in Hand, event marketing plan doesn’t just include free marketing strategies. Running paid advertisements, handing out brochures, putting up hoardings, paid social media advertisements. If the event has enough budget to spend on paid marketing, a different strategy layout can be prepared for the same.
There are several event marketing tools that can be purchased and used to its full potential to promote the event.
Email Marketing Strategy Campaigns
Some may say email marketing is outdated and footfall at the event has almost no role with the emails sent out inviting the users to register themselves for the event. If apt email marketing techniques are followed and applied the newsletters and event emails won’t end up in the promotions or spam folders of the receiver.
Designing and strategizing email marketing campaigns must be done smartly to get effective results. Email marketing for events are not just dropping off one email inviting the users to your event but also but involves proper format in which the emails must be sent like first sending off the teasers then registration mail followed by last moment offers and discounts which appeals a lot of audiences. Event organizers often miss out on follow up emails which must be attended and answered.
Some pointers to keep in mind while planning the email marketing campaign for events are:
– When to send emails
– What kind of email to send
– Don’t send too many emails (you’ll end up in the spam folder)
– Filter out the people according to their location and industries to gather around the target audience
Social Media Event Marketing Strategy –
We live in the age of social media, where you can see, post and share everything. Social media marketing can be achieved both organically and through paid means. Different social media platforms have different key sell points like on Twitter hashtags go trending, so use hashtags for the event that have more chances to go trending! LinkedIn is more of a professional platform so it is used frequently to build up professional and business contacts.
Facebook is more social where the attendees can share pictures, videos and stories of the event and gain a lot of attraction. So, strategies will be set according to these points for all the social media. For paid as well the event organizers must think specifically as in what form of content would work on what social media platform.
Event Promotion Strategies
End moment discounts and promotions catch up a lot of attention because for the event attendees it is an attractive offer and they buy off tickets! Other promotional strategies can also be put in use for events like involving some interesting quizzes and online contests where the registered attendees have to share the link of the app or invite friends to the event and in return, they’ll be awarded some incentives.
“People share, read and generally engage more with any type of content when it’s surfaced through friends and people they know and trust.” — Malorie Lucich, Facebook Spokesperson, Source — Hubspot
Bonus: Don’t forget to calculate the event success when the event concludes! The D-day will bring in a lot of views if all the event marketing strategies before and on the event day will be successful.
