The goal of every creative entrepreneur is to grow their brand, business, and impact.
With limited time and resources, it can seem hard to plan and execute a successful events strategy so you can drive brand awareness and increase sales, but that doesn’t have to be the case for you.
Oftentimes, it just comes down to outdated strategies. Which means what worked yesterday won’t work today.
Maybe you’ve been running the same type of event for years OR have never hosted an event before and are wondering if it’s still effective, especially with how virtual everything has become.
It can make you feel uncertain and confused about whether events are even a good idea for your business.
Today, you’re in luck! I’m going to share the event marketing process that will help you plan amazing events, execute them flawlessly, and boost engagement without wasting time and money.
I’ll cover the different types of event marketing, how it works and how you can get started.
Keep reading for more details.
What Is Event Marketing?
Event Marketing aims to promote and execute live events that engage an audience and meet business goals. It encompasses the planning, promotion, and measurement of events like conferences, trade shows, webinars, art shows, and experiential marketing activations. The purpose of event marketing is to attract and create genuine connections with potential customers.
Event marketing provides direct access to your target audience in an interactive setting.
It builds brand awareness, nurtures relationships, and generates leads and sales. When done right, events create lasting memories and advocacy for your brand.
Download now: The Ultimate Virtual Event Planning Checklist
Why Is Event Marketing Important?
Statistics show that 74% of consumers feel more positive about a brand after attending a branded event.
In addition to that crazy stat, research shows over 95% of consumers are more likely to buy a product after engaging with a brand at an event or activation (according to Event Stack).
With busy schedules, it can be difficult to grab people’s attention through digital channels alone. Event marketing provides face-to-face interaction to more deeply engage your audience.
By implementing an event marketing strategy, you’ll be able to connect with customers directly. This builds lasting brand loyalty and advocacy.
This way, you will have the ability to showcase your brand personality and products in an experiential setting.
That means you won’t have to rely solely on one-dimensional ads and posts.
Event Marketing Examples
If event marketing sounds overwhelming, I get it.
It takes thoughtful planning to execute successful brand experiences and events.
So I put together the examples below to illustrate different types of event marketing and how they can help achieve your goals
Example #1. Email Marketing
Email marketing is using email campaigns and newsletters to promote your event to past, current, and potential attendees.
By sending a series of targeted emails leading up to your event, you can generate excitement, early sign-ups, and increased engagement from your subscriber base.
Although this may seem like an outdated practice, it’s actually the exact opposite. Email marketing is still one of the highest converting forms of marketing out there with a nearly 40:1 return on investment. This means that for roughly every $1 spent on email, you’ll get a return of $40. Not too shabby.
Plus, it’s a business asset you actually own.
Email marketing provides a cost-effective, automated way to reach fans multiple times leading up to your event.
You can deliver value like exclusive discounts and sneak peeks to incentivize sign-ups and attendance.
That means you have a predictable system to generate excitement.
Example #2. Social Media Marketing
The more creative and relevant content you can post for your audience, the easier it will be to build excitement and engagement on social media.
That’s where social media marketing comes in.
Social media marketing is using organic and paid social media posts to attract new audiences and engage existing followers around your event
For example:
Share Instagram stories showing behind-the-scenes of creating a commissioned art series for a client.
Or run a Facebook contest where people can enter to win free tickets to your event by tagging friends.
The best way to implement this is with a stream of visual content and interactive elements optimized for each platform.
Don’t underestimate the power of behind-the-scenes sneak peeks.
Example #3. Event Website
Your event website is the hub that anchors your marketing efforts and directs people to.
This dedicated site provides all key details like time, location, speakers, schedule, FAQ, and ticketing in one spot.
Although you may already have an overall brand website, having one specifically for your event avoids cluttering your main site.
The event site offers a focused resource where interested attendees can learn more and book tickets.
Make sure it has clear calls-to-action, visuals representing your event aesthetic, and simple navigation.
Tips for Event Marketing Success
Here are a few tips to help you maximize your results with event marketing:
First, focus on your audience
To achieve the best event marketing results, you have to intimately understand and tailor experiences for your target customers.
When you create an event plan strategically aligned with business goals and audience insights, you effectively diversify your marketing efforts.
For example, look at factors like their interests and values to help inform your messaging.
Conduct surveys or interviews to uncover your audience’s needs and preferences. Use this knowledge to shape content and experiences that resonate with them.
For best results, make your event branding and messaging truly reflect what your audience is feeling.
This starts with creating tailored buyer personas to represent your core customer segments.
Ensure your messaging speaks to their pain points and desires.
When done right, your events will feel like a natural, valuable brand experience for attendees.
They’ll feel you really “get” them because you took the time to cater the event just for them.
Related Post: The Perfect Event Strategy To Skyrocket Your Brand Visibility
Next, measure your event’s performance
Don’t let the idea of data scare you. When you track event data and metrics, you can optimize future marketing.
In other words, you learn what works and what doesn’t.
To get started:
- Set measurable goals like attendee registrations (how many registered vs. how many showed up – this is called an attrition rate)
- Track engagement metrics throughout your event (do you have an event hashtag you’re encouraging attendees to use?)
- Analyze post-event data and survey feedback. This one is CRITICAL. You want to ask everyone who attended what their experience was like and then use that to improve future events and experiences.
Finally, promote across various social media channels
Nowadays, people consume content across many platforms.
If you want to maximize event visibility, you can’t overlook cross-channel promotion.
Cross-channel promotion is crucial for several reasons:
- It allows you to reach different audiences where they are already engaged online, expanding your overall reach.
- You can tailor content and messaging for each platform’s strength (visually-focused on Instagram, text & sharing on Twitter etc).
- More touchpoints with your event increases the chances it sticks in people’s minds and prompts them to attend.
- It shows your event is cutting edge and tech-savvy.
Cross-channel promotion helps achieve greater brand awareness, higher engagement, increased ticket sales and greater event success overall.
And if running multi-channel campaigns makes you anxious, consider this: companies see an average 667% increase in event engagement when promoting across at least three platforms.
That means if you don’t do cross-channel promotion, you’re missing out on huge visibility.
One thing you can do is create customizable templates to easily adapt content across channels.
Grab my free Ultimate Virtual Event Planning Checklist here.
Start Event Marketing Today
I hope this guide has provided valuable insights into strategic event marketing.
If you take anything away, remember that events are a powerful vehicle for you to connect with your audience in a tangible, memorable, and highly impactful way.
The best way to build your event marketing presence is to start by defining your goals, then developing experiences tailored for your customers. When they feel seen and heard, it will make sales feel nearly effortless.
So, what do you say? Are you ready to give it a go?
Free Ultimate Virtual Event Planning Checklist
Now that you know the power of event marketing, it’s time to plan your next event.
My Ultimate Virtual Event Planning Checklist includes everything you need to coordinate and promote a highly successful online event across multiple platforms.
This comprehensive checklist guides you step-by-step through planning the logistics, creating content, promotion, rehearsing and more.
It’s designed to help you execute seamlessly and achieve your online event goals.
