Event Marketing - A Solid Strategy & Tips to Help You Out in a Pinch

Are you looking for ways to reach wider audiences? Do you need a proper event marketing plan for your upcoming event?

With some of the event marketing strategies in this blog, you can sustain yourself in today's competitive environment.

In this blog, there is a complete guidebook for advertising your event in the best possible way. Marketing tips, from social media marketing to content creation, find the most effective marketing blueprint for your event with a compilation of actionable strategies for attracting more attendees and engaging more audiences. 

What is Event Marketing?

Events are a good platform to promote your brand and connect with your target audience. Events can also prove to be a good option for generating leads. However, arranging an event is not enough in today’s ever-growing era where competition is becoming harder. Instead, you need to conduct a marketing campaign to promote your event before the event launch.

For many, attending an event can be a refreshing experience that unwinds corporate exhaustion and hits their motivation hormones. However, a saga of event planning goes at the backdrop.

An event takes a lot of effort, from structuring the plan on paper to promoting it on social media platforms. However, event marketing is one of the biggest parts of event planning. 

Event Marketing means spreading the word about an upcoming event. It can include conducting Ads, publishing pamphlets, and collaborating with social media influencers to create awareness about your event.

Via the event marketing, you aim to draw more attendees to your planned event. By event marketing, you reach out to your target audience and tell them about your scheduled event. 

Why is Event Marketing Important?

When planning an event, you must have heard of event marketing and its impacts on its success. Event marketing has emerged as a popular marketing strategy and has been in practice for quite a while now. 

Through event marketing, you can create awareness about your brand. When you post on social media and update your audiences via Email marketing, more people will learn about your brand and your product. 

Furthermore, through event marketing, you can leave a lasting impression on the memories and hearts of the attendees. You can maneuver your image among the attendees by communicating your mission and vision, your products, and your services to your audiences in an impressive and lasting manner.

In addition, event marketing boosts sales and customer trust. By conducting an event marketing campaign and creating informative posts on your social media accounts, you draw more people toward the product and build a trusting relationship with your customers.

Hence, event marketing plays a crucial role in boosting sales and fostering a good image of your brand. Through event marketing, you can clear up any confusion about the brand and inform people about its positive aspects.

Types of Event Marketing 

Event marketing can be either B2B or B2C, and it is further branched down to strategic marketing techniques like webinars, online events/virtual events, live streaming events, and hybrid events. We will dive deeper into these marketing strategies in later stages.

When your event marketing targets ordinary people, and your Ad campaigns attract customers online, it is termed B2B event marketing. Meanwhile, B2C marketing is when you arrange an event for only the business community to attract new investors.

Although you can opt for similar marketing channels for both types of event marketing, you may need to change your tone according to the kind of event marketing you are pursuing.

Not only that, the tone of your message should be specific to each event marketing type, and the value proposition should also vary with the class. For instance, for B2B marketing, you can allure your customers by offering more personal propositions. 

Meanwhile, for B2B event marketing, you will have to be more professional. You must be convincing enough for the other business owners to attend your event and contribute to your cost. You can tell them how your event can help them grow their business.

How Does Event Marketing Help Small Businesses?

If you are one of the struggling start-ups looking for more advertisements and marketing opportunities, you should arrange an event. Before you conduct the event, you must market the event as well.

Through event marketing, you can stay connected to your customers and engage with your target audience more effectively. Furthermore, there are many benefits that you can reap after doing event marketing. Here are some of the ways event marketing can help small businesses grow:

Build an Email List

When you market an event and get the registrants' email addresses, you have an email list to target for your branding. The customers registering for your event can imply that they are genuinely interested in your brand and related updates. 

Hence, you can keep these customers on your email list and occasionally get them your brand updates.

Raise Funds

When your event type is B2B, event marketing can bring you a solid investment party. While conducting your event, you can tell these business owners how your brand can become a lucrative investment. That way, you can raise funds for your start-ups and businesses.

Build Customer Trust

Continuous contact with your customers via emails or other social media platforms strengthens your bond with them. 

You are interacting with the customers one-on-one, and it builds good brand rapport among your customers. That way, you can earn the trust of your customers.

For instance, imagine a friend who is open to you about everything they plan to do or tells you every life update. Now, think of a friend on good terms with you, but you are not in continuous contact with this friend. 

Who would you trust more?

That's the case with all businesses; you can earn your customer's trust by staying active and sharing all the updates with them.

Create Brand Awareness

Event marketing is an excellent source of creating awareness about your brand. When you put all your efforts into marketing your event and drawing more attendees, you reach out to more people.

You may introduce your brand to the target audience and share your vision and mission. But for that event to be a success, one thing you need to do is to bring more attendees. This could only be done by event marketing.

When your extensive event marketing campaign brings numerous attendees, there are more ears to pay attention to your brand, its vision, and its mission. Furthermore, with more people in the event, there are increased chances of effective lead generation through these events.

All in all, event marketing offers multiple benefits for start-up owners. These are the direct outcomes of event marketing, from raising accessible funds to increased customer influx to elevated brand awareness. 

It provides enough Return On Investment and builds a good rapport with your target audiences as you connect with them personally.

Strategizing Event Marketing

Your event marketing needs proper planning and a schematic timeline. You start with the core basics of event marketing: knowing your target audience. When you know your target audience, you can streamline or structure your plan on how and where to reach them.

Once you have your target audience in mind, you can fixate on your objective. Knowing your purpose gives you direction and a clearer vision of what you need. The goal will help you with themes, designs, and other event planning and marketing choices.

Here are some of the strategies you can pull to market your event. 

Choosing the Right Event

There are multiple types of events that are conducted and celebrated today. However, when you know your target audience, you can select from among many event types. Also, if you are clear about the aim and mission of your event, you can narrow down the types of events based on your needs and your customer’s desires.

For instance, if you are planning to market an edible product, you can arrange an outdoor event with aesthetic seating and catering services. However, if your audience is a business community, you should then arrange a more formal gathering that has more informative play cards or flexes to convey the message to your customers.

Early-Bird Registration Scheme

To incentivize your customers to register for your event, you can offer them a discount on early registration. This is an effective marketing strategy where more people are registered for your event by offering discounts.

Imagine your supervisor unloading an extra burden off your shoulders. How would you feel? You would be happy and excited at the same time, right? 

When you offer your customers a discount, they see it as an opportunity to avail and get themselves registered before the offer expires. 

You can easily create the registration portal for your event using an application like the Eventify mobile app.

Furthermore, when you offer them a discount, more people register, and you sell more event tickets. There might be people who would otherwise not register themselves. 

Hence, the early bird registration scheme can earn you more customers than otherwise.

Pre-Event Marketing

Before you hold an event, you should conduct a proper pre-event marketing campaign. This can include marketing the event, spreading the word via social media, or informing the people on your email list. 

You must do extensive marketing for your event if you are looking forward to an excessive registration influx. Furthermore, the pre-event marketing will keep your customers updated about the event.

That way, you can raise customer anticipation and make them look forward to your event. As your pre-event marketing continues, interest will grow among customers.

Social Media Marketing

Social media marketing is one of the best ways to market your products and events. Millions and billions of people use social media platforms today, and you can reach out to these people more swiftly and efficiently.

You can opt for multiple options and do the marketing as you like. 

For instance: 

• You can post about your event on Eventify 
• Add a countdown to your stories, and 
• Even collaborate with the influencers. 

When you collaborate with influencers, you can get more clout for your event. Such collaborations help you achieve a registration count. 

Furthermore, you can follow recent trends and upload videos that align with the algorithm of social media apps. That way, your content and advertising posts are visible to more audiences. 

For instance: 

• You can use trending audio and popular hashtags that give your social media content a better reach. 
• Also, you can conduct live streams on social media platforms like Eventify to connect with your target audiences one-on-one and clarify their confusion. 

All these methods will help you better advertise your event and conduct event marketing as best as possible.

Content Marketing

You can promote your event through content marketing, which differs slightly from social media marketing. In content marketing, 

• You can curate blogs that uncover why people should attend your event and how it can impact their lives.
• You can also guest write on other websites related to your niche and attract your target audiences. That way, you will be able to draw their clout to your event as well. 
• Speaking of blog writing, you can also deploy SEO strategies to make your content reachable to more significant audiences.

The aim is to create awareness and market your event through copywriting. You can convince the readers why this event will be their must-to-attend.

Paid Collaborations

Investing your money in marketing the event is a wise strategic step. You can not rely solely on the organic marketing that goes off without any financial investment. However, by doing paid collaborations, you can effectively campaign your event marketing and draw more customers to your event.

You can invest your money in paid social media Ads, Google Ads, and sponsored posts. Furthermore, you can collaborate with social media influencers who can recommend their followers to attend your event. 

That way, you can get instant audience responses, which is otherwise impossible with organic event marketing.

Email Marketing

Email marketing has long been the mainstream marketing option and is still an effective way of selling your products or event tickets. You can do email marketing daily and inform your target audiences about the event you are about to hold.

Furthermore, you can guide them about the registration process and other necessary information that they should know. Likewise, you can email them the early bird offers and keep them updated about the event.

Timeline Your Event Marketing

You should know that timing does play a critical role in a marketing campaign. You should figure out the perfect time to market your event. 

For instance, if your event is about tourism, you should start marketing before the tourist season starts. That way, you can get more attendees to register for your event because the tourism season is approaching.

Pro-Tip 1: Hence, the timing is the key. 

Always intensify your event marketing as the event date approaches. When the days are closer, you must take extensive marketing steps to create a sense of urgency. People tend to register more urgently.

Pro-Tip 2: Furthermore, you should post posts like social media ads and videos when social media surfing is at its peak during the day. For instance, most people prefer to scroll through their social media before sleeping to unwind their daily hectic routine.

In addition, more people are active on weekends than on weekdays because they are busy with their studies or official matters. 

Hence, you must post and conduct ads when social media engagement is higher. 

Pre-Event Planning

Before executing the event planning, you must identify your goals and objectives. You should know what you are trying to achieve and how you will measure your success. 

Furthermore, that way, you will be able to understand whether your goals are realistic or not. 

You can analyze your event planning. Here are some of the pre-event planning analyses you should always consider:

1. Specific: What are your goals?
2. Measurable: How will you measure your success?
3. Achievable: Are your goals realistic?
4. Relevant: Does your event timeline fulfill your marketing goals?
5. Time: How long will it take to plan and conduct the event?

After determining your goals and objectives, you should start marketing your event. The event marketing plan can include multiple steps ranging from regular updates on social media to publishing information in print media. 

Here are some tactics you should deploy to market your event before it goes live.

Share Updates on Media

When you keep publishing news about your upcoming event, the audiences feel the suspense, and there is a sense of anticipation among them. Hence, the pro tip is to keep informing your print media audiences as your event planning progresses. 

In addition to this, you can hold a press conference, as the entertainment media usually does, just before their shows are about to be released. You can indulge the local media and get the word to every corner of remote areas.

Social Media Marketing

Today, there is nothing better than social media regarding marketing. You can go by multiple options, from going live to sharing trending reels based on your event promotion. 

With a massive social media population, you can easily reach a maximum number of people with a single click. Let me take you on a ride into the social media world and introduce you to how you can market your event.

Go Live

Going live, where you can connect with your audiences one-on-one, has recently become a trend. When you connect to your audiences directly, you can more profusely engage them in your event. 

You can clarify their confusion and build brand rapport with customers who are already connected to your events and mission.

Furthermore, going live is an easy way to share information with your customers. It is also a candid means of communicating with the customer on social media. 

When you are candid and more reachable to your audiences, they feel more relatable to you. There, you achieve one of the most crucial marketing targets.

Share Reels

Posting reels and adding viral audio as background music on Instagram is now an advanced way of marketing a product, a brand, or an event. You can use popular hashtags and add captions relatable to the audience. 

Furthermore, the reels should be edited in an aesthetic way that is pleasing to watch and goes viral. When your video meets social media standards, it goes viral, and you can reach a wider audience. 

You can co-relate your marketing to recent trends and make it a hit on social media platforms.

Collaborate with Influencers

One thing that brings results is collaborating with influencers online. These social media influencers have gained their followers' trust through daily content creation. You can use their social media platforms to subtly promote your event.

These influencers can be the mouths that spread the word to the larger group.

1. Landing-Page Advertisements

To advertise your event, you must do such things as creating a landing page for your event. You can also add a pop-up form to your website that takes your viewers to your event information page.

You can also add links on your website that take your viewers to the singing-in page for your event. These landing pages will result in more registrations for your event. 

Furthermore, you should also add a compelling call to action to convince more people to register themselves for the event.

2. Spark Curiosity and Create a Sense of FOMO

You must have heard people saying they have the fear of missing out. This fear can manipulate them into doing things that might not be as worth it. 

By sharing the details of your event and exciting information on Eventify and other social media applications, you can evoke the fear of missing out among your audiences.

Furthermore, you can trigger curiosity among your audiences by giving them hints about your guest list and your plans regarding the event. When you create the buzz and keep people curious, you connect more and more audiences to your event even more deeply. 

Furthermore, you allow people to talk more about your event and spread the word as their curiosity escalates.

3. Assure Quality Time at Your Event

After you have created the buzz and spared curiosity among the audience, you should now meticulously plan and design your event. You should be able to deliver what you promised. When your event offers value to your audiences, it, by default, promotes your brand.

The audiences stay connected to your brand and stay updated about every event you plan afterward. Hence, you must assure your audiences that they will have quality time at your event and make that specific time slot the best for the attendees.

Overall, your event marketing plan should also assure your audiences that the event will meet all their expectations.

Event Launch

You have a lot to manage during the event, from seating to event themes to marketing strategies to catering. However, apart from general management during the event, you must also document your event's highlights through videography and photographs. 

You can record the crucial moments of your event and upload them later on social media platforms. For instance, you can capture the happy moments of your attendees and guests sharing the tips. 

Furthermore, you can snap pictures of the hot spot of your event, such as the selfie spot, the food stall, or your brand stall. 

When the event is over, you can share these clips with the audiences that missed out on it. This will tell those who didn't attend your event why they should attend all your upcoming events. 

Hence, you can extend your event marketing even after the event has passed. That way, you can achieve bigger targets, like generating more leads that help your brand in the long run.

Post-Event Dos

After your event is over, your event marketing should not stop. There are multiple crucial marketing jobs that you must never miss. Simply put, post-event marketing is as essential as pre-event marketing to keep your brand in the limelight. 

Here are some of the post-event dos that you must follow to maintain a good connection with your attendees:

Share the Recording of Your Virtual Events

If you have conducted your virtual event on any online platform, send a recording to your attendees so they can recall what they learned. 

Furthermore, they can share the videos with their friends and spread the word.

Send Thank You Emails

Send Thank you Emails to your customers. These small gestures can do wonders sometimes. When you send your attendees the thank you email, you tell them you value their time and attention. 

Hence, such small efforts can be significant marketing tricks you should always use.

Share Pictures and Videos

Share pictures and videos on social media platforms. As already said, during the event, you must collect some memories and highlights of the event to share with your virtual customers.

Post-event Surveys

Post-event surveys can help you in many ways. You can ask your attendees diverse questions and get their feedback on different aspects of the event. When the attendees share their reviews, you can look into the loopholes that missed your sight and work on these shortcomings.

Furthermore, you can also determine which part of your event has touched your audience more. When you get positive feedback, you can stick to that particular aspect of your event and continue impressing all your forthcoming attendees.

Likewise, your attendees can also help you level up your marketing game. 

• They may come up with ideas that can substantially impact your sales. 
• You can ask for their suggestions and ideas about the event and what they feel was missing. 

As a result, you can get a deeper insight into what your audience expects from you and the needs of the time.

Furthermore, you can also get your net promoter score after the event through this survey. 

• You can calculate your net promoter score by asking your attendees whether they will promote your event in the future. 
• You can ask for the reason as well. For instance, if an attendee agrees to promote your event, you can ask them which factors evoke them to promote your event.

Thus, these post-event surveys can help you arrange events that meet your attendees' expectations and standards. You can better understand your audience and study more profoundly what can be done to engage more audiences. 

Evaluate Attendance and Engagement Rates

You should also keep a record of attendance at your different events. That way, you can keep track of the influx rate graph. You can then evaluate and analyze your events and why an event was a hit or a flop based on the number of attendees. 

You can look into what could be the reason for an event going viral. Also, you can figure out what factor would have led to fewer attendees at your event. 

This gives you the chance for redemption for your prospective events.

Social Media Engagements

You can engage the social media audiences by asking them questions about your stories and getting their suggestions in the comment sections. 

You can ask them what specific thing they liked the most about the event and which parts should be excluded from the plan. You can hold polls on social media for the most and least favorite aspects of your events. 

Furthermore, you can ask the audience to vote for the aspects of the event that they want you to continue with. This will give you a rough analysis of what you must do and should drop for future events.

Event Merches

You can also do post-event marketing by launching marches that refer to some memory from your event. For instance, you can get a highlight of the event printed on the T-shirts and sell them on online selling platforms. 

Merchandise can attract wider audiences and grab the attention of massive numbers of social media users. Furthermore, launching merchandise is a straightforward way of marketing your events wisely. 

You attract meme-lovers, which means an incredibly vast audience when you launch merch for your event. In addition to this, you can also follow these tips to increase the chances of your event: 

1. Stay Focused:

When planning an event, you should be extensively focused on achieving the goals without worrying about the size of the event. Organizing a successful event on a small scale rather than a larger flop is better.

2. Use Online Tools

Work smart when marketing your event and deploy online tools that make event marketing easier. You can use various internet tools, such as email marketing tools and registration platforms, to conduct a successful marketing campaign.

3. Be Creative

When it comes to event marketing, there are no hard-and-fast rules. Use your creativity to plan an event that hits your target audience and is distinctive and unforgettable for them.

 Wrapping Up

There you go! I have provided you with the best tips on making your event known to everyone and ways to engage more and more people. You can adopt diverse marketing strategies before, during, and even after the event.

Starting from simple email marketing to more extensive and effective social media marketing, you can deploy each of these strategies and get your event booked even before the last registration date.

FAQs

Q. What are the 3 E's of Event Marketing?

The 3 E’s of event marketing are Engagement, Experiential, and Entertainment. All these three E’s build the foundation for successful event marketing.

Q. What is Event Management in Marketing?

Event management includes planning the event from logistics to budgeting, vendor management, and mapping an event.

Q. What are the Elements of Event Marketing?

Event marketing relies on five elements, starting with attracting the right audience, choosing the right venue, drawing a larger number of attendees, and building a bond with them.

Do I need a professional event planner?

For larger or more complex events, an event planner can be a valuable asset. They can handle logistics and vendor management and ensure a smooth execution.

What if I'm short on time for planning?

Even with limited time, you can still succeed. Focus on a smaller, targeted event, leverage online tools for registration and marketing, and prioritize creativity to make your event unique and memorable.

What are the benefits of event marketing?

Event marketing offers several benefits, including increased brand awareness, lead generation, customer engagement, and even direct sales.

What type of event should I choose?

The ideal event type depends on your target audience and goals. Options include product launches, workshops, conferences, trade shows, or industry networking events.

How can I effectively promote my event?

Utilize a mix of marketing channels to reach your target audience. Social media, email marketing, content marketing, and even influencer outreach can all be valuable tools.

Do I need a professional event planner?

For larger or more complex events, an event planner can be a valuable asset. They can handle logistics and vendor management and ensure a smooth execution.

What if I'm short on time for planning?

Even with limited time, you can still succeed. Focus on a smaller, targeted event, leverage online tools for registration and marketing, and prioritize creativity to make your event unique and memorable.

What are the benefits of event marketing?

Event marketing offers several benefits, including increased brand awareness, lead generation, customer engagement, and even direct sales.

What type of event should I choose?

The ideal event type depends on your target audience and goals. Options include product launches, workshops, conferences, trade shows, or industry networking events.

How can I effectively promote my event?

Utilize a mix of marketing channels to reach your target audience. Social media, email marketing, content marketing, and even influencer outreach can all be valuable tools.