The majority of industry professionals say hosting events is the most successful marketing tactic they use today. They dedicate the majority of their budgets to live events, too. As a result, they're able to connect with customers, educate attendees, and generate new leads.
If you're not marketing your upcoming event, however, you could struggle to build awareness.
Here are a few effective marketing event strategies you can use to build a buzz around your next event. With these tips, you can boost admissions and build excitement.
Start marketing as a successful event planner with these tips today!
Establish Goals
Before you start using the rest of these marketing event strategies, sit down with your team to outline your SMART goals. Specific, Measurable, Attainable, Results-Driven, Timely goals will keep you organized.
First, establish a list of goals for planning the event. Then, determine what you want to accomplish through the event.
For example, while planning the event, you might want to focus on:
- Generating awareness about the event
- Attracting potential speakers
- Improving the brand's online reputation
- Answering questions about the upcoming event
- Increasing admissions
As an event planner, you might want to help a client generate sales, brand awareness, or trust. Perhaps the company wants to gather feedback from the attendees.
Select a key performance indicator (KPI) for each goal you develop. Setting KPIs can help you track your progress. Then, break your larger goals into smaller benchmarks.
For example, you might have a SMART goal to increase admissions by 20% in the next month through online advertising. Break that goal down by increasing admissions by 5% each week.
If you're not accomplishing your 5% benchmark, you need to make a change to your marketing strategy.
Establishing your goals will help you determine which marketing strategies you need to accomplish each goal.
Research Your Audience
Before you begin reaching out to customers, you need to determine who they are and what they care about. Focusing on a broad audience will cause you to create broad marketing messages. You might fail to appeal to attendees as a result.
Instead, segment your target audience by creating distinct customer personas. You can define your groups based on:
- Pain points
- Career
- Gender
- Location
- Buying behaviors
- Interests
- Hobbies
- Age
- Education
As an event planner, you can use personalization to appeal to each customer persona. Personalization will help you connect with each group on an emotional level. You can appeal to their needs and interests to draw them to the event.
Make an Event Page
Help more people learn about your event by creating a dedicated event landing page. You can add this page to the company's website or use Facebook. You might consider creating a new website for the event, too.
Make sure the page is solely dedicated to the upcoming event. Visitors might get distracted if they start exploring other pages on the site. You might miss the chance to convert those visitors into attendees as a result.
When creating a website or landing page, focus on improving the user experience (UX). A positive UX can keep visitors engaged and interested. If the site is difficult to navigate, visitors will leave.
As people leave, the bounce rate will increase. A high bounce rate can hurt search engine rankings. Future attendees might struggle to find the site as a result.
You can improve the UX by:
- Increasing load times
- Hiding the navigation
- Using white space to give content room to breathe
- Organizing content with headings and subheadings
- Displaying eye-catching images or videos
- Optimizing for mobile devices
Make sure to add an interesting, compelling description of the event, too.
Provide helpful details like the date, time, and place. Add a countdown banner to the site to leverage the fear of missing out as well.
Then, create an easy-to-use form to generate registrations.
Create Marketing Materials
Help more people learn about the upcoming event by creating eye-catching marketing materials.
First, use email marketing to generate awareness about the event. Reach out to anyone speaking at the event, too. They can reach their existing audience to help you appeal to more attendees.
Start by offering "early bird" registrations at a discounted price to increase attendance. Send an email more than once to remain top of mind.
Then, create print marketing materials. Use a QR code to direct people straight to the website.
Otherwise, start creating promotional products for the upcoming event. Promotional products will help the company remain top of mind after the event takes place.
Remain Social
As you use these marketing event strategies, it's important to keep your audience interested and engaged before the event occurs. Use social media to engage with your audience in real-time.
Consider hosting a live Q&A session once a week. Answer any questions attendees have.
Otherwise, use polls, quizzes, and infographics to keep people engaged. Consider hosting a contest to raffle off a prize or free tickets.
Before the event, create a dedicated, branded hashtag people can use. Add the event hashtag to your posts.
Consider scheduling posts ahead of time to keep people interested as the event date approaches.
Send a Release
As a New York event planner, you likely know the power of press release marketing. Use industry and trade associations to build a buzz for the upcoming event. Press releases will help you inform relevant people, allowing you to boost admissions.
Consider attending a conference for event professionals to find new ways to improve your game as well.
Start Engaging
Over 90% of event marketers say their companies prioritize hosting events. Another 95% say live events give the opportunity to form in-person connections. You can also forge those connections before the event.
Keep your audience continuously engaged. Answer any questions people have. Follow-up with the connections you start building, too.
Building a Buzz: Easy Marketing Event Strategies for Your Next Event
These marketing event strategies can help you build a buzz for your upcoming event. With these tips, you can become a more effective event planner. People might become more aware of your event services as you create successful events, too.
Start planning your next event with these marketing tips today.
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