Event Marketing

10 Event Marketing Examples to Nail Your Upcoming Event

Eventually Learning Team

Event marketing is one of the effective methods to reach out to the existing clients, new prospects, or your target audience in order to create new acquaintances and provide them the learning opportunities about the products and services of your company, through exciting experiences. It helps to create brand awareness and is an innovative means to roll out the information about the launch of latest products, tools, or services. According to a survey conducted by Allied Marketing Research, the global events industry is expected to reach $1,552.9 billion recording a CAGR 11.2% from 2021 to 2028. The demand of business globalization and advanced promotional techniques to reach the prospect clients has boosted the growth of the global event industry. You can either host, participate or sponsor an online/virtual, in-person and hybrid (an amalgamation of online and in-person campaigns). Based on the survey by Bizzabo in 2020, a majority (80.2%) of event organizers have been able to reach a wider audience with virtual events, post pandemic. In this article, we will discuss some of the successful event marketing examples both virtual and in-person that has been referred from pre and post pandemic era that will motivate you to create a stellar plan for your next event.

But before we start, there are some of the significant things about event marketing that you need to know. It is essential to recognize the imperative steps to develop a successful event marketing strategy and the reason why event marketing is becoming a popular means to outnumber traditional advertising and promotional activities.

1.1 How to Develop an Event Marketing Strategy?

Once you decide to host an event for the latest product launch of your company, or even spread the news about the additional lucrative services that you are going to add henceforth, you need to follow a tactical approach. Here are some effective measures that you can incorporate to develop a successful event marketing strategy:

  • Research to predefine the Goals/Timeline/Budget for the Event- Extensive market research on the potential consumers is important to understand their demand. It directly influences the goal- setting, timeline-mapping and budget-fixing of an event. Without thorough analysis, your strategy can get misdirected and fail to meet the desired objectives.
  • Create An Event Content Strategy- After the research is done, the goals are set and the timeline and budget are fixed, it is the time to prepare the marketing content for the event. An effective marketing content is required to highlight key messages, such as the benefits of attending the event, keynote speeches, etc. You can also add the testimonials or a video from a previous event to attract the consumers with a reference. Preparing a content plan is the booster to retain the momentum of the event. You must have a robust content management plan before you move ahead to create an event website, app, and start promotion.
  • Develop An Effective Event Website/App- An event website/app is the platform where your target audience convert to actual customers. Hence, it should be considered as one of your most important fragments of marketing collateral. A robust and user-friendly event website with optimized content can maintain the enthusiasm for the actual event. Thus, investing time and effort for building an event website is noteworthy if you wish to get benefit from event marketing. Maintaining consistency in the GUI will attract the prospects and keep the event details the minds of website visitors.
  • Implement Attribution Models and Metrics – Event Attribution Models helps you to determine the ROI against the investment for the event. Not always monetary, but the ROI’s can be the leads generated from registrations, number of social media impressions, number of website visits for the event page, revenues from sponsorships and partnerships, and more. Hence, to perfectly measure the ROI of the campaign, you should implement the right metrics. Alongside, implementing an event marketing attribution model is also important to track down the participants and initiate follow ups and crack the code to understand, how to develop an event marketing strategy.
  • Set A Right Promotion and Engagement Tactics- Once your event campaign is ready get launched, promoting it is crucial so that the people get to know about it. It will help them to learn about the products or services, offers, and more. Social Media tactic, email marketing, paid advertising are a some of the widely used promoting methods of an event. According to a study by the B2B marketing company, Markletic, 60% of marketers use social media for event registration for online events.

1.2 Importance of Event Marketing

Event Marketing is getting popular with every passing day and you can rely on it for any sort of promotion of your brand. Events give you a key opportunity to build relationships and trust with a potential customer by communicating with them directly. Apart from brand building, event also help to generate leads before, during, and after the event, that helps to increase the pipeline value for new customers. Additionally, event marketing can help to promote a specific product/feature/services and increase overall customer satisfaction, retention, and engagement. A survey by Harvard Business Review Analytic Services states that 93% of the respondents say their organizations place a priority on hosting events, while 57% who give it a high priority. Nearly 85% say their organizations prioritize on sponsoring events.

2 10 Best Event Marketing Examples

This list of some of the top examples of event marketing help you to analyze the fact that why marketers have shifted their focus to host an event. By referring to these examples you can easily draw an inspiration to optimize your marketing strategies with creative engagement and brand visibility through your next event, be it virtually, in-person or hybrid.

2.1 Google I/O Webinar

Webinars are the virtual events hosted on a digital platform for live streaming of the activities such as lecture or seminar or conference.  This type of event allows the participants to curtail their travel cost and save on their company budget, while getting involved with event.

In 2019, at Google I/O, organizers used a 360-degree camera to record the event so that the virtual participants could attend it live from all over the world. They also hosted the recordings on YouTube, to make the whole process free and easily accessible. Although it was an in-person event, the option of online access made it few of the most successful virtual events for the enthusiasts who could not physically make it to the event. However, this year Google I/O was completely organized as a virtual event because of the on-going pandemic.

2.2 Planet IMEX Virtual Exhibition

Every marketer is aware of the exclusive events hosted by IMEX-International Machine Tools Expo. It is the hub for all the participants to meet, learn and share experiences. Their grand bi-annual exhibitions are one of the outstanding event marketing examples.  Their Frankfurt or Las Vegas event is on the bucket-list of numerous marketers.

However, after the pandemic has struck the world devastatingly, preference towards hosting virtual events has increased.  According to EventMB, 73% of the marketers have been able to successfully pivot their event to virtual. IMEX also followed the suit and designed a virtual learning hub, providing insightful content throughout the majority of 2020.

IMEX created an exclusive 3D platform consisting island-theme with oceanic sounds and colourful, interactive features. They hosted the blogs podcasts and videos in the three separate islands, and additionally a distinct 'island sounds' DJ mix. They also created a news and podcasts hub to keep the guests updated. They launched the platform with a 3-day conference packed with conferences on relevant and exciting topics by top speakers, along with several social events to conclude every day

2.3 HTC Vive XR Suite Virtual Product Launch

The famous Taiwanese electronics company HTC Corp hosted one of the most successful virtual events to welcome their “Vive XR Suite” to announce the official release of this outstanding product. The five different VR applications launched by HTC have been specifically designed to measure the uncontrollable lifestyle challenges of the post-pandemic era.

HTC is well-known for its virtual reality headsets. Hence, their virtual product launch was held on their own VR application. It allowed participants from all around the globe to attend it as avatars in an immersive space. Attendees were overwhelmed to have such a unique experience.

2.4 IBM Think 2020 Virtual Conference

It is one of the successful virtual events around the world, which was hosted by IBM. Think 2020 event was an outstanding combination of live-streamed video content, communicating sessions and certifications, and locally hosted events, which highlighted the company’s technology and industry proficiencies for their in-house members and clients without the risk of travel.

Participants could learn about the latest developments in open technologies from hybrid multi-cloud to data and AI. Live interaction session with the leaders helped the attendees to know more about the technological advancements through transformation, automation and modernization.

2.5 Oracle Code One User Conference

Conferences are the official assembly of thought leaders, market influencers, and industry icons. Generally, it is comprised of explanatory contents to share best practices that includes around one or two themes within an industry. Typically, conference participants get an opportunity to attend special guest lecturers and networking sessions.

At Oracle Code One (formerly known as JavaOne) in 2019, programmers across the globe participated in the environmental event. They emphasized on the fact that how to develop an event marketing strategy to ensure optimum benefit from it. As part of their “green” initiative, they included an eco-friendly menu, carbon footprint reduction sessions, and the option for participants to donate food and materials to the charity. Thus, Oracle perform dual duty through their conference event- promoting their brand values and spreading environmental awareness. However, they also adopted the virtual way post pandemic.

2.6 Red Bull Stratos Brand Awareness

Red Bull organized a startling brand awareness event named "Stratos" jump. The company has been pioneering extreme sports coverage since their inception. But in 2012, it took their promotion to the next level to become one of the most famous event marketing examples.

This superterrestrial marketing campaign by Red Bull featured Felix Baumgartner, a skydiver from Austria who collaborated with Red Bull to set the world record for highest skydive from 128,000 feet, about 24 miles above Earth's surface.

For this breath-taking stunt, Red Bull sent Felix up to the stratosphere using a large helium-filled balloon. Red Bull streamed the entire event online, starting from the ascent, getting prepared for the jump and finally the landing safely back on Earth. The video experienced the highest viewing traffic of any live stream ever broadcasted on YouTube. The event helped Red Bull to gain ultimate benefit from event marketing by gaining larger audience who remembered and reminisced over it.

2.7 Lean Start up’s Networking Event

Networking events collaborates people together to explore new connections. These events can be as formal or informal as long as they are in-sync with your brand. In our growing digital world, meetings, whether in-person or virtual are increasingly becoming the best way to expand your network.

The Lean Startup’s conference in 2018, helped them to reap the benefit from event marketing, as they offered inspiring networking events (like an evening at Mob Museum) to promote exceptional guest interactions. Their impressive networking capabilities leveraged the global community as their main theme. They also offered a recurrently updated public guest list to ensure that attendees find like-minded individuals when they arrived.

2.8 The Glassdoor’s Team Building Event

Team building events hosted to bring the employees of an organization on a single platform. It helps them to bond well and generate a good rapport with their colleagues which they would not get to explore amidst their daily busy schedule. These are the event marketing examples that are often fun and motivational, focusing on particular skill building activities that promotes the brand amidst the potential employees.

Glassdoor’s Board Game Tournament was one of the notable team building activities, where the participants got to interact with their colleagues whom they never had met before. While playing games like Jenga and Boggle, a friendly competition opened avenues for co-workers to bond.

2.9 Refinery 29 Experiential Marketing

Lifestyle brand Refinery29 has hosted the 29Rooms event. They called it as "an interactive funhouse of style, culture, & technology." It consists of 29 individually branded and curated rooms to offer unique experiences to the attendees. The rooms are designed and created with brand partners, who included famous artists and musicians, to consumer-oriented companies like Dunkin' Donuts, Dyson, and Cadillac, which helped to augment the target audience. The event was creative and the experience for the attendees were memorable.

Thus, Refinery 29, with their experiential marketing strategy could successfully promote their brand value and highlight the importance of event marketing for the companies.

2.10 3D printed Oreos Live Event

The 3D printed Oreo from the vending machine, which allows people to create their own Oreo cookie on real time, based on the social media trends, was a part is part of the company's goal to bring "related experiences" to consumers through its products. Named as “Trending Vending”, the simple customization of the product attracted the crowd and got an amazing brand recognition for the company.

It proved the importance of event marketing and what an advanced idea can do to enhance the brand value.

3 Important Takeaways for the Marketers

In a nutshell, here are some of the common takeaways for you amidst these successful event marketing examples that you can apply to your next event.

  • Host an event based on you’re the interest of your target audience. No guesswork but do actual research and assess to get clues what event you should consider hosting for clients and prospects.
  • It is important to understand that why should you host this event. Even if your event is aimed to provide a fun and memorable experience, make sure it hits the target perfectly.
  • Incorporate your brand’s values into every event you host. To make your event successful, you should use your company’s vision to create truly exclusive experiences.

Now, you are ready to host an awesome event and to add-value to your brand and gain awesome benefit from event marketing. If it is too confusing you can get an event marketing planner to do it for you. Simple!

FAQs

1 What is the importance of event marketing?

Event Marketing is getting popular for the companies as they can built the brand awareness, promotion of the products and services. It also gives the opportunity to build relationships and trust with a target audience by establishing a direct communication thread.

2 What are the benefits of event marketing?

Some of the benefits of event marketing include the following:

  • Helps in generating brand value
  • Advertising about the products and services
  • Lead generation for prospect customers
  • Customer Engagement

3 What are the common types of event marketing?

Few of the common type of event marketing are:

  • Conferences
  • Trade shows
  • Seminars/Webinars (when hosted online/virtually)
  • Popup shops
  • Launch parties
  • Networking get-togethers
  • Community events
  • Workshops
  • VIP Events
  • Awards and Recognition

4 What are the latest trends in event marketing?

Implementing multichannel marketing, switching to an experiential effort, delivering customer satisfaction, leveraging the power of advanced technology, and prioritising sustainability and disaster management are the latest trends of event marketing.

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