Events are an important part of business growth. They allow an opportunity for business-to-business companies to collaborate. Planning events on a large scale can be a feather in your cap. With a willing and enthusiastic team and clear guidance on event promotion, your event will be successful and talked about.
When it comes to marketing an event, there are different ways to go about it. Through the use of traditional marketing methods, data analytics and new media technology, event marketing is easier to implement across multiple platforms simultaneously and on a larger scale.
Event marketing means promoting a brand, product or service by participating in or attending events. It helps in building relationships between partners and educates them about your product. Event marketing can also help in acquiring customers, partners, leads, etc.
Event marketing also establishes an online presence for the company that raises business awareness and higher outreach. An integrated marketing strategy is vital to increasing attendance and building the right buzz.
Event marketing plan
Marketing for an event is a costly affair. That’s why it is important to strategize for it. Identify your budget, goals, and a promotion plan for the event. Events can add to the sales pipeline, help boost morale, promote a product, introduce a service, and assist in achieving any goal. By emphasizing a goal, you can plan your promotional activities around it.
The marketing plan for an event depends on three main things—understanding the event basics, knowing the event, and promoting the event:
Understanding the event basics
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Event name
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Purpose
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Type (in-person, virtual)
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Theme
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Tagline
Knowing the event
Understanding your event thoroughly is the most important step. Once you have that locked, you can then pay attention to the theme, tagline, etc.
Promotions
Event planning and event marketing go hand-in-hand. As soon as the event details have been hashed out , your marketing should begin . Without a brilliant promotion strategy, people won’t know about your event.
Types of event marketing
It is difficult to pinpoint exactly what comes under event marketing. It is a broad term. For some people, it is a promotion for the event; while others consider it a strategic use of events to market a product or service. To make an event successful, you need airtight planning in place. Before it goes live, you have to get the word out about it. It needs to be packaged well, create a buzz, and reach the right audience in order to get them to sign up.
You should make use of every avenue possible to get the best results. Use a combination of content marketing, social media, and email marketing to spread the word about the event online and to establish a presence. Start the marketing several months before the event, continue during the event, and also persist in marketing, still, after the event.
In this article, we have highlighted all the important elements to consider when marketing an event. Marketing and promotion for the event can be broken down into a more manageable plan with the following considered:
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Website construction
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Email marketing
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Social media marketing
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Ads and paid promotions
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Cross promotions
Website construction
In the digital and social media age, not having an event website is unheard of. Create a website that corresponds to the event’s theme. Your event website will be the first place your attendees turn to for more information. The website will have critical information that will lead potential attendees to register for the event. Setting up a stand-alone website for your website will help you in branding the event. All the descriptions and the content on it should be SEO-friendly, so it will rank better. Come up with a domain name and build a design around your theme.
There are two types of event websites you can build:
If your event is for a day, the registration website is the one you’ll want to create. They are perfect for short events, one-day events, virtually-held events, and more. They require less information and include a call-to-action for signing up for the event.
For more complex events, a marketing website is perfect. These events last longer than one day, are expected to have more attendees, are hybrid and need multiple pages for more extensive information. Multiple pages are necessary to give your attendees a lot of much-needed information.
Curate this website with different types of content like blogs, videos and photos. Adding your speaker’s bios and photos will draw people to your event like a magnet.