Whether its industry specific, for training and awareness or for any other reason, setting up and hosting a successful event takes time and planning. An event might be held in house, at an external venue or online and the flexibility of that arrangement has led to an increase in the number of events on offer across the world.
In such a market it will be no surprise that the key to making your event a success is to ensure it stands out from the competition. Not just in terms of attracting attendees, but ultimately by the quality of the experience. Focusing on the first part of this task, event marketing, today’s blog takes a look at how to get noticed?
Define the target audience
The ideal attendee.
This is not just about gathering basic demographics. Build a persona representative of the typical attendee. What do they eat, how do they spend their spare time, what are their habits, what kind of programmes do they watch on TV, do they use social media and what is the preferred platform, etc. This will give you insights in to how to market to them and how to ensure you provide the kind of experience they will appreciate.
You would do this through analysing your own data on your typical customer and carrying out market research. If you’re interested in attracting a new demographic you will likely need to use online strategies such as targeted advertising with links to surveys or social media polls or a specialist market research agency to conduct the research. This is arguably the most important part of planning for a successful event. If you get an accurate picture of your target attendees’ persona and needs, everything else becomes more straight forward.
Event goals
Why are you hosting an event? Is it for networking, product launch, education, etc? What do you want to achieve? Is it credibility as an expert in your field? Awareness of your brand? Or do you want to build and nurture business relationships with your target market. Whatever your goals, you need to make sure they are measurable for analysis and follow-up after the event.
One method of gathering data for analysis of goals is to provide a feedback form for attendees at the end of the event. A registration form prior to attending will provide important data and possibly a mailing list for follow up.
The marketing strategy
You’ve established your target market, have a clear idea of their behaviour, likes and dislikes and what they need from you. You’ve also clarified what you want to achieve from the event. Its now time to get your message out there and attract the right people.
A marketing strategy will involve choosing the right marketing channels, setting schedules and implementing systems to measure the effectiveness of your marketing approach.
Social media
Your analysis of the average persona representing your target market should help you understand which social media platforms to use. If it’s a new market you’re trying to enter this might involve targeted advertising on the social media platforms instead of just posting on your existing business social media accounts. You can also use social media to gather leads. For instance LinkedIn is set up to facilitate this process.
The content of your posts should be tailored to the average persona of your target market. This might mean video, graphics and interactive content such as polls or games. A call to action should be included. If appropriate you might also include an incentive to share the post or refer a friend.
Influencers on Social Media should be considered if they attract the right demographic. Influencer advertising will also create a buzz around your event. If the event is online you will might want to spread the net as wide as possible to draw attendees from across the globe. Influencer advertising may also be able to deliver this.
Email marketing
Whether you have an existing database of email addresses, you have purchased a list or you have built one, for instance via social media platforms, you need to focus on your email marketing campaign.
Any email marketing campaign must be based on an opted in list of emails if you’re in the UK or EU. You would want to use any additional information that might enable you to categorise your email list to further personalise the message. For instance, if this is a repeat event you would want to acknowledge previous attendance and any feedback people might have provided.
This doesn’t mean you would be sending a separate message to every person on your list. You would just categorise your list by previous and new attendees and in to broad categories according to feedback. People appreciate being listened to and are more likely to recommend attendance to others if their experience is positive.
Any message you write has to be crafted with your target market persona in mind and there would need to be a call to action (CTA) that would encourage a person to register.
Other advertising
Paid advertising has already been touched on with reference to social media but, depending on your target persona, demographics and budget, might involve print media, posters and broadcast media advertising.
Other sources of advertising might include a newsletter and PR articles. Both of which are worth pursuing if they fit your target demographic.
The marketing plan will need to cover pre, during and post event marketing.
- Pre-event marketing will focus on raising awareness of the event and the benefits of attending for your target market. Understanding their needs and conveying how the event would address these is critical here.
- Marketing during the event will focus on covering the event and raising awareness. You want to build credibility and attract future attendees. You want also want to credit any sponsors with this kind of marketing. Try to create as bigger buzz as you can and it will support your marketing efforts both following the event and for any repeat events in the future.
- Post-Event Marketing should focus on posting event highlights on social media and analysing the data to measure the successes of your marketing plan. Any follow-up work with attendees would also be done at this stage.
And finally…
Successfully marketing an event can raise your profile, boast business success and pay for itself many times over. A successful marketing plan will be carried out in close collaboration with the organisers of the event. You need to ensure the message you’re conveying through marketing is delivered by the experience. If you work for a small company or you’re a small business you might be both marketing and organising the event yourself. In this case the synergy between the marketing and the experience is taken care of. If, however, it is another department within the company or you have employed a freelancer or external agency to deal with the organisation side of the work make sure you schedule regular updates and meetings. The rewards for getting the marketing right will be obvious, if you get it wrong the consequences could be costly. Putting in the work beforehand is just good business sense.