Event Marketing: Why Does Your Business Need It
What is Event Marketing?
When putting together your marketing plan, you’ve probably stumbled across the term ‘Event marketing’, but what exactly does that mean?
To make this simple, event marketing is the process marketers go through to curate an event with the sole purpose of promoting a product, service or company. This can take place in the form of online events, exhibits, presentations, sponsorships or even an intimate, dining setting. The goal of the event is to create a memorable experience that resonates with guests and helps them build a positive association with your brand.
How can you benefit from event marketing?
There are many reasons why event marketing is a vital piece of your marketing strategy, from getting new eyes on your products to being face-to-face with your target audience, here are ways in which event marketing can take your business beyond your wildest dreams.
Creating brand awareness: Event marketing is a fantastic way for your brand to be discovered by highly relevant and large audiences. Through delivering a memorable event, attendees will connect, remember and recommend your brand to others. These events are great for launching your brand or if you are in the market, with few connections and are looking for a way to expand and attract new customers.
Social Media exposure: in the digital age, free social media exposure is like gold. Since nearly everyone is online, creating an event can do wonders for reaching large audiences online. It creates a buzz for your brand and increases your reach to brand-new and relevant audiences.
Targeted audiences: Events are designed to be targeted. YOU design who the event is suitable for, allowing you to attract a specific target audience through your planning process. This allows you to reach your ideal customers back and build unforgettable relationships with them.
Face-to-face Marketing: getting one-on-one contact time with your audience is precious and events can do just that. You’ll have the opportunity to interact and engage with your target audience on a personal level, providing an accurate insight into the person behind the brand or company. This helps build trust, loyalty and connection with your audience.
Generating Leads: leads… everyone needs them and through event marketing, you can create a generous amount of them. Attendees who interact and are interested in your products are more likely to hand over contact information leading to a brand-new potential customer!
Beat out the competition: Hosting an event will help your business stand out from the marketing competition. It will position you as a leader in your industry.
How to Plan a Marketing Event:
Now that you know what event marketing is, you need to know how to plan it. (Luckily for you we are planning pros!)
When creating an event marketing plan, you need to clearly outline your main goals and outcomes, identify your target audience, plan your specific strategies for a successful event, decide on what channels will be used for marketing (social media, email, paid ads), create a detailed timeline for each step of your campaign and set a clear budget.
Event Marketing Ideas:
Don’t feel overwhelmed at the thought of creating a brand-new, out-of-the-box event. Here are some great options that have worked well across the event marketing industry:
Competitions/giveaways on social media
Monthly e-newsletters highlighting key progress/info on the event
Film a creative video for social media promoting the event. You may want to put money behind this for extra, targeted exposure.
Contacting influencers or other businesses to promote your event
Overall, Event marketing usually involves various activities and lots of planning. When everything is done remember to measure the success of your event through metrics such as attendees, engagement, generated leads and ROI (Return on Investment). These are very important factors in determining whether your campaign has been successful in achieving your outline goals and objectives you set during your planning process.
If you like the idea of planning an event for your business but don’t have the free time to pull it off, our team of event pros would be more than happy to help! Drop us a message or an event submission here!
