Event marketing is the practice of promoting your brand at trade shows, conferences, business gatherings, and other types of events. It is one of the oldest marketing approaches still in use, and it has lost little of its effectiveness over time.
The secret behind event marketing is live communication. Holding in-person conversations with clients, customers, and members of the general public will help you humanise your brand, raise awareness about your products and services, and boost your industry authority.
Event marketing provides a wide variety of strategies and tactics for achieving these goals, making it somewhat difficult to learn and implement for newcomers. If you would like to give event marketing a try, but are unsure where to start, take a look at our list of top 5 event marketing ideas in the remainder of this post.
1. Create Event Ambassadors
Events represent a great opportunity to expand the size of your existing audience. The easiest way to accomplish this is to use a ticket boost campaign. Whenever you sell a ticket, you can prompt the buyer to share the event online in exchange for a discount. You can take things a step further by creating additional discount tiers. For instance, sharing the event on social media would net attendees a 10% discount, posting a selfie with the event hashtag would add another 10%, and so on.
2. Use High-Quality Promotional Photos
Event marketing is very efficient at converting attendees into customers and clients, provided you can get them to attend your event. And few people would decide to come to your event without some convincing upfront. One of the best ways to give attendees a taste of what they can expect at the event is to hire a professional photographer to take some high-quality pictures. A high-quality photo will set the tone and atmosphere for your event, providing attendees a glimpse of the proceedings in advance.
3. Get Help from an Event Planner
Organising an event is a complex endeavour. At the very least you will have to find an appropriate venue, create brochures, promote the event online, manage the proceedings on site, and do all of the above while interacting with attendees. And when things inevitably get hectic, you will get pushed to your limits to make everything work. This is why it’s recommended to bring some help aboard by hiring a professional event planner. An event planner can help you tackle difficult and time-consuming tasks, giving you more time to interact with attendees.
4. Be Transparent about Sponsors
Showcasing event sponsors is an integral part of event marketing. Letting attendees know more about your sponsors will make your event more transparent, and it will make your brand appear more trustworthy. The best way to introduce attendees to sponsors is to create a sponsor spotlight on social media. Introduce each brand in a post containing a short description and an explanation for why they chose to sponsor the event. This will make it easier for attendees to align their values with those of your sponsors.
5. Set up a Wi-Fi Hotspot
In addition to more general strategies, event marketing has its share of practical tricks to keep attendees engaged. One of them is setting up a Wi-Fi hotspot at the venue and its surroundings. Ensuring that every attendee has stable internet access at the event is a great way to generate a positive buzz around your brand. If you wish to grow your email subscriber list, you can also set up a custom login page where attendees can exchange their email address for internet access.
Conclusion
Event marketing remains one of the most effective marketing strategies today. It is flexible enough to be used by businesses of all sizes, and you can easily customise it to fit your specific business needs. The ideas we have outlined represent just a small sample of tactics you can use. Give them a try, and see their effectiveness in action.
Guest post courtesy of Michael Deane
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