Event Marketing: Everything you Need to Know

Event Marketing is one of the most beneficial tools for businesses to bring audiences together under one roof. Whether it’s for the purpose of education, entertainment, or the creation of engagement, event marketing is crucial at every point.

With the increase in the adoption of social networks, the competition is getting tougher. In this regard, this blog is all about detailed insights into effective Event Marketing. In addition to this, we’ll explore every aspect, which will promote innovative ways of running marketing campaigns and much more.

A Quick Intro to Event Marketing

In simple terms, event marketing refers to making a strategy for effective engagement with the audience or customers during the event. The event varies, as does the audience. For example, hosting trade shows, exhibitions, webinars, etc. requires a lot of effort to create the best environment. However, hosting different audiences for these events might be puzzling for the creation of an effective marketing campaign.

Herein lies the role of event marketing tips and ideas. With the selection of the right strategy by the event planners, making connections with the audience becomes easy. 

“Overall, Event Marketing is all about the creation of an effective marketing plan for gaining the audience’s attention and generating traffic as well as revenue through it.”

Event Marketing: What Makes It Unique

Most of the time we see ads running on televisions or just before playing any Youtube video, and we just skip it when possible. This can be defined as one-way communication with the audience, in which they are just spectators to what has been shown to them.

Most of the time, your audience forgets the purpose of those ads or reactions. In this regard, Event Marketing comes into play. It allows two-way communication with the audience, which is crucial for helping them remember your brand or services for a longer duration. With the advantage of building in-personal relationships, making authentic connections, creating networking opportunities, etc. Event Marketing Campaigns are very effective. In addition to this, below are some of the quick points that make them a feasible option for businesses – 

• Brand Awareness is very important for the audiences to make them aware of your product or services. The more credible your brand is, the more the chances of revenue generation.

• Brand Engagement is also very crucial for interacting with your service by the audience. This boosts the chances of familiarity with your services for the audiences. Ultimately, everything leads to making your brand or service popular.

• Top-quality leads are the best revenue opportunities for any business. In addition to this, it can only come from the audience which turns out to be your potential customers.

• For achieving multiple growth goals, effective planning along with the right platform is very important for the business.

Some Prominent Benefits of Event Marketing

Here are some of the benefits of Event Marketing which will broaden your knowledge about the diverse nature of these strategies – 

Lead Generation 

By hosting events according to the right marketing strategy, you can reach out to the target group of audiences in the easiest possible way. However, content delivery and quality are equally important for making them your potential buyers. An effective marketing plan involves one on one interaction with the audience for the best outcomes.

Increase in ROI

Marketing ROI is very important to analyze the performance of your brand or service among the global audience. In addition to this, the ROI can be effectively increased by cross-selling your products to your potential customers. 

An increase in the audience count for your event along with more people clicking on the registration pages are also important parameters that can affect the overall ROI of the event.

Getting Feedback 

With the help of some professional event platforms, you can get real-time feedback from the audience. After all, feedback is important for the growth and development of the business or service. An effective marketing plan will let you analyze the areas of concern and provide handy tips for effectively managing your mistakes.

Increase In Brand Awareness

By using event marketing, you can increase the credibility of your brand. After all, with the trust of many sponsors, you can widen your customer base. In addition to this, with event platforms, you can share the link of your event on leading social media platforms like – Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, etc.

Additionally, event marketing also allows you to make yourself visible to the audience by hosting a wide variety of sessions that can be fruitful for your brand.

Working Procedure Of Event Marketing 

Before proceeding further, it is very important to know how this works exactly. This section will give you an idea of the workings of an effective marketing strategy. The process has been explained in easy steps below – 

• Selection of the Target audience for your event 
• Framing the Event Agenda is crucial 
• Selection of Keynote speakers or presenters for your event
• Audience interaction is very beneficial 
• Networking Possibilities

It’s time to discuss the above points in detail for better understanding – 

Selection of the Target Audience for Your Event 

Identifying the right audience for your event will definitely make your job easier and smoother. Similarly, if your target audience has been chosen randomly, then there are chances that you might not be able to deliver what you think and what they might be expecting from the session.

In addition to this, an effective event marketing plan also ensures sending personalized emails or invitation messages to your target audience. This will help in building strong connections and global audience reach.

Framing the Event Agenda is Crucial 

Structuring your event can increase the audience count for your event. By creating a space for the audience to pick up the format they want, you are making them reliable in your way of content delivery.

With the inclusion of keynote speeches, leadership panels, expert battles,and chat rooms your attendees will witness something unique and different from your event. In addition to this, by knowing what’s next, your audience will get excited to watch their favorite sections.

Selection of Keynote Speakers or Presenters For Your Event

It should be kept in mind that, without the selection of any event marketing ideas, your session can turn into a boring lecture for your target audience. By inviting their favorite speakers to the session, you are providing what they need the most.

This will turn out in creating the best interactive atmosphere between your target audience and key speakers. In addition to this, it is very crucial for expressing thoughts, putting forth opinions, and consuming the best content from the audience’s point of view.

Audience Interaction is Very Beneficial

After all, it’s the engagement that pays you off. Audience engagement is beneficial for multiple reasons. These can be the smooth delivery of valuable content and information, popularizing your content at a global level, attracting more viewers with similar tastes or interests, etc.

In addition to this, engagement can be enhanced with the use of some professional event platforms such as Mixhub, Zoom, Google Meet, etc. These platforms are loaded with immersive features such as live polling, real-time interaction and feedback, post-event analytics, Q&A sessions, and much more.

Networking Possibilities

Strong networking creates a roadmap for your future events. The person who’s in love with your content or service will come again to watch your future events. Strong networking also dives deeper to unlock a higher level of understanding between individuals.

Try to allow your attendees to organize 1:1 meetings, where the offer meets the demand. Even the landing pages for registration can do the same for you. These forms consist of interest areas, likes and dislikes, etc., for getting perfect knowledge about the taste of the attendee. In addition to this, with the AI Matchmaking feature, they become very easy to sort out and match.

Listing Down Different Types of Event Categories

In the current scenario, most businesses are switching to a digital way of catching the attention of their audience. The response of the audience for these online events has been heartwarming for most businesses. Moving forward, here is the list of some of the most popular types of event categories – 

• Online Training Sessions 
• Workshops
• Online Trade Shows
• Online Video Conferences 
• Webinar Sessions

Let’s live deeper and explore these popular event categories – 

Online Training Sessions 

These sessions are very important for the employees or new hires to get marketing exposure. With an understanding of the technicalities of the product or service, employees can work in a productive atmosphere for the brand or service. These sessions are composed of webinars, boot camps, and much more.

Workshops 

These are best practices for understanding any specific topic or concept. These sessions are industry oriented and simply made for specific audiences. However, as per recent reports, these sessions are turning out to be brainstorming sessions for the audiences.

Online Trade Shows 

Online trade shows are often referred to as “exhibitions” or “expos.” The best way to showcase everything your brand or service has to offer is by hosting online trade shows. In addition to this,  your audience gets to make new connections with the exhibitors, these sessions promote direct interactions in chat rooms, new lead generation, etc.

Online Video Conferences 

These conferences are face-to-face real-time interactions between two individuals sitting in remote locations. With the help of professional platforms, you can easily get in touch with your target audience or participants. However, this feature of events is extremely useful for businesses in carrying out routine discussions and plans.

Webinar Sessions 

Webinars are online video sessions that facilitate promotional activities and real-time interaction with the audience. These sessions are important from an event marketing point of view as they involve a large volume of the global audience.

Creation Of An Event Marketing Plan

For the creation of an effective marketing plan or campaign, firstly you need to know different types of event marketing. However, we have mentioned some of the popular types below – 

• Search Engine Optimization
• Running Advertisement
• Social Media Marketing (Facebook, Instagram, etc.)
• Event Websites

Without going into much detail, let’s have a quick look at these types 

Keeping this in mind, let’s create an effective marketing plan. An effective marketing plan consists of two components – activities and deciding the objectives of your event.

Promotional Activities 

Running promotional campaigns more than a month before the actual date of the event can eventually lead to success. It is very important to inform the audience about your event. Firstly, it should be done by spreading it across leading social media platforms like – Twitter, Instagram, etc. 

In addition to this, the creation of the landing pages for registration is the next step in this process for the successful gathering of user data before the event. This will help you find out the demographics, and interests of the audience. In fact, what they are expecting from you can also be figured out with this information. Event Promotions can also be done by sending reminder emails just on the day of the event.

Figure Out Event Objectives 

Event objectives are the heart of event planning and marketing. This will help you in the selection of your target audience, the features you want from an event platform, the expected outcomes of the session, and much more. For the running of promotional campaigns, your objectives let you decide the theme of the event, ways to catch the attention of the viewers, and how to generate leads from them.

Registration Website 

It is very critical for making the best first impression on the audience. The registration pages or websites are the faces of the event before its beginning. Always ensure to add a little description about the event so that your viewers know exactly what you are going to show them.

Miscellaneous Tasks

These tasks include collaborations with different brands to make your event reach a global audience. In addition to this, you can also use the concept of paid promotions. By this, you can guarantee your audience’s exposure by paying a specific amount for it.

Top 4 Event Promotion Channels For Your Event

Here is the list of popular event promotion channels which are the favorite choice of the business – 

• Search Engine Optimization (SEO)
• Popular Social Media Platforms 
• Email Marketing 
• Content Marketing

We’ll discuss everything in detail.

Search Engine Optimization(SEO)

It is very important to choose the right type of audience to watch your event. For this reason, filtering is necessary before you start promoting your event. In addition to this, for an effective marketing campaign, audience selection plays a crucial role.

Search Engine Optimization (SEO) works purely on Google algorithms for spreading your content to a global audience. In very simple terms, with the right selection of keywords and uniqueness in the promotional content, you can even reach the top of Google search results. This happens when a user searches for a relevant topic that matches your content.

Popular Social Media Platforms 

Prepare a list of leading social media platforms like – Facebook, TikTok, Instagram, Twitter, etc. It is important to keep in mind that the functionality of each platform is different from the others.  While you have to create an event page on Facebook, you have to use hashtags when posting events on Instagram.  

Email Marketing

Email Marketing is a very simple and easiest way of marketing your event. It is so important that we discuss this topic in detail in the coming section. As of now, email marketing is a multifunctional activity that can be used to send reminder emails, invitation mail, promotional content, and much more.

Content Marketing 

Content marketing is a meaningful way of spreading your message to your target audience. You can easily start with your potential customers or viewers by detailing important aspects of the event. In addition to this, it can be done by – posting web blogs on the website, writing on different forums, presenting speakers’ interviews as well as clips, etc. However, tweeting on social media channels and podcasting is also a good way of promoting events.

Event Marketing Trends & Stats: All You Need To Know 

This section will take you along with the data and statistics that are trending in the market. Every piece of information provided below is with respect to event marketing and its related aspects. This will boost your knowledge and drive you to run your event marketing campaign –

• As per the reports, more than 9.45 % of the budget goes to live events. In fact, more than 10 % of businesses are spending over 50 % of the total amount on running promotional campaigns.
•  More than 75 % of marketers do believe that email marketing is the most effective way of communicating with the target audience.
• The global event industry is expected to generate $2.194 trillion dollars by the end of the year 2028.
• LinkedIn revealed that more than 1800 marketers were included in the survey. These marketers have organized events in more than 13 countries. It was found that 85 % of the marketers had virtual events for the whole year while 13 % have said that their complete events are virtual now.
• More than 50 % of event planners are now switching to digital ways of hosting events in the coming future.

Making Key Strategy Of Event Marketing 

Here are some of the pro tips for effective event marketing – 

Take Your Event Budget Into Consideration 

Once you’re done with making the budget plan, you have to think about the things on which you’re going to spend your money. You have to do thorough research on historical event trends, budget data, event goals to accomplish, etc.

In addition to this, you can also track the ROI of your event and customize the event template for a better understanding of the budget requirements and one-time investments.

Search For Quality Speakers 

This can be further done by making a checklist for the required skills of a speaker. A speaker is one who keeps the target audience engaged for long hours. Apart from the narration part, the speaker should also host activities throughout the event for the active participation of the audience. By doing this, “you are actually promoting something without actually promoting it”.

Sponsors Are The Backbone

Though sponsors are hard to find as well as convert, they are the backbone of any event. Your event marketing campaign largely depends on the selection of sponsors for the event. You can easily craft your sponsorship proposals by demographics, ticket sales, and social media actions.

Using User Data 

Consider the data from the past event, if any, and try to find out the relevant people on leading social media platforms. This is more on the technical side, as it requires certain algorithms to find the same type of attendees as they were in the past.

It can also happen that audiences may not be directly interested in attending your   but with an authentic connection, they are attending it. In addition to this, there is a lookalike audience that is a part of the Facebook community.

Promote on a mix of channels

Your target audience is everywhere, so you need to be there too. Don’t stick to popular marketing channels like Instagram, LinkedIn, or email marketing. Reach out to influencers, come up with smart offline initiatives (such as handing out flyers on campus), and leverage your network to develop a word-of-mouth strategy.

Use Facebook and Google Ads to place promotional ads on Instagram and Facebook to promote relevant blogs and Google searches.

Create a sense of urgency

Create different pricing tiers with early bird tickets offered at discounted prices as a registration incentive. When tickets are released in stages, it creates a sense of urgency. Therefore, people will want to buy the cheapest tickets and buy them sooner.

Post-Event Survey 

This technique is beneficial for getting event feedback and analyzing the event’s performance. For improvising your performance, event surveys are the best way to discover new ways to resolve any error or problem. In addition to this, you can also use the data from CRMs, ticketing partners, and event platforms.

Key Touch Points

• You have to step into the shoe of attendees and think of the possible outcomes which could benefit you as an attendee
• You have to make your event perspectives and benefits clear to the attendees. In case, you fail to do so your attendee will simply exit from the event.
• You can make a quick summary of your event in 60 seconds and make use of the Event Elevator Pitch. It is beneficial to an audience who has no prior knowledge about the event.
• Apart from publishing generic content on social media platforms, you can also create personalized messages for distribution throughout your network. In addition to this, you can also add different company professionals to attend your event.

Diving Deeper With Event ROI 

It is very important to understand the calculation of event ROI. It is the key deciding parameter for tracking the performance of your event. It is a matter of two components: costs and benefits. Here are a few points which will help you a better understanding of the concept – 

• The total cost of the event is the combination of indirect costs and the actual expenditure on the event requirements. The direct costs are well known to the event planners which include the venue or virtual platforms, features, etc.
• Similar to the cost and the budget, the event revenue gives you a better idea of the event’s success. Direct revenue is money made as a result of hosting the event. It includes the specific amount of money to be paid by the audience on the registration pages, ads revenue, etc. 
• Even the more brands sponsor your event, the more are chances of getting popular and generating huge traffic as well as revenue for the event. In addition to this, the exchange of knowledge is also very beneficial for the increase in learning, fine-tuning marketing, and high lead generation.
• Now coming to the last point, ticketing, as well as pricing, are the components that decide the average number count of the audience for your event. The more reliable the charges, the more the audience will be going to buy your tickets.

Top 5 Social Media Tips to Promote Your Next Event

Interaction Is The Key 

Though this is the least followed method by most planners, it is still the best way to let your audience know about your event. Try to answer the comments and questions, and give positive responses for your events. This will help your post reach a wider audience.  

Use Of Hashtags

For this, first of all, you have to create an attractive hashtag for the event. In addition to this, you can use this hashtag or a group of hashtags in your upcoming posts related to your event. In fact, you can even tell your company’s employees or fellow participants to perform the same activity. For better results, try to make your hashtag match the event name or the event theme for maximum engagement.

Creation Of Event Contests

These are the best ways to target your audience on different types of social media platforms like Facebook, Instagram, etc. In addition to this, you can create a contest and integrate the hashtag into it. You can also reward your audience by giving them discount coupons or vouchers along with some gift hampers.

Regular Updating Your Audience

Keeping your audience daily updated with new event theme photos and video clips is the best way to boost engagement with them. Using social media platforms as a powerful tool to attract your followers is the best trick that can do wonders for your event.

Selection Of Speakers 

This is a very crucial step for event marketing. Try to invite those speakers who are very influential and popular among the audience. In addition to this, it will create hype among the audience about your event. This will also add brand value and credibility to the session. The expert speakers actively engage with the audience and answer their questions and queries easily.

Things To Do Before Making Any Marketing Plan

Here are some of the things that need your consideration before making any plan or decisions related to event marketing. plans

• You have to decide the type of audience you want to invite for your event. In addition to this, it should be kept in mind that everything will be revolving around the target audience. Think wisely before making any decision.
• The content of the event, the delegates, the audience, the platform, etc. are essential elements of the event. Make sure to keep everything connected and smooth the transition.
• For giving functionality to your event you need to start involving the audience in it. This can be done by the creation of customizable landing pages with the help of event platforms.

Understanding The Term: Event Email Marketing

As per the reports, more than 70 % of businesses use email marketing as a prime tool for running marketing campaigns. In addition to this, email marketing helps the creation of buzz for the event before the date of happening. In fact, this perfectly works for increasing the number of potential attendees.

Email marketing is done by getting the list of the target audience and driving registrations from it. In addition to this, the audience count can increase through automated emails, automated updates, and confirmation mail. Additionally, with the help of event platforms, you can easily analyze open and click-thru rates for a better estimation of the event’s performance. 

Mixhub – Perfect Tool For Your Marketing Campaign

Event marketing strategies involve a perfect combination of the right strategy and the selection of the right type of platform. Coming straight to the point, this platform is loaded with features like One on One demos, reference event setup at the backend, and pure customization in each and every aspect you want, etc. In addition to this, here are a few top-notch highlights that separate Mixhub from the rest – 

• AI Matchmaking 
• Networking Table 
• Breakout Rooms
• Live Attendee Football

The list is very long and you might want to explore it directly on the website.

“However, we might not be the best in the market, but we are the most likely platform when it comes to customer satisfaction and end-to-end support during the event.”

Let’s Conclude 

Event marketing is one of the most promising tools for businesses for the creation of brand awareness as well as reaching out to a global audience. The event marketing plans are setting up the whole branding process of the event, irrespective of whether the event is hosted online or in person.

Event marketing ideas suit well with hosting different types of events such as conferences, exhibitions, etc. with the single objective of attracting the maximum number of viewers.

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