A well-thought-out strategy is essential for successful event marketing. If you evaluate your event goals, content management, promotion efforts, engagement activities, and technology, you’ll be sure to create a solid marketing plan for your event, whether you have used an event company in London or decided to have a crack at it yourself.
How to Create a Marketing Strategy for an Event
An event marketing strategy’s goal is to raise event awareness. You want to direct potential and former attendees to your marketing funnel’s “awareness” stage so you can keep them informed as they progress toward buying a ticket.
You’ll want to help people who are already aware of your event progress to the purchase and advocacy stages.
#1 Early Bird Discount
After the initial enthusiasm for your event has depleted somewhat, you will need to think of new ways to get people to register. At this time, you can take advantage of the “early bird discount” which are implemented through staggered ticket sales that rise in price as the event approaches.
#2 Pre-Event Page
Too often, people forget that even if all of the details aren’t finalised, they can still create an event page and publish it to generate early interest.
You can direct people to a central page and use it to capture leads who can be reached later by developing a pre-event page. It will also assist you in improving your SEO ranking.
#3 Blogging
The next step in your event marketing strategy is to explain why you’re hosting an event.
Writing unique, targeted blog posts to publicise your event and rally people around your idea to persuade them that your event is necessary. In addition, blogs are less salesy than event landing pages, making them an excellent way to generate initial interest.
#4 Social Media
Getting on social media early is one of the best event marketing strategies, as it is critical for building momentum for your event advertising.
Create an event hashtag to assist you in engaging with your community in the weeks preceding, during, and after your event.
Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and LinkedIn will all be important depending on the type of event you’re hosting, but don’t forget about Snapchat, YouTube, Pinterest, TikTok, Reddit and Medium.
#5 Partner Outreach
Because event marketing partnerships and sponsorships are critical to the success of your event, you should start contacting potential collaborators, complementary businesses, and media partners as soon as possible.
That is, before the official start date of your event. They will be able to help you spread the word right away.
#6 Thought leadership and guest posts
While blogging on your site is important, you should also reach out to new audiences outside of it to attract new visitors. The best ways to do this are through guest posting or creating thought leadership pieces that people will gladly share.
Again, the nature of the event will have a significant impact on the specifics. For conferences and B2B events, it’s relatively simple because you can generate an industry report or sell a white paper that includes key recommendations from all of your speakers.
#7 Paid Promotion
If you’re going to use Google Ads or paid advertising on social media now is the time to invest.
Any of these features can be enabled or disabled at any time. So, for maximum reach and impact, you can focus your marketing efforts for a few weeks before each event launch, reinforcing and amplifying your existing marketing efforts.
#8 Email, Email, Email
Email is an essential component of your event promotion strategy. Now that your event is ready to go live, you should send out your first large email blast to prospective attendees, remembering to include those who have already pre-registered.
You can send manual and automatic emails to your community in order to increase participation and deliver critical reminders such as where to find your location or how to log into your virtual event.
#9 Promotion of the event
Getting the press involved can help you promote your event beyond your personal network and increase ticket sales. It will also help you develop your own future brand strategy and increase the number of links to your website, not to mention increase the number of visitors to future events.
Write a press release and send it to local newspapers and radio stations to gain as much media coverage as possible.
#10 The Final Blast
Because you’ve been cultivating a relationship for several weeks or months, your most recent blog posts, social media updates, and emails should now have a more urgent, sales-focused message. Now is the time to make your clear calls to action and turn your strategy into ticket sales and do a final promotional blast of blogs, social media posts, and email send outs.