Tips and Hacks for Event Marketing

In today’s scenario of buyer-authorised world, marketers need to grasp every opportunity to build relationships and earn the trust of prospective buyers and customers.

Consumer wants more than a pitch to evaluate solutions and make purchase decisions.

Events offer a unique opportunity for them to interact with brands to get a firsthand sense of a company’s focus, perspective and personality.

Event marketing is one of the fastest growing fields in the advertising and marketing industry.

But the success of an event is ensured by clever marketing strategies. We all just want good promotion and more ticket sales, right?

Here are some hacks you may adopt to boost your event marketing efforts.

Use your speakers to promote your event

Your speaker becomes ambassadors for the event you host. Share the content you want them to share for promotion of your event.

They should be actively promote the event through as many platforms as possible.

Speaker can take advantage of their online presence and share links through social media platforms.

They can even spread the word through their professional networks and circles of friends and family.

Host a live chat on Twitter with speakers

Live chats on Twitter with the speakers is a great way to connect with the audience.

Select a suitable date and time and stay mindful of the different time zones.

Pick a hashtag that has not already been used and one that fits your brand to reach a wider audience and make sure that the guests are well informed and know how to aptly answer the different questions.

Live stream on Facebook/Youtube/Instagram with your special guest

Live streaming has become the latest trend and attracts more attention, which essentially helps with the promotion.

Live discussion with your special guest will engage your audience and they get a glance of what the event will be like.

Make sure you catch the live reaction of your audience reply on comments so you can gauge how the audience perceives the live stream and also ask the special guest to respond to some comments.

Video invitations from speakers and special guests

To increase excitement for the event, ask your speakers and special guests to make video invitations to the event.

Videos are more engaging than a text message and the audience will be able to see how excited these people are for the event which will make them more excited.

Make the videos short and simple enough to make sure people will watch it.

Facebook Ads based on interests

Use Facebook ads to reach a wider audience and event promotion.

But know your audience’s interests to use Facebook ads wisely.

Don’t forget to target people who’ve attended your previous events.

Share the pre-event activities with your audience

Share the latest updates with your audience on social media platforms.

It is crucial to retain the excitement of your audience for the event.

Pre-event activities can include the speaker lineup, behind-the-scenes pictures. All this can help build up the anticipation of the audience.

Keep them updated as it will make them feel like they’re actively involved in this process.

Give guest tickets for people who share the event

Build a hype for your event by hosting a contest or give the audience an incentive for promotion of the event.

Reward the audience with an extra ticket if they send proof of their ticket while also spread the word about the event through their social media.

Guest Post

Look out for related blogs associated to the event theme or the industry.

Encourage your speakers, entertainers, chefs and any other interesting personalities that are key to the event to guest blog.

You can support them on which blogs to approach with a ready format for the request as well as provide them with content suggestions and visuals that will encourage blog readers to share.

Networking with similar events

Networking with similar events is a great way to promote your event. With this you will learn some of the marketing strategies.

Since these events will likely have similar target audience as yours, make sure you keep an eye out to see how the audience perceives their event.

You can use their reactions to add on or switch up your event promotion strategies.

Have a social media ticket giveaway

You can run a social media ticket giveaway by asking the audience to tag a friend or answer a survey, or retweet promotional materials.

You can either select a participant at random for all of these methods or pick out a few that you liked the best. In fact, you can even share discount codes with all those who participate.

It’s all up to you! You can customize it however you want.

Use Irresistible Sticky Content

Your website is where most of the sign ups are done for the event!

Make sure your website is attractive, informative and well-designed. The process of registration must be simple and even create an incentivised referral system to facilitate a cycle of success.

This requires a good understanding of your attendee profile to create appealing content.

Social Media Platforms

Make sure you are active on all social media channels where your attendees reside to share your content.

Encourage share of tweets and posts by offering an incentive for the same. It could be a special gift given out at the event or some other incentive that compel people to share your message and create a ‘viral buzz’ around your event.

Start a Blog

You have your content ready, now use it.

Create a blog with engaging content about your event, the people and production elements involved and information relevant to the event theme.

Encourage sharing of blog posts to start the viral buzz. This can be done by being more creative than just using standardized icons that signify share channels.

SEO

There are ways to maximise your chance of moving your website up in Google and other search engines rankings.

Make sure that your meta tags (key words), blog content and link back to the irresistible content on your website are all in place.

Search for resources on the internet and teach yourself the valuable skill to maximise your SEO.

Email Marketing

Email is still the main means of mass communication for many marketing campaigns. It provides key support to event-led marketing strategies or standalone events.

Have a well administered database and make sure the register option is clearly visible and bold.

Use these tips to acquire potential attendees and to retain their interest. But remember that your content should be continually evolving.

Remember always wherever appropriate, have the action button or purchase link ready on as many communications channels as possible.

No doubt Event marketing efforts take time to show results, but these hacks will make it easier to achieve them.

At the end of the day, we want your event marketing efforts to pay off and for your event to be an ultimate success.