Previously, we shared with you 5 reasons why businesses should incorporate events into their marketing strategy. If you’ve read up on and understand how wonderfully beneficial hosting events can be in the marketing department, you’re now probably pretty determined to host one for yourself.
You’ve thought about all the core components for your upcoming event; booked a venue, come up with a solid agenda and confirmed the speakers for the evening, and now it’s time to start marketing it, getting people excited for it and driving attendance to it. Not quite sure where to start?
Check off all the boxes with these tips that will serve you well in hitting full attendance for your event.
1. Create a registration page for your event
Your event’s registration page will be where prospective attendees will be converted to actual attendees. For this reason, you should invest a considerable amount of time and effort into designing and writing an attractive artwork and copy for this page.
TIP: when creating your event’s page, practice brand consistency through the use of consistent colours, fonts and writing style to unify the brand and solidify brand recognition.
There are many event registration platforms online that you can use to ease the process of creating these pages, such as Eventbrite or Peatix.
2. Develop a content strategy that complements the event
Content marketing is an effective way to build up the momentum before an event as it can be used to create interest towards certain topics surrounding your event, introduce speakers who will be featured at your event, and ultimately build anticipation towards it.
Whether you’re blasting out articles for your blog or infographics for your social media page, ensure that your content includes a clear call-to-action that drives its viewers to your registration page you created in step one.
3. Prepare and send out a dedicated email
Dedicated emails focus on informing its reader of a single stand-alone content piece as opposed to newsletters, which provide a pool of many different content and offerings. In this case, your dedicated email can be used to invite readers to your event.
Dedicated emails are advantageous in the following ways:
Helps you set the context for, and drives readers towards a single call-to-action in a very focussed manner
They are relatively easy to build in comparison to regular newsletters in that they don’t require as many elements to separate different blocks, or as much thought into prioritising information
Easy to track metrics such as the click-through rate and leads generated from a single blast
TIP: Don’t send out dedicated mails too often as you can risk being seen as spammy, which can result in a spike in unsubscribe rates.
4. Encourage cross-promotions with partners
If your event involves multiple partners or vendors, encourage cross-promotion through each others’ marketing channels. One way you can do this is by including all partners’ logos/faces on your marketing collaterals, and encouraging them to do the same as they share theirs through their database.
By supporting one another and enhancing mutual exposure, you also work towards fostering trusting relationships for future collaborative opportunities.
5. Measure event success and tweak your strategy accordingly
Set realistic expectations and allow yourself to learn in the process of planning, marketing and executing events.
Do this by establishing KPIs to better understand the performance of your existing strategies and processes, and making necessary tweaks and adjustments along the way to drive progression and improvement.
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