WHAT IS EVENT MARKETING?
Hello, today I'd like to discuss what actually is event marketing? Most people think of event marketing as marketing the event and how to get bums on seats. However, the other part of event marketing is marketing your business with an event.
I believe we need to reverse our thinking. Event marketing is about marketing our business with an event and then marketing our event so that we can make it successful and enable us to achieve our goals in our marketing funnel.
Unfortunately, what I see time and time again, especially with he smaller organizations, or small business, is they only think about the event and marketing the event, (which sadly they don’t do well) and they completely forget about marketing their business with the event!
Compared to big teams and larger organisations, they have a marketing team that looks after all the marketing activity and events a part of that activity. And, they have an event marketing team to make the event viable for the organisation or for the business.
Step 1 - Marketing Your Business With The Event
1. Workout where the event fits into our marketing funnel
In order to effectively market your business with your events, the first thing you need to do is to look at your funnel: marketing funnel, sales funnel. You need to understand where in that funnel your events fit in. Are they at the very top of the funnel where you’re just getting engagement and growing your database? Are they in middle part of your funnel where you are teaching, sharing value and building the “know, like and trust”? Or are they at the bottom of the funnel, like a retreat that you're going to be running where that is your core product? Or are these events sitting all the way through? Do you have an intro event and then a secondary event and then a retreat? So really understand where in your sales funnel is your event situated is the key to marketing your business with events.
2. Workout where the event fits into our customer journey
Once you know where in your marketing funnel your event is sitting, you need to review the customer journey your customers take with your business. Where in the customer journey are your customers going to be dealing with your event? Is this at the very start of their customer journey where they're doing the exploration? Is it more when they're trialling products/services or is it right at the end of the customer journey when they are ready to commit?
3. Identify the exact outcomes we need from our event to get an ROI
What are the outcomes? What is the Return On Investment (ROI ) that we would like to achieve in our business from our event?
Brand Awareness
Lead Generation
Customer Engagement
Customer Retention
Sales
Marketing
Set yourself some measurable goals and measure your ROI
4. Create the event to achieve ROI
Only once we are clear on the funnel, the customer journey and what outcomes and ROI we want to achieve, then we create the event that reflects this.
We create an event that sits in the right part of our marketing funnel and connects with the right customers at the right time to bring the ROI and market our business for growth.
Step 2 - Marketing Your Event
Clarity on the purpose of this event for the business
Clarity is about identifying the purpose of the event for you in your business. This has been achieved in step 1, where you have identified the purpose of this event and the desired ROI.
CLICK HERE For more info on Clarity
2. Plan the promotion, presentation and logistics
Then when we plan. We plan out the event logistics; what the event is going to look like? Where is it going to be held? Who is going to be on the team? All of that event management
We plan our event promotion; what are we communicating? Who are we communicating this to? What channels are we using to communicate and engage?
We really plan our presentation; what is it that we're going to be saying delivering?
CLICK HERE For more info on Plan
3. Promote across all channels
The plan is set, let’s put it into action! You promote. You implement a cross-channel marketing campaign to promote your event and get those bums on seats. You really need to make sure that your event promotion is across all marketing channels, so you’re talking to your customers at the right time that you have identified in step one.
CLICK HERE For more info on Promote
4. Present - great content, great social proof, sales, leads etc.
Finally, you run the event! On the day you shine, you deliver great content, you share value and you create the perfect audience experience. However, you make sure that you keep in mind what is the purpose of this? What is your ROI? Are you selling from stage? Are you getting the leads in the database? Are we getting you photography or videography for marketing purposes?
You must ensure that on the day you capture as much as possible because once it’s over, it’s over.
CLICK HERE For more info on Promote
5. Follow up with everyone
The follow up is the most important part! You must follow up with the people who came along to your event. You must follow up with the people who didn’t come and you must follow up with all your marketing activity. Create social proof and build FOMO (Fear Of Missing Out) for your next event.
CLICK HERE For more info on Follow Up
6. Improve, see if you achieved ROI and how you can do it better next time
Finally, review and improve. Ask yourself the hard questions: Did I achieve the ROI? Did I achieve what I set out to achieve in my events?
If you did, great, you have a successful event blueprint. If we haven't, well review what you did or did not do. Were you realistic in your expectation and did you set everything up in order to succeed? Or did you set yourself up for failure?
CLICK HERE For more info on Improve
So there you have it. That is event marketing. It is two steps. It is identifying how to market your business with your event and then identifying how to market your event for event success.
Follow us on FB - @holisticbusinesshub Instagram - @holisticbusinesshub
Join our Facebook Group - https://www.facebook.com/groups/eventologists/
