Organising an event is one thing but if you don’t get the right marketing in place for it, there’s a good chance it won’t succeed. That’s because no one will know the event is happening! How do you market an event effectively? Let’s take a look.
Set your event goals
Before you consider your marketing, it’s key to have a clear idea of what the goals of the event are and how you will measure them. For example, you might want to attract a certain number of people to the event which can be measured in tickets sold or people through the door. Or it could be something a little less numbers-driven like relationship building – so how will you measure that?
Having a firm goal in mind for the event helps you decide on the marketing and also how much budget you can set aside for the marketing. So don’t skip this step!
Content management
Next, you need to think about content management and what you will use to market the event. It’s important to have these assets ready before you start marketing as this will make the process smoother.
Here are a few ideas for content:
- Key messages from the event
- Benefits of attending
- Keynote speech snippets or details
- Testimonials from previous events
- Video messages from previous events or people attending this one
You may want to have a website for the event or a section on your usual website dedicated to it. Content such as speaker pages or sections may be useful.
Build a promotion plan
Once you have the assets in place and a clear idea of what kind of focus you want the marketing to have you can start building the marketing plan.
Where will you market the event? As well as your website, it’s worth thinking about social media as well. Creating a Facebook event to promote a real-life event is a good step and other social media sites can be used to build interest in what’s happening.
If the event will be regular, you could create blog posts around it. These might talk about previous events or focus on some of the key messages. Blog posts can attract people and then funnel them to the event sign up page.
Don’t forget to cover physical marketing alongside digital versions. Using business printing services, you can create flyers, brochures, and posters about the event that can be handed to customers, posted through local doors or given out at other events where suitable.
Start marketing it
With a clear goal, a series of assets to use and a plan of where to market the event, the last thing to do is to put it all together and start your marketing. That way you can work towards your event goals and even have some parts of the marketing plan working in the background while you focus on those last minute arrangements.
At SBS Printing we provide local businesses with marketing and printing services. For more information, check out our website or contact us.