Event Marketing

You can participate, host, or sponsor an event. It’s great for building trust, nurturing relationships, and engaging with both your existing and potential customers. Let’s see what else event marketing can do for you.

Many companies use event marketing to build a deeper relationship with their clients. According to Maketco, “Event marketing describes the process of developing a themed exhibit, display, or presentation to promote a product, service, cause, or organization leveraging in-person engagement.”

Four Reasons to Use Event Marketing 

1. Brand Awareness
Hosting an event is a great way to get your name out there by building brand awareness. You can share your brand story, personality, and visions the exact same way you want. Bloggers and journalists usually attend events to get updated news. You can reach out to those in the related fields and set up an interview beforehand. Maybe they can get you a few links or articles!

2. Lead Generation
The right event allows your company to interact face-to-face with a group of prospects that already have an interest in your business. Therefore, use this opportunity to educate your customers abouttheir problems or challenges and leave a great impression on them.

3. Customer Engagement and Upsell
Although lead generation is important, it’s even more important to keep your existing customers. Hosting events are a great way to delight your existing customers, make them feel special, and introduce them to your other products and services that they may not now about.

4. Education
Education is at the heart of inbound marketing. By educating your customers, you are building trust with them while empowering them to make the right purchase decision. It’s important that your knowledge and expertise add value to your customers.

Common Types of Event Marketing

Online
Online events allow you to reach people from different places in a less costly way. There are three types of online events: webinars, virtual events, and live streaming events.

Webinars
Webinars are educational events that typically involve one specific topic. They usually last from 30-60 minutes. You can have a workshop, interview, lecture, or presentation. For example, Hootsuite hosts webinars regularly with guest speakers. One of their topics is “Measure Your Social Media ROI.” Real-time webinars also allow audiences to ask questions directly.

Virtual Events
Virtual events can refer to any events that happen online that combines education, networking, and interactive features. It can be a conference, real-time collaboration projects, or real-time contests.

Live Streaming Events
These are live events that you can stream over the internet to increase engagement. Live streaming allows your customers to participate in a physical event even if they can’t physically be there. For example, Taylor Swift is going to live stream her new song to the world from New York City on August 18.

Offline
Although offline events cost more than online events and require physica attendance, they allow face-to-face interaction. There are four types of offline events, trade show, conference, seminars, and breakfast/lunch/dinner.

Trade Show
Companies from the same industry often gather together in a professional forum to network, strengthentheir presence, or simply showcase their products.

Conference
Conference is company-specific marketing event to deliver information. For example, Moz hosted its 2014 conference in Seattle last month to share the newest trends about SEO.

Seminars
Unlike conferences, seminars are much smaller and usually feature an expert in a more traditional and formal setting, such as in a classroom or library. Seminars are great for delivering information as well as holding small discussions.

Breakfast, lunch, and dinner
These are more intimate and targeted events. Their size can go from a small group like 8 people to a medium group like 50. Breakfast, lunch, and dinner events are great for company anniversary. These are opportunities to thank your customers and let them know that you value their business. Non-profits can use breakfast/lunch/dinner events to raise funds too.

7 Secrets of Successful Events

Events must be memorable to make an impact. Following are a few tips to help you host a successful event.

1. Set realistic and targeted goals upfront
2. Be creative and incorporate a strong theme
3. Include multiple touches in your promotion
4. Segment your promotion to target the right audiences
5. Include social media in your event plans
6. Always follow up with attendees and non-attendees to nurture leads
7. Measure and track your attendance and event ROI

For additional information, please read this blog post