There are plenty of platforms, tools and strategies you can implement to promote your event for little or no cost. Being strategic about the way you promote your event, can save you a lot, allowing you to invest those savings in other areas of the event and to deliver a higher ROI.
In this article we take a look at how smart planning and selective investment can make every marketing dollar you have go a long way to achieving measurable results.
Set your goals for the event.
Identify your strategic and tactical objectives for the event, remember these should be achievable and measurable! It could be to increase brand awareness and to position yourself as an industry leader or to showcase a new product to new and existing clients.
Once you have selected your objectives, identify your KPIs to evaluate your progress throughout the duration of the project. As a team you can learn from these results, find out what activities were the most effective and ineffective in achieving your objectives.
Determine your target audience.
Who do you want to target, and why? Once you’ve determined who your target audience is, it’s time to identify the ‘what’s in it for me’ proposition – why should they attend your event? When you can clearly articulate what people will gain by attending your event, you are far more likely to get their attention.
Get everyone on board and on message.
Schedule a meeting with all key stakeholders involved in the coordination of the event, your Marketing Department, Event Managers, PAs, etc. If all parties are on the same page, your marketing campaign will be more coherent and powerful.
Lay out the schedule, and assign responsibility.
Drafting an editorial calendar will enable you to organise elements of your marketing campaign, your tweets, blogs and everything in between.
Clear expectations about who is responsible for each task will reduce confusion, eliminate time wasted and missed opportunities. An app such as Hootsuite will enhance your social media management. It allows you to schedule, curate and track social media content for multiple social profiles. It’s all within the one place!
Clarify your branding messages.
Focus your marketing efforts and ensure that your are promoting a clear, unified message online and offline. Ensure your marketing efforts reflect the voice of the brand – this is particularly important on social media.
Build FOMO to promote your event.
If you can harness this, it can do wonders to your bottom line. To create a serious case of FOMO you could post photos from previous year’s, tease your audience with keynote speakers or feature testimonials from past attendees.
Select your communication channels.
Identify where your preferred demographics spend their time and focus your efforts in those places. A lot of the time social media promotion is free, however for a relatively small budget you can significantly boost views and engagement.
Combine the power of your website with social media to share content generated by feature speakers. This highlights the quality of the speakers, encourages delegates to interact with them and last but certainly not least, drives visitors to the event website. Remember, useful and shareable information makes it easier for advocates to promote your message to their networks.
Email is cost-effective to promote your event.
Don’t write off email promotion just yet…According to the Data & Marketing Association, the average ROI of an email is approximately $44 for every dollar spent. That’s almost double of any other digital marketing platform!
Depending on the event and its stakeholders, you may be able to access other databases to cross-promote your event for little or no extra cost.
Track your registrations.
As the marketing campaign rolls out, keep an eye on where the registrations are coming from. You can find many detailed ways to do this. If you have flexibility, you can refocus some of your efforts into the streams that are providing more registrations and attendee engagement.
Some of these steps might sound a little onerous, but don’t be put off. Much of the brainstorming and task distribution can be covered in a single session. Investing a short amount of time early on has the potential to reduce costs and increase the effectiveness of your promotional campaigns.
Nectar Creative Communications – real engagement and real results.
If you need assistance during your next event planning, production or execution, let us know! At Nectar Creative Communications we help our clients achieve real engagement – and real results.
Please call us on 1300 878 815 or email info@nectarcc.com.au.
