What makes your brand stand out? It’s all about the marketing. There is no shortage of marketing communication channels. A few common ones you may have heard of are email marketing, social media marketing or something more traditional such as radio marketing. While these work great, there is one channel that has been identified as the most successful marketing channel for reaching company goals and that is — Event Marketing. In this article, we will be covering what is event marketing, its benefits, the various types of events that can be held, and finally, the methods to measure the success of these events.
Put simply, event marketing is the use of events to promote a brand or product to the target audience. Its bonus factor is that it can be done both physically and virtually. Examples of such events include trade shows, conferences, webinars and live workshops which will be elaborated in greater detail later.
As for the benefits of event marketing, it helps to increase customer engagement, improve customer loyalty and generate leads. Firstly, customer engagement increases as their attendance to these events gives the company an opportunity to interact with them on a more personal level. By gaining a deeper understanding and clearer perspective of the customers’ point of view, the company can work towards shaping their product or service in a more favourable manner. Secondly, customer loyalty is established as the brand builds a strong emotional connection with them at the events which can encourage their continued support. Thirdly, it can also help with lead generation as these events attract a company’s target audience. This creates an opportunity to reach out to their audience and gain leads on prospective customers.
Given the attractive benefits that can be reaped through event marketing, it is crucial to know what types of events can be held to maximise the opportunities present. The 4 types of events we will be discussing are trade shows, conferences, webinars and live workshops. Trade shows and conferences fall under physical events whereas webinars and live workshops are categorised as virtual events.
For starters, trade shows are events where new products and services are displayed and can be sampled by attendees. Next, conferences are typically used for more innovative products that require detailed explanations or demonstrations by an important speaker. For physical events, the focus is on capitalising on the face-to-face interactions. Building rapport is the foundation of improving customer relations.
As for virtual events such as webinars and live workshops, they are an attractive option for companies that do not have the resources to plan a more large scale, physical event. However, given the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic, virtual events have become everyone’s first choice. The focus here is then to ensure your presentation is engaging and interesting to capture the attention of your intended audience.
Once your event has concluded, be it physically or virtually, measuring its success remains equally important. A few KPIs to take into consideration include registrations, total check-ins and social media mentions. Firstly, registrations measure the effectiveness of the event in terms of capturing the attention of the audience. This is complemented by the total check-ins which are taken on the day of the actual event. Comparing registrations with actual check-in figures can help to identify gaps in the event promotion. Finally, social media mentions are particularly important as they help spread the word to others who were not at the event, regardless of where they are in the world. This is especially useful for virtual events that can have global attendees.
It is clear that event marketing is the way forward. Keep our tips in mind to make the most out of your next event, all the best!
