Event marketing is the key to a successful event or a concert. Before you can achieve a grand yet successful event, you need to know exactly how to promote an event. I have been in marketing for over 8 years and started my event marketing about 6 years ago. Worked with major event companies, nightclub marketing agencies, and corporate event management companies to promote events.
I have seen a lot of websites writing about the same topic, but they all end up giving the usual generic tips and advice that most of you already can guess. I’m going to try my best to make this article generic or give you the advice that you have seen countless amount of times. I will be giving out my secrets of event marketing that I and the other amazing marketers use that works.
Table of Contents
When should you start the event marketing?
Don’t skip this part, I would suggest you pay attention to the time you are starting your marketing. The sooner the better. I have seen many companies start their marketing only 2 weeks or even 1 week prior to the event. If you start late then it sure wouldn’t be effective.
I would suggest at the minimum have about 3 weeks before the event. I personally start a month and a half before the actual event. By doing so I have enough time to measure my marketing and also execute my plan.
Online Channels:
When you’re trying to promote a whole event online, it’s necessary to create a buzz around your event. So that you can have everyone talking about it. Make sure to spend a good amount of time crafting the best and most engaging promo material for your event. Also, invent a new hashtag around your event so it can be spread around easily.
It always comes down to utilizing one of the biggest social media platforms on earth. Instagram is amazing to promote anything and the only thing you’ll be doing differently is to create super engaging event promotional materials. Use stories that engage with people like the ones with engaging stickers. Create a poll on stories that people can tap. The more engagement you create on your event promotions online the more likely the word is to spread around.
At Facebook, you have to create an event page for your event. It is an easy one but a very crucial step, get the Facebook images and videos or any other relevant content ready and fill the details. You can also add your ticket link to the page making it easier for the users/customers to tap on the link and buy it. The more convenient you make it the more likely they will do it.
Facebook also gives you the option to opt for paid promotion for your event, so if you want, you can also boost the event and in my experience, it has bought in tons of crowd for our events.
Tip: Create a few short promo clips for your event and post it every alternate day (different clips). This keeps the marketing fresh and at the same time… it reminds people about your event.
Tweet, tweet and tweet. Well, don’t spam but tweet as much as you can about your event. Mention the highlight of your event and create engaging tweets on Twitter to increase the likelihood of reaching people.
You can also post those short clips mentioned in the tip to spread the word around. Remember I mentioned to create a hashtag for your event? Yes, you can also include them in your tweets.
Snapchat
Snapchat has great potential to show off your event and reach a lot of people. Especially the younger generation and you can take advantage of the Snapchat Geofilter. You can create a whole new geo-filter for your event. You can read more about it from Snapchat here.
YouTube
The all-mighty video giant is the best way to promote your event. You see, people love to see things before they try it and this gives the best opportunity for you to do the same. Create an event promo or any type of promo that is relevant to the event you are promoting.
What we usually do is, create a promo video that triggers excitement to the viewers and upload it. If you don’t have a huge following then the only way to reach a lot of people is through video ads. Once the video is uploaded, go to YouTube ads and run an ad campaign for your video.
Event Ticketing Platform
There are many of those ticketing platforms that just sell tickets and when you add your event, you will get a platform plus a bunch of their users knowing the existence of your event. Most ticketing platform also gives you the option to opt for their own promotion.
If you have a pre-sale promotion then it will play in your favor. The more scarcity you create of tickets selling out the more compelling it is to buy.
No, I’m not talking about SEO, I am talking about creating an event on your google my business. If you have the option to do this on your google page for your business then you’ll be able to do it. This option isn’t available for everyone but it’s possible only if you have a company listed with google business and the event option is enabled. This is a perfect tool for event marketing.
Blog
Get the blogs around your local region to blog about your event. You can also reach out to the blogs to make content about your event. If that isn’t possible then you can write about your event on your own website.
Blogs have also been shown pretty effective in event marketing.
News Websites
This is a paid method but this can be pretty effective to have if you can get the news to write about your blog. They will usually charge a fee for but it will be worth it. News website will also have both offline and online promotion and if you can get a deal for both at once then you’ve hit a jackpot.
Make sure to have a specially designed material for this one.
Email Marketing
If you have a list of emails from your previous customers or have a database of them, craft an exciting email with an invite and a ticket link and send it out to them. You’d be surprised by the effectiveness of this.
If you don’t have them then you can run a campaign to collect emails by offering them a discount for signup before the event and keep their emails to send out upselling content before the event. You see this is why it is recommended to start your promotions early on.
Your Own Website
Sometimes, if it’s a really big event, we create an entire website around the event which is usually a one-page site. The website helps to showcase more details and send them to a Call To Action (CTA).
You can also use this as a destination for all your ad campaigns that you run. You can also have your website to sell tickets, so it is a win-win.
Offline Channels:
Just online marketing alone isn’t enough and you will be missing out on a lot of people if you don’t consider the offline side of the marketing. Depending on your locality and your region, offline marketing often overtakes online marketing. Assuming you have already printed your promo materials and did all the necessary things, you can move to the below.
VIP Invitation
Print a good bunch of VIP invitation to give it to those people that you know will bring a whole bunch of crowd. There are always those people with a huge bunch of connections and they are what you generally call popular. This VIP Invites are for them, by doing this you are making sure that the word spreads around as people tend to follow those who are popular and reputable.
Group Invites
Along with the VIP Invites, print another bunch of group invites for the regulars that like to bring their crowd to the party. This doesn’t have to be a free invite, instead, it can be something like 50% off on tickets or so. This will just encourage the people around you to show up.
They will also feel important and respected, after all, that is what you need to make a successful event.
Radio
Radio isn’t dead, at least not yet. You can spread the word even to those radio listeners and even if they don’t directly come to your even, it’ll help in spreading the word around (Word of mouth).
Radio announcements can be very effective and it is still one of the most powerful methods to advertise for event marketing.
Billboards
The population of both cars and people is increasing and most of them are out of their house. When people are out around a billboard which is almost everywhere, you can grab their attention to your event by having your event ad displayed where their attention is.
If you are located in a country with heavy traffic, this will be effective and keep in mind that these aren’t on the cheaper side. So you can even skip this if you’d rather have that money invested in other means of marketing.
Local Business
Local businesses are your friends. I am talking about having collaboration with your local brands for your event. You can approach brands to offer their product or services for your event-goers and in return, they advertise and sell your tickets.
This technique has been adopted by small and large event companies and it is proven to be very effective, at least from my experience.
Offline Promoters
You can approach offline promoters who sell tickets or even distribute your flyers around the city. They aren’t very expensive and you can have this happening on the side.
Do keep in mind that you might want to be selective with who you choose. Not every promoter is effective and does check their track record.
Conclusion:
So that sums it all up, these are channels that will help you do it but keep in mind these should be combined with other marketing techniques to make it work effectively for event marketing.
See, every event is different and each event should be thoroughly studied before marketing, There are a lot of factors to consider and I would request you to please take this advice and tips with a grain of salt and use your own ideas as well to execute your plan.