Promoting an event is often the biggest challenge of hosting an event.
Too many times event organizers and event planners put too much focus on planning the event itself: booking the perfect venue, securing the perfect speakers and talents, decorations, and so on. Yet, all of those wouldn’t matter if you can’t attract enough attendees to your event.
Marketing and promoting your event should be your very important focus and are the keys to a successful and especially profitable event. However, with all the different promotion and marketing channels available, developing the right event promotion strategy can be easier said than done.
Thinking about finding effective ways to promote your event but don’t know where to start? You’ve come to the right place.
Here, we will share 7 actionable tips you can use to promote your events using different tactics and channels to build awareness and ultimately get more event registrations. Let us begin, however, by discussing the concept and principles of event promotion.
Event Promotion: The Basics
In this multifaceted digital age, we can no longer rely on just one or two marketing channels to promote our events effectively. Instead, effective event promotion is about coordinated efforts using multiple marketing channels that are targeted to the ideal audience of your event.
However, we shouldn’t also blindly cast a wide net and simply use all the marketing channels available.
Not only this is because we obviously have limited resources and time, but doing so can also be counterproductive and might confuse your potential attendees instead.
So, when developing a strategy to promote your event, it’s crucial to first perform two things:
Market Research
It’s important to first conduct thorough market research to:
- Identify who your ideal attendees are
- Identify any competing events at/near the date of the event
- Identify potential obstacles for your target attendees to book your event
- Identify how you can attract your ideal attendees (which channels, tactics, etc.)
And more. If you don’t know your market, you won’t be able to effectively promote your event.
Defining Your Goals
At first glance, the goal of your event promotion might seem pretty obvious: get more attendees to your event. However, we should be more specific: how many total registrants we should aim for? What’s the ideal ratio between paid:discounted: free registrants? And more.
Be as specific as possible when defining your event promotion goals, and assign the right KPIs/metrics to measure your progress towards this goal(s).
7 Actionable Tips to Promote Your Event
Once you’ve identified your target audience, competing events, and goals, now we can explore different tactics and channels to help us achieve these goals.
It’s crucial to maintain an integrated marketing strategy between different channels so you can effectively generate awareness in the run-up to the event to maximize attendance. Another important consideration is to market your event as early as possible, and if you plan to run this event regularly (i.e. as an annual event), then you should continue the promotion during and after the event to maintain buzz.
With that being said, here are our tips on how to effectively promote your event:
Setup a well-designed and functional website
No, your social media profiles are not an ideal replacement for your website, and while you can just set up a basic landing page with a contact form, it’s best to set up a standalone, functional website specifically for your event.
This way, you can direct your branding and SEO efforts to focus on this event alone, which will make it easier and more effective. Make sure the website is well-designed and functional. That is, make sure it’s mobile-friendly and loads fast, and optimize the website so that it’s easy to navigate.
You should also consider integrating event registration and management platforms like Eventtia so your target attendees can easily register for the event on your website.
Write and distribute an effective event press release
It’s crucial to share information about your event with the media, influencers, and other relevant websites so they can further spread the information to their audience, with the hope that some of them will convert as attendees.
The secret, however, is to make sure the press release is well-written. Maintain the right balance between being attractive and informative with your press release, keep it short, and make sure to send the press release at the right time.
Effective social media marketing
In this age of social media, it would only make sense to promote your event on relevant social media platforms.
However, how can our event get noticed amidst all of the noises? It’s important to be creative. Maintain the right balance between paid options (i.e. paid ads) and organic efforts (building your own followers and regularly posting content). Also, consider partnering with the right influencers that can help promote your event to their followers.
Utilize email marketing effectively
Email marketing remains a very effective marketing channel with one of the highest ROIs. Use email marketing to nurture prospects until they are finally ready to register for your event, and regularly send attractive and informative content even after the event to maintain their interests.
Spark FOMO and sense of urgency
The secret of effective event promotion is to create a sense of urgency and Fear of Missing Out (FOMO) among your potential attendees. You can publish content (i.e. attractive videos) to show them what they will miss if they don’t attend. If you can effectively trigger their emotions and curiosity, you’ll attract more people.
Include attractive photos, videos, and information of your speakers/talents
Obviously, if you are inviting popular speakers or talents for your event, it can be a major selling point. Create a dedicated page on your website to include photos/videos of these talents, as well as interesting information about them (i.e. experience, credentials, new songs, etc.). Also, share this information on your event’s social media pages.
Create affiliate and referral programs
Having an affiliate or referral program can be an effective way to encourage people and influencers to talk about your event. You can, for example, offer group discounts for those who can bring their friends/peers to the event. You can also share affiliate codes so influencers can receive commissions if their followers book your event with this code (i.e. you can offer a special discount on registration if they use this code).
