Event marketing, as the name suggests, is kind of a marketing strategy that marketers use to promote and advertise their brand, product, or service by creating a personal or real-time engagement.

The events which are used by marketers can be either online or offline, the companies can participate in various ways. Across the globe, different companies use both inbound and outbound event marketing strategies for marketing purposes.

So, It is a highly valuable strategy for different kinds of businesses, ranging from technology to education to non-profit, medicine, and retail, etc.

Why are Companies Using Event Marketing?

There are multiple reasons for which companies are using event marketing as part of their marketing strategy; some of them are mentioned here:

Spread AwarenessAwareness and build a brand

Events done by various companies prove to be a great way to spread AwarenessAwareness about your company and also helps you establish a brand out of yourself. Most people who attend any event by a company feel positive about the company whose event they attended. 

Hosting and participating in events helps companies establish trust and build a brand name. In events that a company hosts or participates in, they try to create memorable experiences for the people present there, and these people are likely to consider your brand when they are looking for making a purchase.

Customer Engagement

Hosting and participating in events helps you to better engage with your target audience. According to research, more engaged people buy your product or service more frequently than those who are not well engaged with your brand. By creating honest and meaningful interactions with your customers, you have a higher chance of increasing your customer retention and thereby creating brand evangelists in this process. 

Engaged and happy customers talk more about your brand, not only purchase from your brand but also refer and promote other people to purchase from your brand.

Generate Leads

One of the main aims of investing in event marketing is to get leads and then eventually convert those leads and actual paying customers. Events are a great way to generate leads from your target audience. This can be done by understanding your audience, what they want, how they want it, and by doing so, you can help them in making decisions and, in the way, communicate about how your brand can help them do so. 

This will eventually get you leads, and if the right follow-ups are made, then they will soon become your customers. 

Some ways to engage your target audience and collect information from them are:

1. Setting up demo stations 
2. Initiating speaking sessions for your audience
3. Using social media, especially for online events 

Educate your audience

According to a survey, more than 50% of people who attended live events felt that they have a better understanding of a product or service, more than any kind of information provided by any other sources of advertising or promotional activities. 

One big reason that people attend events like conferences, seminars, trade fairs, etc. is to enhance their ability to learn more about technology, ideas, and uses for a particular product or service. Today, as technology is taking the lead, online events are getting much popularity and traction among the audience. 

Companies can also use online events to educate current and target customers. People also find online events as they save a lot of time for the customer. 

Also, conducting events online helps companies save a lot of costs and time, as conducting online events is relatively cheaper than conducting offline events.

Selling to Customers

Sometimes educating your customers also leads to sales for your product or service. You may use demos and webinars to sell your customers your product. 

You can do this by first educating your audience about his problem and his needs and then softly sell your product by listing to them how your product can solve the burning problem of your customers. This way seems less like a sales pitch and more like if you are helping the customer solve his problem.

Type of events suitable for Event Marketing

Trade Shows

These kinds of shows try to bring together both companies and individual customers for the purpose of building brand awareness and lead generation. There are different types of businesses present in a trade show, which could be of interest to different customers. 

In these shows, it is necessary to make your brand stand out in order to achieve what you want. It is very important to design your spot in an attractive and unique manner so that it catches the eye of the individuals.

Webinars

As the name suggests, a webinar is a kind of seminar done over the web. Webinars have gained a lot of traction in recent years as internet penetration has increased. Live webinars help facilitate engagement with prospects and customers.

Webinars can revolve around presentations, product demos, discussions, providing education, etc. Webinars are a great way to keep your audience engaged and try to interact with them.

They increase customer engagement and make viewers feel like they received real value for spending the time to watch your webinar.

Meetups

Brands or even individuals who are looking to promote themselves as a brand can host local meetups to increase AwarenessAwareness and engage well with the audience.

These are generally small and more close events where brands get a chance to network and try to build a relationship with the prospected customers.

Conferences

Conferences generally are events specific to companies that generally have a large and aware audience. These are done basically for educational purposes and to provide information about the launch of a new product or service.

Conferences generally have multiple sessions and speakers aiming towards different interests, roles within an organization, and different skill levels. 

Another way of gaining through conferences is to sponsor them. It will help you increase your brand recognition by mentioning yourself on marketing materials, a booth, presence as a speaker, etc. It will make it easy for the audience to identify and find you.

Live Streaming

It is a tool that is provided by different social media platforms so that you can engage with your audience whenever you like. These are usually small and casual interactive sessions with your audience. They help a lot in clearing doubts in the minds of your customers. 

Appreciation Events

These are events conducted by the company to show appreciation towards the best customers and increase customer satisfaction. A popular way of doing this is by offering lunch or dinner around a conference.

How to Prepare for Marketing Events?

Set Expectations

It’s very much important for you to set expectations for your event. Do align sales and marketing with your other expectations. You also need to decide in which way you are going to participate in any event, as a hos or as a sponsor or someone else.

Set Goals

After deciding your role in the event that you are going to participate in, the next thing is to set some goals for the event. The goals must be measurable and should be set up realistically. Some most common goals include

1. Increase customer engagement
2. Generating leads
3. Brand awareness
4. Increase education among customers etc.

Plan and Create Physical Stuff for your Event

Now the time comes to plan for your event and also try to create physical stuff that will be required for the event in case of physical events. If you are going for online events, then you must plan and arrange for the technical requirements necessary for the event.

Physical stuff could include handouts, schedules, logos, brand merchandise, name tags, etc. 

Promote Your Event

This is the most crucial step in the entire journey. If you don’t market your event well, then all other efforts are wasted. You are doing the event for the audience, and if you don’t market well, then how would your audience come to know about your event.

Regardless of what role your company has at an event, you’ll want to publicize your presence. You can use various different ways to promote your event like

1. Direct Mail
2. Paid Advertising
3. Social Media

Conclusion

Event marketing is not something new; it has existed for a long period of time. Though new ways and methods have evolved over time, the importance of event marketing is very much applicable in the current world as well. 

Some believe that it is a costly proposition, yes it is in some way, but now there are a lot of cost-effective ways as well to perform event marketing. And even if you have to spend some amount on events, it will pay off. Remember, people love events, and now it’s up to you how to manage to attract the customer and make the most out of marketing through events.

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