Footfall is the key determining factor for the success of a commercial event. Every aspect of the event directly or indirectly depends upon its footfall. And thus, event marketing needs to be undertaken with due diligence by all event organizers.
Before we delve into the ‘how’ of digital marketing, let us justify the ‘why’. In fact we needn’t even justify. If you just consider your lifestyle and the lifestyle of those around you, you’ll know the answer. We literally wake up with the phone in our hands. Time spent on digital media is hardly comparable to that spent on any other traditional media. Trends on Twitter usually become newspaper headlines the next day, beating it at its own game. TV viewing has taken a hit with the surge of web channels and entertaining digital content. Most of us consume data through digital media – whether its a forward on what’s app or a holiday picture on Instagram. Infact it’s not a hyperbole to state that our lives have become entirely dependant on the smart phone and internet.
This has become a huge leverage for marketeers across the globe. Digital marketing can be undertaken aggressively within shoe-string budgets. Its tracable, result-based approach has eliminated the challenge stated in the age-old advertising adage – “Half the money I spend on advertising is wasted; the trouble is I don’t know which half.”
Branding
Before you begin marketing, you need to create an attention-grabbing visual identity that brings alive the positioning of your event. A good visual identity helps in breaking the online clutter and stops people from their scrolling spree.
Presence
Agressive marketing doesn’t mean presence on every platform including the irrelevant ones. It would be pointless for a fashion exhibition to start promoting on LinkedIn. Choose platforms relevant to your industry.
Listings
If your event is not listed it’s as good as non-existant. Event listing is a must. Identify the websites in your city and have your event listed on all of them. For ticketed events, Bookmyshow.com is the leading platform that assists with ticket sales.
Facebook event
Creating a Facebook event benefits in various aspects. It builds on the event’s credibility by showing the number of attendees and the friends attending. It boosts the event on searches. Also, every time you post on the event, your invitees are sent a notification. When the event dates approach, Facebook sends reminders to those who’ve shown interest in the event.
Content Strategy
You cannot just announce your event and keep its social profiles inactive. You have to constantly engage the audience with interesting and relevant content. Hype can be created by sharing glimpses of what can be expected at the event viz. snippets of activities that would be hosted, VIP attendees and past videos. For instance, if it’s a comedy festival, high impact video clips of the comedians can be shared. If its a fashion exhibition, collection pictures of the exhibitors can be shared. Generic posts can revolve around industry-related trends, facts, memes.
Towards the end you could have a fun series of countdown posts.
Pro-tip: Well shot photographs perform very well in the social space. So ensure that you have a lot of photographs as part of your content plan.
Contest
Contests evoke the TG to interact with your brand page, boosting its engagement and reach. It’s important to conceptualize an event where prize is not the only motivation for the TG to participate. It needs to be something fun or challenging that intrigues or excites them, thus creating a ripple effect on participation.
Influencers
One of the most effective ways to build credibile awareness about your event is to have influencers talk about it. Either build a ‘Nominate 3 people’ chain campaign or simply have them post about the event. Another method is to create a template for all influncers with their image & the caption – “I’m attending xxx event”, and make them share it on their social profiles.
If your budgets do not permit you to pay influencers, simply interact with them on twitter.
Cross-posting
This is a new, exciting feature launched by Facebook. Cross-posting allows you to simultaneously post a video on 2 or more pages. The cummulative reach, likes and comments from all pages will be reflected on the video, thus multiplying its overall reach and impact.
Your video invite can be cross-posted on pages of all your stake-holders.
What’s App
People often forget to include the most utilized social networking app in their social media plan. Needless to say, sending invites to what’s app contacts is mandatory. Other than that, funny forwards can be created for what’s app circulation.
Stories
Stories yield excellent, immediate results. Stories can be posted daily on What’s app, Facebook and Instagram without being risked as spam.
Also, stories can be shared by all stake-holders on their personal invites.
Email/SMS Blast
Utilizing contact lists of past events/ competitor events for email & SMS marketing is imporant because people who’ve attended similar events in the past are mostly likely to re-visit.
Targeted FB ads
Another effective medium to use your contact list is Targeted Facebook ads. Along with your usual location targeted ad campaigns, a separate campaign can be created targeting only a special list of contacts.
People who are constantly reminded by emails, SMS and FB ads automatically build a credible image of the event and are likely to convert.
Re-marketing
Re-marketing is a technique that constantly reminds interested people about the event. It works on cookie tracking, whereby every visitor to your page is tracked, marked and constantly shown the event’s ad everytime he browses the net. Re-marketing campaign can be set up on both, Google & Facebook ads.
PR STUNT
A sure-shot way to pull crowds is displaying a never-before-seen, record-breaking act/installation. The hype and PR that it garners will create a Tsunami of excitement and urge people to visit and experience it first-hand.
For instance, a food festival could display the world’s largest cake. A fashion exhibition, could showcase an outfit entirely crafted from gold and gemstones.
GO LIVE
GOING LIVE was created for events! If your event is live, that’s exactly what your social pages should be – Amplyfying the impact of your event!
We, at Partners Advertising have marketed for some of the top-notch events in North India including Customized Dreams, Paris-Summer Exhibtion and Mamamea. We’ve worked our way up, becoming the premier Advertising Agency in Chandigarh. Our team pulls out a genie from their idea bag – a different one each time – to give your brand the best marketing mix. And yes, more than 3 wishes are granted.