Over the years, some business owners and managers have looked at events as a somehow-independent activity in the scheme of their operations. Yet events are typically a demand generation tool, which should place them firmly under the Marketing umbrella. So if you are looking for ways to develop your marketing strategies, why not consider events? But how do you create a case to include events in your marketing mix?
Measure Everything
Everything needs to be measured if it is to be justified. This is one of the most important roles in any business environment. The good news now is that events are relatively easy to analyse, and they typically have more data touchpoints than they ever did before. Technology has advanced in leaps and bounds, and it is possible to gather some comprehensive data and, in fact, more than many other marketing channels. So, ensure that any event you operate is set up to provide feedback. Then, gather and analyse the data to prove your return on investment.
Justify the Effort
When you run digital strategies within any event, it gives you the opportunity to increase your engagement. Bring attendees closer to your brand by running games, surveys, polls or other activities through a digital connection. You can be as granular as you like when setting up these event marketing strategies, but the aim should always be engagement. And always follow up after the event using more digital strategies to keep those connections on the boil.
Take Advantage of the Post-Pandemic World
If anything good came out of the pandemic, it might have been the rise of digital and hybrid events. Savvy marketers now incorporate the lessons learned to help them expand the reach of any event they stage. For example, they can reach out to audiences who cannot attend an in-person event through webinars, remote logins and other strategies. And as prospects decide to cut back on their expenditure in the face of a downturn, this may present greater opportunities to the event planner. Those prospects may still want to engage with your brand and may be interested in attending remotely instead.
Track Those KPIs
Establish key performance indicators (KPIs) so that you can always justify any event expenditure. For example, measure attendance rates, satisfaction scores, brand engagement, social media activity and — the ultimate metric — generated sales. Remember that many of your prospects will be on a multistage journey as they progress from someone with little interest to someone who is an avid fan. The good news is that you can gather data from each event to show how prospects or attendees became more engaged and answered your call to action.
Invest in the Best Technologies
Events are a lot easier to organise these days than they once were. You can take advantage of cloud-based solutions enabling you to promote, manage and market events online with relative ease. You can also bring in other technological solutions to deliver on-demand content to in-person and digital audiences. And again, all these technologies allow you to gather data to profile your attendees, measure your ROI and get deeper engagement.
How to Be Best Prepared
So, as you can see, events can and should be a crucial part of your Business Marketing Mix. It’s much easier to analyse their effectiveness and to justify your ROI, so there’s no excuse for putting any event ideas onto the back burner. You should modify your overall business strategies to ensure that events are always included in your marketing mix definition.
And when you’re ready to get your first event underway, remember that the best event staff members can often make the difference between success and failure. If you’re looking for promotional staff, brand ambassadors or other team members, always work with the best agencies in the business. Reach out to the friendly advisers at Eventeem for help in this area.
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