Event planners, you might think that your events speak for themselves (and maybe they do), but in reality, nothing attracts new clients like a solid marketing campaign. For all the blood, sweat, and tears that comes with organising an event, careful consideration should be given to marketing to attract the right audience.
We know that competition in the event industry is fierce, that’s why we are sharing some top marketing strategies and tips to help you stand out from the crowd… The best part is, you can do this all internally!
4 Marketing Strategies and Tips
Identify Your Target Audience
You simply cannot be successful in the event industry without a clear target audience. Merely catering for “millennials” is not going to cut it. Create customer personas to describe the ideal customer in as much detail as possible in order to shape your marketing strategy. Once you have identified your target audience, you will be able to determine where you need to spend ad budgets, and what social media platforms to focus on. Check out our Ultimate Social Media Checklist to point you in the right direction.
To discover your target audience, you need to reflect on past events. Which ones were the most successful? Why are these events similar? Did they have the same topic, location, or size? Were the attendees from the same industry? Once you have answered these questions you will have a better understanding of what your ideal audience looks like.
Display Your Website Professionally
With your target market still in mind, you need to make sure that your website matches the style and tone of your most successful events. Have a look at our website best practices to ensure that your website is always up to scratch.
Tips for a Professional Website
- Always make sure your logo, business name and offering is clearly visible without scrolling.
- Visitors should never use more than 3 clicks to contact someone via the website.
- All images should be high-quality, visually appealing, brand appropriate and compressed to load quickly.
- Always feature testimonials, reviews and pictures or videos taken by attendees.
- Include links to your social channels on your website.
Foster Relationships
The event industry is not something you can tackle by yourself. It is important to form two-way relationships within the industry, and in your community to boost your marketing efforts. Teaming up with other companies gives you the opportunity to expand the range of services you offer. Consider finding a go-to caterer, florist, audio/visual company, ect, to ensure top quality service across the board. Strong relationships with other brands could result in them recommending you to their customers or companies in their industry, in-turn helping you to grow your business, and proving that word-of-mouth is still a powerful contender in the marketing world.
Allow Your Brand to Speak for Itself
Ultimately, you want clients and attendees to look at the event you organised and see your brand strongly shine through. From the tone, theme, welcome gifts, all the way to the breakout session, everything needs to authentically point to the brand you’re creating.
Once you have nailed this, you should create a digital portfolio to showcase your style during sales pitches to potential clients. Utilise images and videos from previous events that really display your brand at the forefront. Remember that your style doesn’t necessarily need to be reliant on one element. Don’t try to identify yourself as “the event planner who always uses fairy lights for decoration”, it’s 2022, and, unfortunately that won’t cut it anymore. It’s time to offer something new to the market. Why not create a name for yourself as someone who creates eco-conscious, sustainable events? You might even want to highlight that you offer Virtual Reality experiences, or that you use the NFT marketplace to sell event tickets. It doesn’t matter what your unique offering is, at the end of the day, if you market it correctly, it will bring in plenty of new clients.
When it comes to event planner marketing, you need to remember that there is no one-size-fits-all solution. To successfully deliver the strategies above, you need to look at your company’s brand and goals, and mold a strategy that uniquely works for you.
Do you want to put these marketing strategies to use today? Book a demo with us to find out how we can help you, or subscribe to our newsletter for more great tips.