Event Marketing Basics

You wouldn’t go to Topeka without a map. You cannot expect people to come to your event without you guiding them there.

According to extensive research by the Meeting Professionals International Foundation, the George P. Johnson Company and the Event Marketing Institute, event marketing is on the rise. It’s especially true for those who measure the effects of their marketing efforts: “those who measure are one and a half times more likely to expect an increase in their event marketing budget than those who do not measure.”

As a meeting planner, just how do you do event marketing and then measure it? Enlist the marketing department’s help for sure, but here are some pointers to better marketing for your events.

Devise a Marketing Plan
Start by determining your target audience: are they potential external customers, existing external customers, internal customers (employees), or the general public? What are their ages, gender and geographic data? Once you know the demographics of your target audience, you can go to the next step.

What are the best methods (known as marketing channels) to reach your target audience: email, advertising, word-of-mouth (viral), publicity? Email is probably not the best method to reach elderly people and text messaging may be the only way to reach Generation Y. Viral marketing is spreading the word through people using various methods such as email, text messaging, and blogs. It works amazingly well. Direct mail is still effective, although printed materials add to the landfills.

The more ways you can tell someone about your event, the better. Research says you must engage a potential customer seven times before they will decide to buy. Existing customers may not require that many “touches,” but in today’s super-noisy world, you really do have to work hard to get people’s attention.

If you plan to use email as your main source of event marketing, consider using one of the services that manages opt-outs for you. At Garrett Speakers, we use Constant Contact to stay in touch with our clients and this service tells us who no longer wants to get emails from us as well as those who did open the email and then clicked on our website link. You can learn a ton about how well your marketing is doing, but you really don’t want to be labeled as spam to your clients.

Get Your Message Across
No matter how many times you say it, your target audience—if they are paying attention—will be asking, “What’s in if for me?” Therefore, your message via whatever channel had better answer that question. What need do they have and how do you fill it? What desire do they have that you can fulfill? Answer these questions in a provocative, compelling way and you will be swarmed with target audience!

Creativity comes to play here. Once for our user conference, which was planned for Orlando, we sent more than 5000 clients each a box of cheap sunglasses. The box included our “save the date” message and our “brand” for that conference was a sun character wearing the same sunglasses. People remembered getting the sunglasses, and some even wore them to the conference!

Testimonials are another good way to connect with potential customers, but they need to be believable. “Greatest conference ever” doesn’t speak to their needs fulfillment. The testimony needs to come from peers of your target audience, and don’t forget to get permission to use the quote.

Use Basic Journalism
When you craft you message, begin with the same tool journalists use in their stories, the Five W’s and an H. That’s Who, What, When, Where, Why, and How. All marketing pieces should always, always include what the event will be, when it will occur, where it will take place, who should attend and why, and then how one may participate. I’ve seen—and dismissed—numerous advertisements or invitations that leave off the date or the location. I’ve made the mistake myself and felt like a total idiot.

Have Someone Proofread Your Message
It is imperative that you have your marketing pieces proofread, preferably by someone who is not so familiar with your event. If you have to do it yourself, make sure the dates are correct. Double-check the address and the spelling of the venue. Then, check it again. A misspelled word could turn off a potential attendee. I won’t work with a vendor if their marketing has typos—I figure they won’t pay attention to my details, either.

An easy technique to use when proofing is to place your index fingers on either ends of the word as you read to yourself or out loud. This method slows you down and forces your eyes to look at the whole word. Do not rely on spell-check programs to catch everything; you really need to look for the you that should be your.

Drive Readers to Your Website
Whether you are using an email marketing service or printed materials, always include your website as a way to get more information. In fact, it’s a good idea to suggest there’s more information to be had on the website (you just couldn’t get it all on that postcard). Once they are on your website, you have the opportunity to cross-sell them on more than your event. Be ready for that to happen.

Make it Easy on Yourself
Consider developing a template for your marketing pieces for each event. The template could include the Five W’s and the H, your target audience, suggestions for marketing channels and ideas for the various marketing pieces. Once you’ve completed your “template,” you’ll have your marketing plan in place. Simple!

Test the Waters—and Your Message
Those who measure the results of their campaigns tend to get bigger budgets. You need a bigger budget, don’t you? While you’re developing your marketing plan, also develop your measurement plan.

If you have a committee who helps you plan your conferences, show them prototypes of your marketing pieces and ask them if the channels are appropriate. They are a cross-section of your target audience. If you have a good relationship with a group of clients or internal customers, do the same with them. Get as much feedback upfront as possible, before you’ve spent a wad developing the logo for the event.

Once you begin marketing the event, use the tools available in the email marketing services to check who is opening, how quickly and whether they are clicking through to your website. Your web master can also give you reports of activity on your specific pages. Use them to let your employers know what a great job you’re doing. I had a boss who called that “shameless self-promotion” and it was a great way to tell the company the progress we were making on filling those seats.

Once you’ve got the people to your event, you must ask them what they thought of it. Again, think bigger budget. You can use standard questionnaire evaluations, but consider using focus groups and other more personal methods of research to gather the information you need. Use the information you get from evaluations of the event and independent sessions to build an even better program for next year. Data is one thing, but I read every single comment on our session and overall evaluations, which helped me get to know my attendees better and helped us develop a better conference each year. We still had budget cuts occasionally, but I knew exactly where I could apply them without affecting attendance.