How to Market Your Event
Marketing your event doesn’t have to be confusing and expensive, and by doing it correctly you can engage and build relationships with a whole range of people! Read on for our top 5 tips on how to market your event.
1. Social Media is everything
Social media is the go-to place for people looking for events. Ensure you post your event absolutely everywhere on all of your social accounts (Instagram, Facebook, LinkedIn, Pinterest) so it can be easily found, creating a unique event hashtag to keep track of who’s posting about your event. Give your guests interactive opportunities by keeping them updated on all the exciting details and updates, asking their opinions on what they want to experience at your event. Engage with all comments, questions and tags as quickly as possible, giving detail to build strong relationships with your potential guests.
2. Targeting & timing is key
Ensure you have enough time to promote your event sufficiently, as people may need to schedule it around busy periods. Ideally people like as much notice as possible, especially for large-scale events. To help promote your event to the right people, create ad campaigns through social media to target your specific event audience. This can be as easy as choosing people’s interests and likes that align with your event topic. Retarget the people that have viewed and interacted with your event advertisement, ensuring this is done with enough time for people to buy tickets or register for your event.
3. Introduce yourself IRL
There’s never a better opportunity to market your event than in real life - people like making connections face-to-face and are likely to be more engaged if speaking in person. Attending networking events with small business owners or even social events with friends and family are a great way to inform others about your exciting event news. People will often share interesting events with their own social circle, so ensure you shout your event from the rooftops!
4. Engage local, niche influencers and groups
Influencers are great at promoting events, especially if they have a role to play or a vested interest in the event topic or theme. If you are doing a wellness event for example, consider engaging local wellness influencers by giving them free tickets for your event in exchange for promotion on their social platforms. Remember when utilising influencers, always create a contract to ensure both parties are on the same page.
5. Utilise your database
Don’t forget about the most important people in your network - your own database. These people are already engaged with you and your brand, and are the people most likely to attend your events. Create fun and informative EDMs (electronic direct mail) to send to your database, raising awareness about your upcoming event. Giving your own database “exclusive pre-sale access” to event tickets and info will make them feel special and strengthen relationships.
