People think marketing an event is the most difficult task. They drown themselves under the stress of attracting a large enough audience while staying on track with the budget.
We can’t blame them though, event marketing can be very hard to do if you don’t know where to start or lack ideas to throw in along your quest to hosting a full house.
However, once you understand how to go about marketing your function and have a few things to implement, all you have to do is put them into practice to see what works and what doesn’t work.
From there, reaching people with your event invitations is much easier.
So want to find out a few tips and tricks that will help you become an effective corporate event marketer?
Keep reading, we’re about to get there.
Is it Even Important?
Marketing your corporate event is incredibly important in most cases.
However, certain events may be so highly sought after that the marketers have a much lighter load to carry.
On the other hand, other functions may require significant marketing strategies to push for maximum attendance.
Either way, marketing comes into play when preparing for any function.
The only way for you to get people to show up at your event is through some type of marketing.
So marketing is essentially your first step towards event success-we all know the first step is always important.
Here’s a few tips that may help you get it right.
Understand Your Audience
In simple words, marketing is connecting your product or service-in this case your event-with the people most likely to benefit positively from it.
How are you ever going to find the right people if you don’t even know who you’re looking for?
That’s why the most important aspect of marketing a corporate event is understanding your audience, their demographics, ages, where they live, why your event would benefit them, and whatever other information you can squeeze into your audience description.
Once you understand your audience, you can dive into more detailed research such as where they typically hang out, as you will need to know where and how you can reach them with an invitation to your function.
Find Your USP
Understand your audience? Good, you now need to take action.
But before you take action you need to set yourself up as valuable and important in the eyes of possible guests so that your event is viewed as a beneficial opportunity.
If it blends in too well with all the other events most people come across and get invitations to, chances are you won’t have much success in terms of the amount of attendees.
So to effectively market your event to your audience, you need to discover your Unique Selling Point (USP).
Your USP is something unique to you that only you can offer and can be used to help the event stick out in.
Find it and your function stands out like a sore thumb among the other mediocre events of similar type in the region.
Look For Trends
Marketing is ever evolving.
One year using Instagram to market an event may work, the next you may have to focus on LinkedIn or Youtube.
Regardless of the current trends, your responsibility is to always keep up.
Try to find people or businesses that frequently host events like yours and get good results. From here all you have to do is take out certain aspects of their marketing that work for them and implement them in your event.
Whether it is content styles, offers, engaging online activities, take as much as you can.
We all know the saying “You can never reinvent the wheel”. If something works well, it’s probably better to copy it than to try to invent a whole new strategy. But never forget to add your own little spin on it
Try Everything
So we’ve just gone over trend hunting, which is what you should focus on, but from time to time, it’s good to throw in your own ideas and try them out.
When it comes to marketing, those who are most successful are those who do the most testing.
Whether it is testing of trends brought in from others or testing of original ideas, you must keep trying new things and evaluating their performance.
Of course, if you plan to host one or two corporate events in your entire lifetime, you don’t have as many opportunities to try out new marketing techniques, trends, and hunches.
However, if you’re a regular in the event hosting space, you should aim to try at least one or two new marketing techniques per event.
Not only will it develop your experience and give you a broader understanding on effective corporate event marketing, but it will keep your events looking fresh and different in the eyes of your possible audience.
Give it a try!
Make Use Of Social Media
Social media is one of the most powerful tools of the 21st century.
Reaching hundreds, thousands, and even millions of people spread across large geographical locations from just a few clicks and taps would be unimaginable 100 years ago.
Today, it’s the norm. You need to make use of it.
Although there’s many different platforms to choose from, you need to select the best platform to reach your desired audience.
This goes back to understanding your audience and then targeting platforms where they are likely to be found.
Once again, you should always test multiple platforms, paid advertising, influencers, and anything else that correlates to social media.
Social media is the marketing superpower of the 21st century-use it well.
Endorsement
Speaking of influencers, one of the growing tricks to building a huge turnup at corporate events such as conferences and larger gatherings is to involve popular people.
Well known experts in whichever field is relevant to your event will always inspire their audiences to turn up at your event by endorsing it.
So what can you do?
Reach out to micro influencers in fields relevant to the theme of your corporate function and ask them to attend.
Perhaps offer them the roles of honorary guest or speaker. Maybe partner with one to push forward a program or book that is written by them.
When looking for experts, people who tend to be very busy, you have to make sure they benefit in some way from turning up to your event.
Be Inspired
There you have it, a few tips and tricks to perhaps inspire the marketing strategy for your next corporate event.
You can go back and check on any of them but the one thing I must repeat all the way down here is understanding your audience.
In theory, if you understand your audience, you can more confidently build up a strategy to catch them in the right place, time, and with the right invitation, rather than run around looking for overused strategies to shove into your campaign.
Wishing you the best of luck!
But if you’d prefer to have professionals handle the marketing of your event, hit the button below and find out more about how Tellit Events plans, manages, and executes the most seamless corporate events in Uganda.
I’ll see you on the other side!
