What is Event Marketing?
Event marketing is a type of marketing that implies promoting a brand, product, or service by holding, participating in, or attending events. Event marketing helps build more profound relationships with customers and educate them about your product.
How does event marketing work?
Event marketing can work in several ways. The most obvious is when a brand hosts some occasions. Depending on the event type, it can help you build stronger relationships with customers and?prospects, find new partners, acquire leads, and more.
Another strategy is attending events as a guest. In this case, a company representative can promote products or services or strengthen a brand reputation by showing expertise in the field. Finally, you can sponsor events and increase your?brand awareness.
Whatever strategy a brand sticks to,?95%?of marketers consider event marketing to be the most important way to achieve business goals. Let’s discover why this opinion is prevailing.
Importance of Event Marketing
Event marketing importance boils down to growing your credibility. Partners and customers get a chance to interact with a brand in person and find it more trustworthy. This makes events a golden networking opportunity.?75%?of business owners say that the chance to make useful contacts is their primary reason for participating in events.
Holding or attending events is a powerful part of a healthy lead acquisition strategy. Large business meetings gather an audience which has an interest in your field, product, or new opportunities in general. Chances are the attendees will become warm leads and loyal customers later on.
Events are an excellent opportunity to boost?customer loyalty. People visit conferences or seminars not only to make contacts and absorb new knowledge but also to get away from their routines and have a good time. Such positive experiences create a strong emotional connection with a brand. Thus, holding events may be a good strategy for?relationship marketing.
Surprisingly, event marketing helps increase your brand’s online presence as well.?48%?of millennials attend events to share their experiences on social media. For businesses, this means higher outreach and brand awareness.
This quick once-over of the event marketing importance gives some hints about how effective this?marketing channel?is. It's time to delve deeper into the details.
How Effective is Event Marketing?
Event marketing seems an alluring opportunity for your business, right? Just in case you are still on the fence, we’ve found some more reasons to take advantage of this marketing channel:
Event marketing is highly effective for achieving business goals, boosting revenue, and making strong connections with prospects and customers. Still, not all events are equally beneficial for your brand. Let’s unveil the types of occasions that marketers consider the most valuable.
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Types of Events
There are a ton of event formats that can be held both off and online. It’s time to unpack the most popular event types according to the?Harvard Business Review:
Conferences
Conferences are large-scale events, which focus on educational speeches from industry leaders and experts. They often include workshops and networking sessions to double the attendees’ benefits.?40%?of businesses believe conferences are the most impactful event type for their business objectives.
Seminars
The main goal of this type of event is to educate visitors. Hence seminars often take place in smaller venues and imply a limited number of participants. 8% of companies consider seminars crucial for achieving their business goals, but this format contributes the most to increasing attendees’ expertise.
VIP events
These events aim at sales acceleration and key customer loyalty enlargement. VIP events can achieve these goals by gathering a room full of influential shareholders, key customers, and other honored guests. 7% of business representatives said VIP events have the highest impact on their company’s KPIs.
Thought-leadership events
The supreme goal of these events is networking. A bunch of professionals with the same interests get together for in-person communication. Thought-leadership events allow organizers to boost their authority in a certain field and drive amazing business results – 14% of business leaders believe this type of event is the most beneficial for their companies’ outcomes.
Product launches
Companies use this type of event to showcase their upcoming products to potential or existing customers. The goal is to make prospects and buyers excited about a new product’s features and benefits.
Event marketing is a potentially powerful tool. It allows you to build and maintain strong relationships, acquire new customers, create robust partnerships, and nail business KPIs. If you want to squeeze every bit of value from this channel, take care of promoting your event.
5 Event Marketing Strategies and Ideas
The best way to ruin your event is by neglecting to promote it. You’ll get next to no in visitors, and your event will be dead in the water. To reduce the odds of this gloomy outcome, consider adopting the strategies and ideas we’ve prepared for you.