With its exponential boom in the last decade, the digital space should be an integral part of any marketing endeavour you undertake.
Digital marketing is all about connections. Ideally, it will connect leads with products and services at just the right time to turn them into customers, attendees, and participants for your business.
You may be wondering how digital marketing comes into play when considering an event.
Digital marketing and event coordination is like how Ben is to Jerry (the ice cream of course) – they blend together so well that they’re absolutely essential to each other.
So, what exactly is digital marketing?
Any marketing that involves an electronic device is considered digital marketing.
Your emails, social media, the ads that appear on your Facebook news feed, the websites you visit, stores you shop from online…the use of these platforms for business marketing purposes is called digital marketing.
Digital marketing is a fantastic avenue to work with as it can be extremely targeted and a tailored approach, plus the results are more trackable than many traditional marketing tactics.
So how does it work for an event? Digital marketing and event marketing are a match made in heaven – here’s why.
How can digital marketing be used for events
When was the last time you bought tickets to a show? Booked in a massage? Purchased a new pair of shoes? We can guarantee you did at least one of these things online.
With 91 per cent of Australians being active internet users, digital marketing is a must-have for any event.
In fact, due to this rise, offline and more traditional forms of marketing aren’t as effective as they used to be.
Digital marketing allows you to track and nurture leads (or guests) in a way that traditional marketing cannot. Plus, it’s versatile and adaptable. Whether you’re using social media, your website, EDMs, digital advertising or a combination, marketing on these platforms will allow you to elevate your event in a way standard marketing cannot.
Digital marketing is also a great opportunity for comprehensive tracking of a variety of metrics. It gives you hard proof of what part of your marketing is working and provides clear and measurable statistics to base future actions off.
How to amplify your event using digital marketing
Strategy is key
First things first, you need a digital marketing strategy as part of your overarching marketing plan for your event. There’s no point jumping into promoting your event without a cohesive approach to your marketing across all channels and assets.
Your marketing activities for your event should align, add to the story you are trying to create, and attract your audience in different ways.
If you’ve already produced an event, chances are you used some form of marketing to promote it. Ask yourself what worked? What could be improved? If you used digital marketing strategies previously, have you evaluated their effectiveness?
Tapping into your current digital marketing channels to develop your event strategy is a great learning opportunity. It allows you to evaluate your current standing to drive your approach for future marketing activities both for the event and afterwards.
Our event team is here to work out the finer points and develop a clear plan of implementation so you can sit back and enjoy a glass of bubbles and a few canapes.
Leverage your website
Your website is your digital storefront – the door through which potential leads enter and you get to greet them online. Think of your website home page like you would the host welcoming guests to an event – often it’s the first thing they see, so make an impression.
You should leverage your website to help gain further awareness of your event digitally and provide a space for all other digital and traditional advertising activities to refer back to.
Consider leveraging your pop-up features, home page banners, an events section, and blog to share the details of your event in the lead up to the date and afterwards.
Consider using social media before, during and after your event
In this day and age, almost every man and his dog (literally) have some form of social media.
If a landing page is the hook, then social media is the bait. Social media plays a massive role in marketing your event. If used effectively, you can leverage your social accounts to drive traffic to your website, generate ticket purchases, increase brand awareness, and foster relationships with your guests.
Facebook and LinkedIn also have great free features which allow you to create and link your event to promote it across their platforms.
Whether you want to grow your social media audience organically, or use paid advertising to boost engagement, our team has the knowledge and hands-on experience to take your event’s social media to the next level.
Want to learn more about what we can do for your next event?
Communicate with your database through EDMs
EDMs, aka electronic direct mail, are a great way to target potential guests and foster a relationship with them. EDMs are targeted – they should take into account specific segments of your target audience and be tailored to provide them with relevant information.
Engaging your current database is a great starting point for getting the word out about your event. Develop EDMs to highlight your upcoming event, tell your audience when ticket purchases are open, prompt people to take action and remind them that it is their last chance to purchase tickets.
After the event, use your database to send a thank you EDM to those who attended, ensuring you’re nurturing your relationship with them for future events.
Our team uses HubSpot, a CRM tool, to create engaging and effective EDMs for a wide variety of our clients’ digital marketing activities. It also allows us to monitor and nurture leads throughout the customer journey.
We use HubSpot so effectively that we’re in the top 6 percent of HubSpot Partners in Australia and New Zealand.
Don’t forget marketing during and post-event
People don’t like missing out, so a great way to generate interest for your next event is showcasing your current event both while it’s happening and after the fact.
According to Eventbrite, 67 per cent of viewers are likely to buy a ticket to an event (or one similar) after watching a live video. So throughout the event, don’t forget to take and post video content across all your social media platforms! TikTok, Twitter, and Instagram Stories are your friends here. Creating timelapses of the event set up, tweeting at strategic points throughout the event, and sharing snippets of the event and guests are sure-fire ways to showcase your event while it’s happening.
Post-event is the time to thank everyone involved. As mentioned, send out EDMs, post on your website, update your landing page, and develop content for your social media platforms.
After the event, you should also evaluate the effectiveness of your digital marketing campaign. How effective was your plan? Did you reach your goals? What can you learn for next time?
