Tag: digital event

Events may have taken a back burner in most businesses’ marketing plans, but that will soon change. Despite Covid-19 having held everyone back at the start of 2020, many companies soon learnt to adapt and make the most out of the situation at hand.

Slowly but surely, we’re seeing a rise in event marketing again. This time, events are going digital.

You may be wondering, what are the differences between holding a physical event versus a digital one? Are there any benefits or costs to doing so?

Well, this is the right article for you.

In the current economic situation, we have seen plenty of brands starting to go digital ever since Covid-19 changed the way businesses were run. Industry events are perhaps one of the areas most affected by this change in the business landscape.

Perhaps the biggest issue here is the concern that not every physical event will be able to translate into a digital event seamlessly. Certain events such as expositions or live demonstrations rely heavily on the face-to-face aspect to succeed.

That being said, it is not entirely impossible to conduct a virtual event and still manage to reach your promotional goals. Before you start planning, let alone marketing for your event, ask yourself this question: Am I providing timely and relevant content to my audience? Will hosting a virtual event help my business reach its goals?

If the answer is no, you might want to reconsider hosting a digital event just for the sake of promotion and sales. However, if you answered yes, feel free to carry on reading.

Now that we’ve cleared that out of the way, it’s time to delve into the steps that you can (and should) take to make your virtual event a success. After all, your event is only as good as the guests that attend.

Multifaceted marketing plan for digital events

1. Create a unique event page

Having an event page for your event is so important as it gives attendees a place to go to for more information. This could very well mean a lead conversion! In fact, your event page can also act as many things including drawing potential attendees who are curious but still yet undecided about your event.

The last thing you want is for people to click away from your event because they were unable to find more information about it or buy tickets to attend. Make sure your event page is user-friendly and has a simple but enjoyable user experience. It would also be preferable if you were to include a clear call-to-action to help confused users navigate your site. Read our post here for how to create an effective CTA button!

2. Create content that promotes your event

Although you should take note of SEO (search engine optimisation) at every step of the way, I daresay this is the part where it will benefit you the most. From large content chunks such as blog posts and articles to bite-sized content such as a brief description, SEO can go a long way in promoting your event.

Knowing the keywords that people use to search for events allows you to optimise your content to include those keywords. Keyword Tool is but one example of a tool that can help you get started on your research. You can always browse Google for more if the Keyword Tool doesn’t address your needs!

3. Use email lists to your advantage

With an email list already in hand, your first step to promoting your event is easily in reach. But don’t just mass email to everyone on your email list — use it to your advantage.

Email marketing is one of the places where it makes it easiest to segment your audience. Know your consumers’ preferences and what they want to see. Through information like this, you can market your event to those who you know will be interested in it. If your event is going to touch on multiple topics, segment your audience into groups based on demographics, shopping history, or other factors.

By personalising the emails to suit your audience’s needs, it sends the signal that your brand cares about its consumers and wants to bring value to their lives. This would help your brand gain a more favourable impression in the long run.

4. Leverage co-branding opportunities

Also known as co-marketing, this is a trick that works often for virtual marketers — as such, it is fairly common to see it being used in the marketing plans of most businesses. Partnering with another brand or a sponsor to promote the event can help increase exposure for it.

Through lead-share marketing, both brands associated with the event stand to gain. This allows both companies to get access to the same leads that would be generated during the event itself, driving registrations and sign-ups. In fact, this is not the only way to widen your audience — you can also ask brands affiliated with your event to promote it on their channels. Win-win!

If you want to go a further step, you can even seek out individuals such as professional speakers or anyone in your network to speak at your event. The more people that post about your event, the greater the word-of-mouth marketing will be.

5. Share on your social media

Make sure to generate as much buzz as you can around your event. Social media is the key driver for word-of-mouth marketing, which in turn translates to more press. Make sure to link your event page in all your posts so that visitors know where to go for further information. It is also best to include a CTA in your posts as well to nudge them to take the next step as soon as possible.

You can even ask your employees and colleagues to share about the event or even just pass the link around. However, it helps to go an extra mile and send them images, videos, as well as coverage of the event in order to boost a variety of different promotions. Provide incentives by hosting contests that reward individuals for such solid event promotion to encourage them to share healthily!

Here’s an extra tip: when it comes to promoting your event on social media, it goes a long way to create an event hashtag for it. Of course, branded hashtags will always help no matter what you’re promoting — but this is particularly so for events. Having an event hashtag will tie all your social media campaigns together and help potential attendees quickly find your social media channels.

We get it — hosting an event is not easy, be it a physical one or a digital one. It may seem like there are plenty of steps to take. Why not let someone else handle the details for you, while you sit back and reap the benefits? At MIU, we focus our marketing efforts on getting our clients to achieve their goals — be it awareness, sales, conversion, or lead generation. If hosting an event is what you believe your brand needs, we will be there to help you in every step of the way. Click here to get a free consultation from us — no hidden conditions!