A 2022 survey by Global NewsWire reported that 95% of online customers make purchase decisions based on the Internet and social media reviews of products and services. The digital age has shifted many businesses’ marketing strategies to focus on online engagement.
Marketing automation software helps you collect valuable customer data, such as online event reviews, to improve marketing campaigns and customer experiences. Big data also helps you plan, manage and promote your offline events on social media.
This blog explains the 3 benefits of marketing automation events for your business.
How Does Marketing Event Automation Work?
Marketing automation for events uses specialised marketing platforms and automated workflows to launch and manage events.
The software also tracks customer behavior and preferences. It’s essential for scaling and maintaining your business’s competitive advantage.
3 Benefits of Implementing Marketing Event Automation
1. Better Customer Personalisation
Automated Data Collection
Collecting registrant data is essential for planning any event. However, the process is also prone to error due to the high volume of information and accuracy needed. A marketing automation platform helps you record and organise data much faster than a person can.
The best part is that you won’t have to manually monitor or approve the registration process. You only need to provide a link and let participants key their details into a form. The automated marketing software will record it for you.
Sharing participant data early
What if there was a way to know what your attendees want before they attend your event? Marketing automation shares early participant data with your marketing team and other organisers.
This information collection process can begin months in advance before the actual event. You can use this valuable insights data to refine your event early to better suit your registrants’ preferences and behaviours.
Automated data collection and analysis helps you understand:
Whether your registrants are mostly customers or prospects.
How attending customers use your product or service.
Analyze data, background and demographics of your registrants.
Job roles and types of companies your registrants work at.
How long have your registrants engaged with your business?
Here’s an example of an automated data collection workflow:
A registrant signs up for an event on your landing page. They submit their details in a form.
The automated software system collects and stores the registrant’s data points in a data warehouse based on audience segments.
The data warehouse automatically shares registrant information in your business’s communication channel.
You and your sales team can review the information.
You can also use the collected data for other marketing efforts, lead scoring, customer support e.g., creating content that meets your target audience’s needs.
2. Streamlining Operations and Increasing Efficiency
Event planning and preparation
Planning an event involves many tasks. You must promote the event, create guest lists, develop promotional content, contact guest speakers, and more.
Marketing event automation expedites manual processes to increase event preparation and promotion efficiency. No more stressing over routine operational tasks.
Automated marketing event software helps you:
Collect registrations through online forms
Collect payments through third-party payment gateway integration
Manage invoices and receipts
Set ticket prices
Automated emails, e.g., confirmation emails
Create guest lists
Save time
While your software automates these pre-event processes, you and your staff can focus on contacting people and planning the event.
Automated event promotion
After all the hard work you’ve put into planning and scheduling an event, you must find attendees. Social media promotion is the best way to get the word out about your event.
Manually posting promotional content online involves a lot of copy and pasting. You don’t have to spend precious time doing that. Automated marketing software can generate buzz around your event by cross-posting promotional content on all your linked social media platforms.
3. Data-Driven Decision Making
How does automation benefit customers?
Every business owner knows that customer data is essential for making business decisions. Data-driven marketing helps you personalise your content, products and services to fit your target audience and improve customer loyalty.
As mentioned, automated event software provides the data needed to adjust your marketing campaigns.
One example is collecting and tracking customer feedback during and after an event. It is difficult to collect hard copy forms from attendees while the event is ongoing, and people may need more time to provide useful information in feedback questionnaires.
An automated online survey allows them to provide answers when they’re free, improving the quality of the responses you get. You’ll also collect their contact information, useful during lead generation for further customer interaction.
Here’s an example of an automated response collection workflow:
Participants receive an email containing a link to an automated or computerised survey during or after the event.
The survey asks them questions about what they learned and why they wanted to sign up.
The participant submits the survey. Their responses are automatically saved to a data warehouse or shared with your business’s communication channel.
“The corporate event last night was fantastic, wasn’t it? At least I feel so.”
“So do I! They truly came up with innovative ideas for branding their event.”
“Oh yes. And by the way, as I was checking their event page on social media, I noticed that their customers and clients were interacting heavily in the comment section. It looks like they are impressed as well!”
image source: https://mockupcity.com
“Yup. Talk about outdoing yourself! Their company sure did raise the bar for event branding!”
This could be people talking about your company!
The above is no pipe dream, and this can be your reality if you know what to do and how to do it. Whether you’re planning to organize your first promotional event or your 100th one, you must know what works and what doesn’t.
Look at it this way:
Event branding budgets are typically between $1000 and $20000. Depending on your company’s success criteria, it can even be more. You don’t want such hefty amounts to be a waste because of ineffective strategies.
That’s where this article comes in. You’ll learn:
What are branding events?
How do you brand a business event?
What makes a branding event successful?
Why is event branding important?
Top corporate event branding ideas
Best event branding examples
But why should you believe us?
MIU is a revered digital enabler based out of Singapore. We assist brands in enhancing their reach and influence over respective industries with immersive experiences at corporate events. We ensure happening audience interaction using the dynamism and superiority of augmented reality and audio-visual experience.
This article is about your venture and how you can get better at event branding.
Before we come to the exclusive tips, let’s cover the basics.
Frequently Asked Questions
Image source: https://www.superoffice.com
What are branding events?
Event branding is all about showing the essence of your company’s brand through proper event marketing endeavors. Event branding can be:
digital
on-site, or
hybrid
How to do event branding for your business?
We’ll go through this in detail later, but for now, here are some tips to stimulate your mind.
Determine your brand identity
Keep your message consistent throughout the campaign
Create an affirmative presence on social media
Develop an inbound marketing campaign ahead of the event
Use the power of print media to create attractive flyers and posters
Give a unique name and tagline to your event.
What makes a branding event successful?
At the very least, you have to stand out from your competition when you host an event. All of your marketing elements should harmoniously stand together. Beyond that, you should leave a long-lasting impression on the audience, leaving them waiting for the next one.
Why is event branding important?
If you want to build brand loyalty, events are one of the most potent ways to keep generating that for a long time on auto-pilot. They give you ample scope for interaction with the audiences and thus enhances brand engagement.
One of the essential advantages of branding an event is that you have audiences’ complete attention, have a reasonable amount of time to work on the details and thus plan a more effective event. You must seize the opportunity to emphasize its position and enhance its impression on the customers.
Since the basics are covered, we can finally get to the meat of the matter- some of the top (and pretty unique!) corporate event branding strategies.
Corporate event branding ideas
Image source: https://netdna-ssl.com
Here are some unique corporate event branding ideas to get you thinking. These will work regardless of whether you’re hosting an event or have a display stand at someone else’s event.
Make these a part of your event branding arsenal to make memorable, positive impressions on your audience.
Here’s how to do it!
How about an immersive brand strategy?
Also known as live marketing, engagement marketing, and participation marketing, experiential marketing is sometimes lumped together with event marketing. However, it is much more than traditional conferences.
Experiential marketing focuses on creating unique and memorable customer engagement, direct in nature, and on promoting brand affinity and awareness.
Image source: https://squarespace-cdn.com
Experiential marketing strategies can take several forms. They can be:
A series of live events
One-off events extending over a couple of hours
Hosting corporate retreat events
Creating experiences that reflect your brand
Offering demos and samples
Holding activities at trade shows.
Regardless of the formal approach, experiential marketing boosts an event’s ROI.
While traditionally, experiential marketing works in a physical event, nothing stops you from using this strategy to create online events.
There are several benefits of experiential marketing, such as
Giving people a unique way to try out your product
Now, let’s come to our next strategy. It may not be as complicated as this one, but there’s no arguing about its effectiveness. Let’s talk about…
Branding the Bun
Image source: https://eventtia.com
A fantastic way to promote your logo at events is by branding the free food you’ll be offering.
While guests will be attending for the valuable content and networking, good food served at the event can enhance audiences’ satisfaction. Attention goes there as well, so how about leaving behind your brand signature there?
The best way to satisfy your audience?
Satisfy their tummies and create a good impression!
Here are some ideas to get inside their minds through their mouth:
Print your logo on top of the jelly on gelatin cups
Put your logo on the back of fortune cookie papers
Imprint your logo on hard candies
Put your logo on toothpick flags or club sandwiches and buns, making them instantly Instagrammable!
Speaking of making things Instagrammable.
Hire a Pied Piper
image source: https://www.marketing91.com
You’ve all heard about the Pied Piper story.
How about replicating the same effect on your target audience?
You may not need a magic flute anymore, but you do need influencers and brand advocates.
Influencers and brand advocates; are public figures appreciated and trusted by a large number of followers. They take your brand to target audiences as a user, without the feel of promotion. As a result, they have more acceptability to the audience. They frequently share your content and products through social media or by word-of-mouth.
We suggest you leverage your brand advocates and influencers to:
Build up a pre-event hype
Spread word about the event post-event
Ask them to share personal pictures of them participating in activities related to your brand.
For instance, if your company produces fitness equipment, ask your influencers to share their pictures using that equipment. You can then share these images on your company’s Instagram page and promote your brand.
Sometimes it is essential to let your audience see what activities your company is involved in.
Show them the entire picture
Image source: https://static.toiimg.com
Use a 360-degree camera to shoot the event and stream it live. It will let remote attendees freely rotate the view to experience your event from multiple angles.
You can bet your money that all the colors, logos and other brand signatures you have put around the area won’t waste. Online viewers streaming the event live from your event website shall see all your logos each time they change the camera angle! It’s a win-win for you both.
This is how you…
Give them some love
image source: https://i.pinimg.com
Attendees get take-home gifts from events, so this strategy may not be that unique. But you can’t deny how effective this is! Would this marketing and branding technique still be used if it wasn’t that effective?
Things you can gift are:
Pens
T-shirts
Tote bags
Personalize the items you’ll be gifting, and yes, don’t forget to put your logo on them.
You can imprint an important photo into promotional items like t-shirts, mugs and notepad covers. Personalization makes common items seem far more valuable because they have your company’s logo on it.
“But hold up!” you say. “We’re a small company that doesn’t have a big budget! We want to start small with these event branding ideas.“
Well, who said the budget could be a constraint? You need creative ideas that you know your audience will be receptive to and still have successful event branding.
We’ll show you how to do that right now!
Low-cost event branding ideas
The following ideas are not just cost-saving, but they have another huge benefit: they have a fast turnaround time. You can have these created and set up quickly if you’re under tight deadlines.
Lectern branding
image source: https://www.signpac.com.au
A lectern is a stand from behind which a speaker presents on stage. All eyes are on the stage during such times, and your audience will be hanging onto the very words your speakers utter.
Branding a lectern is a clever way to show your brand in such a crucial area of the event hall. The audience will click, and they will shoot videos at the lectern. And you know what that means, right? Every time a user shares those photographs, or videos, online or offline, your brand image will be seen. It’s a great exposure to your brand!
Interestingly, lectern branding is not expensive. You can just print the logo on the lectern’s surface or stick it with tape, tack and velcro. Since the logo is so light, you need not worry about it falling off.
By the way, you can customize your logo in any way you want.
Your investment is within $5! Now isn’t that a great deal?
Speaking of money well spent, you can also install a…
Social media prop
image source: https://i.pinimg.com
The best thing about social media props is that they are instantly Instagrammable! It’s a fantastic way to encourage attendees to instantly take photos and share them.
Social media props have your logo and company and marketing details, which means that when clicks of these props are shared online with event hashtags, your brand image and messages are promoted too.
Your investment: Between $10 to $30 for a small frame.
Our next point is somewhat similar and is just as effective for showing off your brand logo.
Sponsor backdrop
image source: https://i.pinimg.com
Is this truly an inexpensive way to promote your event?
Yes and no.
These can be pretty expensive if you go with a traditional pop-up or want a remarkable backdrop, but if you are going to tread the affordable path, go for an extra-wide banner stand. These are available in widths of 3.2 meters and offer the perfect background at a fraction of the cost.
Generally, background banners can be both cheap and easy to make. They give your event branding an extra edge by allowing special guests and celebrities to be photographed in the foreground.
You can even use 1m banner stands as signages for helping people move around the event venue.
You have seen some of the top creative event branding ideas for your business. Let’s now move further with some examples.
The best event branding examples
User conference
image source: https://blog.capterra.com
It’s a no-brainer that networking events are great for making connections and alliances. As long as they reflect your brand, they can be formal or informal. Even in the digital world, face-to-face meetings are still highly sought-after.
Lean Startup offered attendees inspiring experiences to promote first-rate guest interactions, at their newest conference. Lean Startup’s blossoming global community was its event’s central immersive networking theme. They even regularly updated their public potential attendees’ guest list to ensure everyone would meet like-minded individuals on arrival.
Publisher conference
image source: https://publishingperspectives.com/
There are mainly two types of events or, say, two kinds of corporate events.
One is a user conference focusing on customer engagement, developing thought leadership and nurturing prospects.
The other one is publisher conferences, where the focus is on driving revenue for media companies. Publisher conferences bring together readers of an organization’s materials and provide enormous educational sessions reinforced by partnerships with other firms.
Content Marketing World is the annual publisher conference of CMI (Content Marketing Institute). Every year, they have different themes. However, these themes are not randomly chosen concepts but after months of careful planning by their operations, content marketing, PR, and event planner or event management teams to ensure they align with the company’s goals. Themes can be offbeat as long as they reflect the event’s purpose.
Virtual events, like online conferences, use digital channels and platforms for participating in seminars and live lectures. Such events are significant for those with budget or travel issues.
Organizers of Google I/O used 360-degree cameras to capture keynote speeches live for virtual attendees. These videos were also put on YouTube for free-and-easy access. While their event was mainly for in-person attendees, their virtual counterparts were not left out and left wanting the same experience.
Wrapping up
In this article, you’ve learnt what we promised:
What are branding events?
How do you brand a business event?
What makes a branding event successful?
Why is event branding important?
Top corporate event branding ideas
Best event branding examples
Branding an event is very doable if you know when and which rabbit to pull out of the hat. Hopefully, these strategies will help you out for your next event, whether physical or virtual or a hybrid one.
If you’re an avid reader of our blog, you might be tired of continuously hearing us stress how relevant digital marketing is for your company. But allow me to let you in on a secret — it is just as important for a company to hold business events too. Ever heard of event marketing?
As the world turns increasingly digital and internet penetration is soaring at an alarming rate, it may be easy to overlook event marketing. In-person events, however, are still greatly beneficial for companies for a huge multitude of reasons. While digital marketing may be at the forefront of all marketing strategies, it is not the end-all-be-all.
Based on the Event Marketing 2020: Benchmarks and Trends Report, 85% of business owners identify events as critical for their company’s success — double the number from last year! Millennials tend to prefer experiences over products, which is why event marketing has become as vital as email marketing. Certainly, there is a lot of potential to be tapped into here.
In general, events can be broken down into two categories — corporate and field — although there can be overlaps. Corporate events include company dinners, conferences, product launches, as well as ceremonies and galas. On the other hand, field events range from roadshows to expos to workshops. Since corporate events tend to attract industry professionals more while field events are helpful for locking in potential consumers, decide your target audience before planning your event.
10 reasons why you should hold events for your business in the age of digital marketing
We can’t deny that online presence for a company is indispensable. However, in-person events hold just as much weight when it comes to generating leads and turnovers. If you’re still not entirely convinced on how events can be beneficial for your business, read on for our comprehensive list of reasons on why you should hold events even in this age of digital marketing.
1. Events are effective communication tools
The key thing that events allow you to do is to communicate. Be it on an internal or external level, face-to-face connections hold a great amount of value for all businesses alike. Whether you are launching internal information campaigns, advertising to potential customers and other companies in the sector, or strengthening ties amongst employees, these all go towards building interpersonal relationships between your brand and the rest of the world.
2. Access your core audience
Events are the most direct way to gain access to your main audience. It’s not enough to just get your message across — you need to get input from the other party as well. With physical events, you can take the time to get to know your consumers and understand their needs and desires. Bouncing feedback back and forth makes for an excellent dynamic to have and you will be able to learn far more than you otherwise would.
Oftentimes, a great number of people attend events for one main reason — to network. The great thing about networking is that it goes both ways, so organising events will also put your brand’s name out there. Events are always a shared experience, and they no doubt bring groups of people closer together. Remember, businesses thrive on their connections. Demonstrate your influence and use this as a chance to localise your business further.
4. Showcase your expertise
Enthusiasts will always be eager to hear what the leaders in the industry have to say. Today, huge amounts of information are exchanged every second, making it hard to stay on top of current trends and issues. Hosting an event will allow you to establish your business as a go-to educational resource and to engage with other experts in the field. Consumers would therefore gain confidence in your brand. You can even use this as an opportunity to wow your attendees with your hosting skills.
5. Retain customers
Organising events for loyal customers will present your brand as more than just a business endeavour. When you take note of your consumers’ milestones such as birthdays and anniversaries, it sends them the message that you care and value them as more than just a consumer. Holding events for your customers will also provide a rare opportunity for you to meet your customer’s extended network of friends and family — a win-win solution!
6. Fundraise and generate sales
There is a great amount of ROIs to be tapped into in event marketing. Whether you are aiming for leads, sales, or brand awareness, event marketing is a highly effective channel. You can further generate revenue with extra steps like charging admission fees or having sponsorships. Additionally, having a direct connection to potential consumers or stakeholders will allow them to move into your sales funnel with more ease.
Milk your event for what it’s worth by generating content from it. You can go the live-streaming route — Instagram and Twitter are popular choices these days — or capture the significant moments to post on your blog and social media later. Furthermore, if you see your attendees posting about your event as well, give them a shout-out or hold a user-generated content contest and encourage them to use hashtags. This will fill your content calendar up with high-quality, original content for days.
8. Build brand awareness and recognition
A brand goes beyond more than the product or service that you offer. It takes into account the perceptions and impressions that people have of your company. Events are therefore one of the best ways to create an emotional connection with your audience. In fact, a study actually revealed that 93% of consumers believed live events had a larger influence on them than television ads.
It is extremely important for businesses to build trust with their consumers, particularly smaller companies and startups. Having events would allow you to present yourself as a more reputable company. At its core, events are also meant to be fun — so focus on enjoyment for the attendees! This experience is what will drive customer retention and loyalty. When your attendees are having a good time, they will be more likely to remember and associate positive feelings with your brand.
10. If you don’t, your competitor will
The truth about the industry is that it is very much cutthroat. If you slack on even the slightest opportunity, your competitor will pounce and use it to get a headstart on you. Once you start hosting events and gaining traction, it will be easier to repeat this process. Take your event off the calendar, and your competitor will grab your audience with their own events instead.
In order to host a great event, you need impeccable designs and backdrops to create a visual experience (they also make for great photos). Companies in Singapore like YouPrint and ElectricDreamz do up marvellous backdrops with their great printing services. However, if you’re looking for a stellar backdrop design for your event, you might want to take a look at hiring design companies. After all, you want your event to look amazing on social media (remember, you will be generating content from it).
Consider marketing agencies as they will be your best bet at picking the perfect design to spread your brand message and leave a strong impression in people’s minds. MIU offers an unlimited design package for its clients amongst others such as their SEO and PR packages. You can be sure to be satisfied with their services. With a professional graphic design, your event will be sure to stand out and catch your audience’s attention. Find out more about our design jobs on our website.
Branding
Digital Strategy
PR & Communications