Are you making these event marketing mistakes?
Event marketing is not a new space. Companies have long been promoting their brands through experiences like festivals, galas, trade shows, conferences, seminars, and more recently online events like webinars and live streaming. This provides us with a lot of reference points - we can learn from the mistakes (and successes) of events passed.
There are some missteps that most businesses face when they are just getting started – let’s take a look at what they are and how to avoid them.
1. Failing to plan
While there are some marketing tactics that can be carefully crafted and delivered in less than a day, events aren’t one of them. In order to achieve a brand experience that is impactful and engaging, you need to plan, plan, plan. You need to set aside ample time to ensure you have the necessary resources (money, time and people) to create and execute the type of event that achieves objectives.
2. Not aligning objectives and actions
That leads to our second point. You can host the most magical event in existence but if it doesn’t work to support your core objectives, it can’t really be considered successful. Once you’ve outlined your event’s intention, you need to make sure you are providing interactions and touchpoints that support this goal.
For example, if your main goal is to create meaningful relationships, you should ensure you have lots of team members on the ground available to chat with customers (new and old). If you’re aiming to attract new customers, you want to advertise the event far and wide, instead of sticking to promotion on your normal social media channels. While you can create an event with widespread objectives, focusing your efforts one one or two outcomes usually ends in more success. Pinpointing your objectives will also help you determine which kind of event you should be creating – from a conference to a tradeshow or webinar.
3. Casting too big of a net
A lot of events don’t reach their full potential because they are aiming to reach everyone instead of honing in on specific demographics.
Over half of consumers want completely personalised interactions with their brands, according to Adweek. While it’s not possible to cater your interactions to every single person at your event, it is possible to aim your efforts at specific demographics. Like with objectives, the more targeted you are with your audience, the more capable you will be to craft your event in a purposeful direction.
“Brands sometimes want to make a big splash with a certain target demographic but simultaneously say they want to reach as many people as possible,” explains CMO Magazine contributor Jeff Snyder. “It’s important that brands narrow the audience they want to reach, then refine a campaign to target that audience.”
4. Not having a creative idea or theme
It’s no longer enough to just have an event. You want to ensure you have a creative theme that anchors everything together, creating a brand experience that is relevant, cohesive and memorable. You want to make an impact so that your guests, attendees, customers stop and think “Wow, that’s so cool.” Ensure you think 360 degrees – from invitations to staff outfits to table toppers to collateral design post-event – the more tied together all the pieces are the stronger your event will be.
5. Going it alone
It’s difficult to juggle all the responsibilities of planning and hosting an event while still running business as usual. Take on the services of an expert to ensure your event runs smoothly, including the safety of guests. Here at Orange, we pride ourselves on providing all our clients with the best possible experience – including health and safety and contingency planning. We help our clients avoid rookie event mistakes while creating amazing experiences for their customers. This means our clients can get onto doing what they do best, running their successful business, safe in the knowledge their event is in the hands of the country’s most experienced events professionals.
To learn more about how we can help you plan your next big event reach out to one of our team members today!