When it comes to raising awareness about your brand or your product, event marketing is a brilliant, tried-and-tested way of putting your brand in front of more people.
Whether it’s a trade show, a conference, a webinar, a networking brunch, or even an event sponsorship, these events provide the perfect opportunity to educate people about your company, product or service.
However, if you’re thinking about how to elevate your brand using event marketing, it’s important to think about more than just the event…
Whilst planning the event itself is an important process, it’s essential to have a communications plan in place to support your activity — and one of our Communications Consultants, Bronia, is here to tell you why.
Fail to prepare, prepare to fail
When it comes to events, there is often an overarching goal in mind.
This could be that you want to launch a new product or perhaps you’d like to educate employees about upcoming changes to your business. Whatever it may be, there is something driving the organisation of that event.
So, to ensure that your event is successful in meeting its intended objectives, it is really helpful to outline a communications plan to support your event activity. Why, you ask?
Well, essentially, your communications plan is going to make sure that all the right people are in the right place, that key stakeholders and influencers are aware of the event happening, and, most importantly, that you have enough attendees show up!
And this plan can be broken down into three stages: pre-event, during the event, and post-event.
Pre-event communications
When it comes to planning the pre-event communications, this is when you can lay the foundations which will ensure you maximise every opportunity for impact.
At this stage, you should focus on making noise and building excitement for your event.
Think about how you want to do this and what methods will be the most effective for reaching your target audience and getting them through the doors on the day.
This could be targeting specific areas using out-of-home media, announcing the event and key speakers on social media, sharing event details with leads via email marketing, or even a paid social campaign!
During the event
Once you’ve planned how you will get people to your event, you can start to plan for communications during the event. Think about how you will capture the action…
Will you be inviting journalists to experience the event for themselves, or will you have influencers in attendance who will be sharing content on their Instagram stories?
Have you hired a videographer or photographer to collect collateral imagery? And if so, what do you want them to capture? Do you have a brief in place?
Thinking about these things ahead of time will save you a headache on the day, and make sure none of your resources are wasted.
Post-event communications
And now for the big finale! Now the event is over, it’s time to really capitalise on those post-event opportunities.
Have a think back to your initial goal behind the event… Consider what steps you will need to take to ensure that this goal has been met after the event has taken place.
- If this is nurturing business leads, how will you follow up to seal the deal?
- If you want more awareness for your new product launch, will you be reaching out to media outlets with an exciting story for their publication?
- If your business needs more exposure on social media, will you share content gathered during the event and will you engage with content from attendees and influencers?
Need a hand with your upcoming event? We’re here to help. Get in touch with the pack today.
