Does your organization or company have an upcoming event? Then effective marketing is critical for the event to be all that it can be. It’s important to avoid the event marketing mistakes detailed below so your event can be a success.
Not Having A Clear Purpose for The Event
As you create your event’s marketing strategy, it’s essential to have a clear goal or purpose for the gathering. Whether the purpose is to increase sales, generate leads, or cultivate relationships with current clients, having a clear goal is vital to the event’s success.
In every piece of marketing collateral you produce, there should be a consistent purpose or goal for the event. That way, potential attendees can gauge whether they should attend and whether their interests will be served if they attend.
Not Spending On Marketing
It’s better to allocate too much money for event marketing than not enough. Many experts say you should account for at least 20% of the event’s budget for promotion and marketing. It sounds like a lot but every good event needs to have plenty of promotion to succeed.
Setting The Wrong Price
It’s important to think long and hard about how to price the event. You may offer one price that applies to all attendees. But it also can be effective to offer several prices based on how large the company is.
Or, consider having a standard admission price and a VIP price that gives the person better access or a better seat.
Think about what your clients, customers, and prospects want. Then create different price tiers accordingly. Then, you can use the different tiers to upsell attendees who just paid the standard admission.
Not Doing Post-Event Marketing
Many event marketers focus entirely on generating pre-event buzz. This is important, but so is having a post-event marketing effort. Post-event marketing is recognized as just as important as what comes before the event. Marketing after the event can lead to more sales, signups, etc.
You can succeed in post-event marketing by using many marketing methods to reach out to those who attended the event. Some effective ways to stay in touch with post-event marketing are:
- Follow-up surveys about what attendees liked and didn’t like about the event
- Follow-up networking opportunities – both online and in-person
- Thank you letters and emails
- An extension of event-only offers, such as discounted memberships or reduced product and service prices
Using these post-event marketing methods gives your organization a chance to gain the business of those who attended the event. Neglecting them because the event is over is a lost opportunity.
Making It Confusing To Purchase
The sales process for the event is just as important to marketing as the entire marketing strategy. It should be easy to register for the event on your website or event website. The sales page should answer common questions.
It helps to have several “Register Now” buttons on the sales page so people don’t need to scroll to find how to sign up. Also, be sure your sales or registration page works well on mobile devices; the majority of web traffic comes from mobile these days.
No matter if you market your event online or in other ways, the common mistakes mentioned here can cause major issues. Fortunately, the mistakes noted above are easily prevented with proper budgeting and planning. If you avoid these issues, it’s much more likely your event will be a huge hit.
Infographic created by FIRST
