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11 Hacks to Boost Your Event Marketing Efforts

11 Hacks to Boost Your Event Marketing Efforts

One main reason why event marketing is one of the fastest growing fields in the advertising and marketing industry is that event marketing efforts often aren’t easily recognizable by laymen like us. We forget the thinking that hides behind free samples of that “new” cocktail that everyone’s been talking about and sometimes, easily even accepts free t-shirts in exchange for filling out a simple application. I mean, haven’t we all fallen victims to these event marketing efforts at some point?  Well, the success of an event is ensured by these very clever marketing strategies. Apart from these, here are 11 more hacks you may adopt to boost your event marketing efforts.

1) Use your speakers to promote your event

When you hire any speaker for your event, you should make it clear that they are to become ambassadors for it. It would also be helpful if you can give them the content you want them to share or a course of action you want them to take. They should be actively promoting the event through as many platforms as possible. They can take advantage of their online presence and share links through social media platforms or even their email signatures. They can even spread the word through their professional networks and circles of friends and family.

2) Facebook Ads based on interests

Facebook ads are a great way to reach the audience. But to use Facebook ads wisely, you should know your audience’s interests. You could target people who have responded to your event or people who’ve responded to your previous events or other similar events. This way, you can carefully curate ads to generate more interest and awareness while also converting prospective audience members to participants.

Facebook Ads based on interests

3) Share the preparation process with your audience

Using your social media platforms to share the latest updates with your audience is crucial to retain their excitement for the event. Revealing the speaker lineup, sharing deadlines for the registration, posting behind-the-scenes pictures all help build up the anticipation of the audience. Keeping them updated will make them feel like they’re actively involved in this process. We all just want good promotion and more ticket sales, right?

4) Giving +1 guest tickets for people who share the event

Another smart way to build up the hype for the event is to start a contest or give the audience an incentive for promoting the event. You can reward the audience with an additional ticket if they send proof of their purchased ticket while also using their social media to spread the word about the event. Alternatively, you can also promote group efforts and give extra tickets to the group that has to lead to the maximum number of ticket sales.

5) Use email signatures to promote your event

Email signatures are an effective form of event marketing. An average person sends around 40 emails in one day, so if you use email signatures, with every email you exchange, you will be spreading awareness about your event, without making it blatantly obvious. NEWOLDSTAMP is the easiest online email signature creator that we’ve come across.

Use email signatures to promote your event

6) Make a live chat on Twitter with speakers

Hosting live Twitter chats with the speakers is a great way to connect with the audience. Make sure you select a date and time that will not clash with other popular chats and stay mindful of the different time zones. To reach a wider audience, be sure to pick a quirky hashtag that has not already been used and one that fits your brand. Lastly, make sure that the guests are well informed and know how to aptly answer the different questions.

7) Make a live video on Facebook/Youtube with your special guest

Live streaming on Facebook/Youtube has become the latest trend because it is thrilling and attracts more viewers, which consequently helps with the promotion. Holding a live session with the special guest will make the audience feel engaged, and they get a glimpse of what the real event will be like. To further enhance the live streaming, make sure you enable live reactions and comments so you can gauge how the audience perceives the live stream and also ask the special guest to respond to some comments.

8) Record video invitations from speakers, special guests, and participants

An interactive way to increase excitement regarding the event is to ask your speakers, special guests and participants to record video invitations to the event. As opposed to text, emotions will be more palpable through videos, and the audience will be able to see for themselves how excited these people are regarding the event, which will make them more interested. To not bore the audience, make sure these videos are short and simple enough to leave a lasting impression.

9) Make special event tickets for targeted audience

While it’s nice to imagine that tickets to our events will sell out quickly, it’s also wise to prepare for other scenarios. To sell more tickets, you should segment your audience into several target groups like students, startups, women in tech, businesspeople, and maybe even according to geography. You should create different types of tickets to accommodate the needs of all these audience members. So, you could have a regular ticket, another for an after-party and another for educational workshops and conferences. This way, the audience can buy the ticket that is only relevant to them.

Make special event tickets for targeted audience

10) Networking with similar events

Networking with similar events is another great way to promote your event. This will allow you to learn some of their marketing strategies while also letting you networking to promote your event. Since these events will likely have similar target audience as yours, make sure you keep an eye out to see how the audience perceives their event. You can use their reactions to add on or if need be, switch up your event promoting strategies.

11) Run a social media ticket giveaway

We did save the best hack for the last because a social media ticket giveaway is, hands down, the best way to advertise your event. You can conduct a social media ticket giveaway by asking the audience to tag a friend, or fill out a survey, or retweet promotional materials, or send a Snapchat drawing. You can either select a participant at random for all of these methods or pick five that you liked the best. In fact, you can even share discount codes with all those who participate. It’s all up to you! You can customize it however you want and you’d still be promoting your event.

Note that while these hacks are useful mostly before the event has taken place, it’s equally crucial for you to put in efforts during the event, and post the event as well. Event marketing efforts sure do take a lot of time, but they are a good investment in the long term. At the end of the day, we want your event marketing efforts to pay off and for your event to be an ultimate success.

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