Event professionals and marketers are a fun and sociable bunch. But make no mistake. They’re also competitive when grind time comes.
Did you know that 83% of B2B marketers are heavily invested in events? Moreover, 16.3% of event marketers increased their spending in 2016. And with more and more businesses seeing the value of face-to-face interactions, you can safely bet that these budgets will only increase as the years go by.
But we have a problem:
Attendees only go to 5 live events every year on average.
Yes, the competition between events and their marketing teams is getting stiffer and stiffer. So how do you make sure your target audience signs up for your conference or live concert instead of someone else’s?
Here’s an idea:
Be thorough with your marketing!
In particular, look for platforms that potential attendees use. Perhaps you’re on Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn, but so is everyone else. Moreover, these incumbents in the social networking space are losing numbers.
Case in point:
Facebook may have 1.86 billion monthly active users, but people are sharing less within the network. The higher ups even convened to address the problem.
Clearly, we need to look at other platforms to reach and interact with prospective attendees.
And one such platform is Snapchat. It’s not as pervasive as Facebook, having only 301 million active users. But Snapchat offers many advantages to the event marketer:
- Marketing visual content can do wonders for your event promotion. Being a photo and video sharing app, Snapchat helps you do just that.
- Just about every generation uses Snapchat, but it’s most popular among young people aged 18 to 24 years old. If your live event’s target audience is in this range, go download the app now!
- Snapchat is 5x better than Twitter and 10x better than LinkedIn in the engagement department. Every day, users spend 25 to 30 minutes connecting with friends, watching content through Discover and Live Stories, and following brands on the network.
- Uploaded photos and videos, or snaps, can only last up to 10 seconds when sent. Stories, on the other hand, expire after 24 hours. The ephemeral nature of Snapchat can create serious curiosity, buzz, and anticipation for your event.
Are you convinced yet?
If you want to jump into the Snapchat party, make sure you go in armed with tried and tested tactics. Read on and we’ll show you some.
Pre-Event Marketing
Before talking about pre-event promotion, let’s turn to Gary Vaynerchuk to make something clear. In a YouTube video, he said:
“It’s branding and marketing. Not sales and transaction. It’s math versus branding. It’s quant versus qual. Snapchat is in the branding and qual world.”
Don’t get things wrong. The ultimate aim is to boost registrations and attendance for your event. But you can’t go into Snapchat and share one sales pitch after another. Instead, think about how you can establish your brand and connect with your audience.
Let’s take Stories for example.
A story is a collection of snaps that let friends follow and live your day with you. But the content disappears after 24 hours. Do you really want to create a snap of pitches? The idea doesn’t sound right. But giving snapchatters a behind-the-scenes look is a better way to go about using stories.
Why not run a countdown a week or two before showtime?
You can publish a story every day, showing the events team preparing the venue, sipping on coffee’s healthy perks, or goofing around as they run errands. Don’t worry about capturing the perfect picture or shooting a flawless video. Instead, focus on being human and relatable.
Of course, you want to invite snapchatters to attend. But don’t make ads and sales the centerpiece of your Snapchat campaign.
Engaging With Attendees During The Event
The festival you organized is in full swing. And in my opinion, Snapchat shines the most at this phase of your event’s lifecycle!
For starters, the fleeting nature of snaps makes the platform ideal for drumming up #FOMO – fear of missing out. Think about the folks who didn’t make it to your event. They must be thinking what’s going down at your show.
Don’t leave them out and show them what they’re missing. With Snapchat stories, you can give the homebodies a glimpse of the breathtaking performances, moving speakers, awesome food, and other attractions served up at the event. A good way to convince them to attend next time!
User-generated content is one of the most effective content types for marketing. And you get UGC in droves with geo-fencing. Thanks to this location technology, people at the event can contribute to your stories.
And for a double whammy:
Add a geofilter to your stories.
On-demand geofilters work like other Snapchat filters. You take a snap and add the design overlay. But unlike other filters, anyone can create on-demand geofilters! Upload a design or use one of Snapchat’s templates. Set the time and map out the location. Submit the design for approval, and that’s it!
Having a geofilter attached to your stories and snaps gives your event extra branding opportunities. Plus, attendees can use it to overlay their content. Guests may even save their geofiltered snaps to showcase their attendance on other social networks.
Post-Event Engagement And Measuring Your Results
Do you send a heartfelt “thank you” email to each of your attendees after a show? You should. And while you’re at it, send your gratitudes via Snapchat, too. You should also consider asking reviews via Snapchat. While emails can be good for getting feedback, a photo or video can provide a more personal touch to the insight you get.
Now, let’s move onto results and how to measure them.
Snapchat doesn’t have a formal analytics like Facebook does, making analysis and measuring ROI tricky. However, you should keep an eye on a few important metrics. In particular, you want to focus on the number of people following your stories.
First, you want to check the total unique views, which refers to the number of people who viewed the first frame of your Snapchat story.
The total story completions – the number of users who watched a story in its entirety – is another metric to keep an eye on.
And to give you a complete picture, check out the completion rate for your event’s story, which compares the total unique views and total completions.
Build your event marketing strategies and match them with success – get started with Gevme.
Mark is an #eventtech enthusiast and the marketing manager for COSRental, a UK-based A/V and equipment rental. When he’s not closing deals or meeting with clients, he’s reading up on the latest event tech and digital marketing trends.
Follow him on Twitter: @rent4events
