by Ashwin | May 16, 2016 | Blog, event management, Marketing
We have seen plenty of event marketing strategies that act as an impetus for event organizers to go about propagating the event using those techniques. Albeit the strategies discussed enables one to understand the tricks of the game it does not give assurance to circumvent the probable errors that may intervene during its implementation phase. Here we discuss few mistakes that any event organizer can likely commit.
Unrealistic Optimism
Attendees’ expectations for an event will perpetually remain at its peak. The bountiful confidence that your event will satiate the attendees’ expectations is usually precarious. A mixture of confidence and appreciable planning skills is a must if one desires to taste success through the conduction of the event.
Human Resource
Understanding and realizing that plunging into the event industry as a single-man army is going to create an unstable foundation for an event marketing strategy is monumental. It would be foolhardy to go into any form of marketing scheme without support. Hiring staff or technical support is pertinent to sufficiently promote an event. A bigger and efficient team can bring about a stronger impact across the market.
Number of Staff?
Having discussed about the importance of human resource the issue that will arise eventually is the quantity that is required. The process of hiring is always tricky and can let you slip into an impasse. To overcome these hurdles you need to plan on the designations of the staff that you hire and the responsibilities that they will be taking over. Once you have formed a hierarchy you will be able to boil down to a number that you should select. Beware, the number you select should be a tad more than what you have estimated, so that you can account for the dropouts. Balancing the headcount is important any day.
Great Reach but No Registrations
Your marketing techniques are amazing and you have reached an enormous number of people, but have you still not met the number of registrations required? You might not be reaching out to the right set of audience. Your event’s theme and the audiences’ preference may not be congruent. Comprehensive market analysis and discovery of target audience will give you an upper-hand.
Wrong Venue
Setting up your event venue and then searching for a target audience is disastrous process. Instead, once you’ve identified your target market, you will discover the area where you should conduct your event. A posh event venue located far away from your prospective attendees will nullify your marketing efforts.
Lack of Tech Support
Since almost everything in today’s world has gone online attendees would expect at least a part of your event including event details or information, registration process, ads to prevail online. You name it and you have an app for it today. A great mobile app with commendable user-interface is the need of the hour. To avail these perks you might need a tech team to work with you irrespective of your technical knowledge.
Not Asking for Help
Convoluting problems by looping it around yourself and your team will take keep taking you in circles. Approaching industry experts for advice, seeking technical support from a tech team, and general moral support would help clear your path of hurdles.
by Ashwin | Mar 7, 2016 | Blog, event management, Events, Marketing
The days when such trending, cutting edge technologies were not even expected by the common, the concept of marketing existed. The modern society has forgotten the gravity of effective offline marketing strategies and its prolific results.
What are some of those old offline strategies that can still pull off your event?
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Propagate your event through other events
The most ideal place to market your event would be at another event that has a theme and set of audience analogous to yours. Here you have discovered a set of people who have dedicated their time to attend a theme of your interest and if they are hunting for more events that are germane to the topic of discussion in the current event then there you go: a whole lot of your upcoming event’s attendees are ready.
Sometimes it might be difficult to get your event publicized concomitantly with an ongoing event. You need prior permission to do your promotions on a large scale so as to make it effective. You could initiate this process by contacting the event organizer to get to know if they’re willing to try cross promotion or co-promotion between events. Through this method if you incur some expenses for reasons like setting up stalls etc., you could easily circumvent it by making the most number of registrations for your event.
While there is a preponderance of customers throwing away brochures on the floor or utilizing it as a substitute for tissue papers, some sense of hope for these pamphlets still exists with few small businesses. These small but smart businesses use the situation and context to handover these pamphlets to attendees. In the previous proposed method, relevant pamphlets distributed during the event can allure attendees to a great extent. The pamphlets that you create to publicize your event must be suited to the location and time of its issue to the public.
Way before the existence of Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn, there existed people who actually talked to each other face to face. The feeling of trust is created in people when it is spoken out in words to them. They receive the words and digest the information better than any other mode of communication. But the question that arises here is, how can one get people talking about your event to others?There are several ways to get this going. For instance, people are more likely to spread the word about your event when you have hired an enthralling speaker or entertainer.Or if they were so enchanted by previous year’s stupendous event that they pass on the information about your event to everyone they know.
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Marketing through Organizations
Promotional activities through professional associations and organization spaves a negotiable path for a win-win situation. The audience are welcoming to the communications and recommendations that they receive from the organization and quite often require monetary resources to fund their own events. To find this method fruitful one must align the central dogma of his/ her event with the organizational goals. This would make your event commensurate with the organization’s standards and allows you to avail new avenues to promote your event. When partnered with an association or organization one must ensure that both the parties need to understand and find value in the relationship so that you could approach this association later for other similar events.
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Utilize Speaking Events and Similar Platforms
It is mandatory or rather by default, that most of the people present in the event industry are eloquent. They have an inveterate predilection for public speaking. Now, this is a boon because anyone belonging to the industry will be able to deliver a speech with commendable rhetoric on their upcoming event in during other events. The best part of speaking events is that you will be seen as a knowledgeable person of high authority and a subject matter expert, and thus, all the information that you have elaborated on stage verbally will be listened and valued by your audience carefully. It is up to you as a good orator to put forward the theme and importance of your event in an ideal manner to the receptive audience and make the most out of the opportunities.
Guerilla Marketing is an advertising stratagem that aims at low-cost unconventional marketing tactics that yield best results.This alternative advertising genreis based on inimitable iconoclastic marketing strategies that need a great level of enthusiasm and imagination. This form of marketing stupefies the customer and creates a lot of social buzz.Guerrilla marketing is often ideal for relatively small events that require a large audience without burning much of the monetary resources. For example, creative street art or funny and thought provoking stickers on public benches, walls, vehicles that are related to your events can grab public attention quickly and this would push them to talk about your event with others, thereby spreading the word!
The drop in offline event marketing/ promotion tactics doesn’t mean that it works no more. It provides a new platform through which a canny organizer will be able to gather a great number attendees for his event.
