S5E19: Event Marketing

In today's podcast, I talk about a common request I get from my peers, colleagues, and students. Event Marketing! It's been a topic that has been highly asked by everyone for me to teach or just provide a crash course about it. I go over my experience, reflect on the event marketing I did, and provide some insight for you and your future events!

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Transcript

Dr.K: Hello, hello, my wonderful friends, I have a really interesting topic to talk about today. Of course, all the topics are always interesting to me. But this one in particular, I was like, Ooh, that's such an important distinction. And we have not talked about it on the podcast. So first, there's a lot that has been going on and a lot that is going on. 

To help account for that for the next couple of weeks, I'm only going to be posting a Tuesday podcast. There's many reasons for this one, we currently are in a low period between when we have student podcasts, we are currently waiting for a new batch of student podcast to come in. And then two, I have a lot of wonderful industry representatives that I have set up appointments to do the podcast with. But our schedules have not aligned for the past couple of weeks, because we've all been traveling. 

And then I'll be traveling next week to go to IMAX America, and then the week after that, and Kansas City, and then I'll be home for a couple weeks. And then I leave the country for two weeks. And so because of that, we're just going to stick with Tuesdays. And that is a okay, because I have some great topics that were actually suggested by some of my current students, and then some of the podcast listeners. So today we're talking about marketing. And this is an interesting topic, I find that it's interesting, because I think that a lot of people forget to actually differentiate exactly what they're talking about. When you talk about event marketing, you have to differentiate whether you're talking about event marketing, versus marketing for events. So when you sit there and you're like, Kristin, they're the exact same thing. But are they when you think about Event Marketing, a lot of people depending on the particular position you're in and the background that you have, you're thinking about how events fits into the overall marketing program. So you're an organization, you have a marketing plan, you have an organizational strategy that has marketing throughout the year, and all these different touch points. And you're thinking about how events fits in to that overall marketing program. So that is called Event Marketing? How do events fit into the marketing plan makes sense. 

The second thing is marketing for events. So now you have an event, maybe it's a public, maybe it's a private event, maybe it's an organizational event, maybe it's a trade show. When you think about marketing for events, you think about how to get more people to come to your event. And that in and of itself is its own art form. So I actually had a dear friend in the industry, she reached out to me, she said, Kristin, I would love to take a course from you when it comes to event marketing. And I said, That's awesome. What kind of event marketing are you talking about? And it was all about content. As in marketing for events, I write a lot of emails for a lot of different organizations.

Because I write in a very, I don't know that I would call it persuasive. But I have a very unique writing style that really addresses people where they're at right now acknowledges their pain points, and then really talks about how whatever event it is, is going to meet those pain points to lead to satisfaction. And that is really kind of its own mini event design canvas in terms of just drafting content for an email to acknowledge your attendee as a whole person. So that's what my friend was wanting. She said, Kristin, if you're teaching an event marketing course I would love to come and take it.

I have a lot of students who come into my classes at the university, who are marketing majors or who are advertising and public relations majors, or just business majors or project management majors. And they're thinking about how event It fits into the marketing plan. And that is a very, very different conversation. I think a lot of people use those terms interchangeably. And that actually does not do our industry or this topic very much justice. Because it's, it's that whole concept of asking a better question, asking the right question. If you come to me and say, I need event marketing help, these are questions that you have to ask to discern exactly what kind of help that they need. So I definitely encourage everyone who's listening today, to truly think about what that looks like. Ask the better question. So now I'm going to spend a couple minutes talking about each one of these. 

So first, how does events fit into the overall marketing program? This is such an interesting point. And I want to first kind of bring it down a little bit into just the concept of meetings, right? We've all heard that common expression of, oh, it's just another meeting, that could have been an email. Definitely pre COVID, there was a lot of meetings to just meet, maybe there were CEOs or organizational leaders who had meetings. So they had things to do, they could hear themselves talk, they could have a feeling of importance, they felt like they could lead something, they had to have some kind of outcome or deliverable to show of what they were doing with their time, and they fill that time up with meetings. It's also a little bit of a form of micromanaging in some ways depending on what that meeting looks like. And so now we're all valuing our time. We're valuing look, the quality of our work, we're looking at impact versus outcomes. 

And we're truly looking at really trying to protect our focus time. So that way, we can produce a higher quality work. So when you're thinking about your overall marketing plan, you have social media, you have emails, you have traditional touchpoints, like mailing flyers, or postcards or books or programs. So when do you know that an event is exactly what you need for your marketing program. The first step of figuring this out, is really mapping your customer touchpoints. So thinking about your customer journey map, all the way from first exposure to decision making, purchasing, etc. Part of that journey might include company events, there's a lots of lots of different ways to figure out in fin event works good for your company, but it is definitely dependent on target market. Absolutely 100%. I always like to tell organizations in general, if I were to give one generalization, which I really do not like doing. But if I were to give one generalization, I would say company events are always really, really great to introduce your brand to customers who may not be aware of it. So whether that's a traditional business to business trade show, or if it's a business to consumer public show, it's a really great way for that introduction for a potential customer to see your brand, see your products, gain some type of exposure that will help them recognize your name, if they do get an email or email blast from you, to inspire them to actually click on it, to have them actually interact with someone so they feel like they have a relationship. 

So then they start engaging in your more social internet marketing strategies. So that's one time I always say like a company event could be really good depending on your industry and target market. The rest of them are going to be super specific to your organization and your organization's goals, and then your target market.

The second category that we're talking about is really marketing for events. How do you get more people to your events? This is pretty much the one area that I just frequently get calls over and over and over again. Because this marketing and marketing strategy is just so inherent into I am my Strengths Quest, I'm a relator I am always looking for the win win in my conflict resolution negotiation style. I'm one point away from 100% collaborator. And the rest of them are really in the middle and kind of a chameleon when it comes to negotiation. But this all kind of feeds into that marketing. How do you get more people at your events? So first, you definitely want to look at who your target market is and where they're at. I think that I do this pretty well in terms of just even in my classroom. If I'm trying to build community, I want to go to where the students already are. 

So whether that's creating a Snapchat class channel, or used to be I had Facebook groups, now I might have an Instagram presence, you want to meet people where they're at, where they're more likely to naturally engage with your content, rather than sending them to a totally different platform, or a different website that they have to sign up for. And then it becomes kind of a chore for them. Second, is, they really want to feel that connection and feel like they're understood. So I was talking earlier in the podcast about the kind of structure of my emails, I always like to start with a question. You don't have to do that. But I like to start with a question that just addresses the elephant in the room. So throughout COVID, I did a lot of Are you tired of online meetings? Wouldn't you like to get back together in person with your dear friends? All types of real questions that then get the person on the other end to think and reflect about how that question applies to their life? Wouldn't it be great if you weren't forced to do an online meeting if you did an online meeting by choice? So these are all questions that you could start with that gets people to start engaging. And then your second line is really that hook, you really want to address the pains. So that way, people are like, Oh, my gosh, you get me, this is an event that gets it. 

And then you involve them in the co-creation process. So I'll give two examples. One example was, I don't know, six years ago, there was an event that I was contracted to work, it had been about 1000 to 1200 people every single year for seven years, and it kind of stagnated. And they were struggling, and they couldn't figure out what to do. And I said, Let's involve them in the process. So I started sending emails. And in the emails, I would have survey links. And these were your typical surveys of like, Hey, tell us what kind of food you want, or, or whatnot, I'm like, Look, if you give me five minutes of your time to fill this out, I promise you that I will respond back to everybody within three weeks and tell everybody significant changes I'm making to this event based on what you want. And that's what I did. Not only did I do it once, I did it three times, because you always want to try to have things in a series. It's really cool. If you do something once that's really cool. And then somebody tells their friend, oh, my goodness, they did this thing. But another friend feels like they missed out, they missed out on that coffee chat they missed out on that survey, they missed out on that really cool thing that was happening. By doing things in series, then the word of mouth can actually compound on itself. So I send in email with the survey, people right back in that situation they were commenting on, okay, we don't want a five day event, we want a three day event. We don't want it to be Friday through Sunday, we want it to be Wednesday to Friday. So they told us all of these things. And then I analyzed all the data. And then I wrote it in a really readable format and said, Hey, we're listening to you. And these are the changes we're making. And then I sent another survey. So in that same email, Hey, we're listening to you, these are changes we're making, we have a couple more changes we want to make, and we want your feedback, please fill out the survey. And so those people are like, wow, they're listening to me. It's a conference that gets me and they're listening to me. And then they share that email with their friends, like, Hey, you should check out this conference. And then that friend has the opportunity to fill out that survey as well. They fill out the survey, and then they're invested, I get their name and email, and then they're on my email list. And I did that three times in this event. And that event in that one year grew from 1100 people to 1650. In one year, we want to talk about all the logistical challenges.

Because that space is definitely not big enough for that group at that point. But just in terms of that marketing, trying to relate getting buy in creating that experience. Another similar situation two years ago, here in Lincoln, we were I was working with a group I was on their board, I was their director of conferences, and they were starting a first time event. And as part of this first time event, there was a lot of marketing that needs to go into it. They were expecting about 40 people, mainly local planners, we were doing an event for continuing education. And same strategy sent an email, Hey, we're thinking about doing this. We recognize that we need this. Give us your ideas. 

Tell us what day the week you want. Tell us what topics you want, you know, but you're just asking like a handful of questions. You're not making it super overwhelming. And then you're replying to them. Thank you So much for your feedback, we really want to make sure that this is experience is exactly what you want. This is our plans. This is what we're thinking, tell us your feedback. Do you want an additional session? Do you not want these two breakouts to compete with each other? Tell us what you want. And we'll get back with you. Again, did that two or three times, and conference ended up being like 125 or 130? People from like six states, she was insane. When we thought we were going to have 40 Local planners.

This is all how you get more people to your events? Where are you putting your marketing, I could sit here and do an entire podcast on Facebook versus Twitter versus Instagram versus Tik Tok. And maybe one day we will do that. But that is so specific to your target market. And that is so specific to your organizational purpose, and where they want to be that it's not kind of a blanket statement. But the one thing that is a blanket statement is making sure that your content relates to the target market, that it's authentic, that it's connection, and that you're asking them to buy into the process. I always recommend to make everything a little bit of a mini series so that word of mouth can compound on itself. And your attendance will drive its own attendance, which is a great problem to have, as long as your venue can fit everybody. This is the short and skinny of what is on my mind and my heart and my soul today is this event marketing versus marketing for events. This terminology is often used interchangeably, though it should not be. And it is so critical to differentiate these because they're totally different approaches and totally different strategies. I hope that you thought about something a little bit differently, or in a different frame of mind, and that you found this podcast to be valuable today. 

As always, I never take your time for granted. Thank you all so much for taking the time to make the time. I will talk with you soon.