Making a brand connection with customers can be a daunting challenge. However, you can still create a strong impression with both prospects and new customer through events. As compared to other marketing channels, it allows personal interaction with your customers. Trade shows, product launches, brand activations – these are a few types of events that marketers are doing to get ahead in building awareness for a brand.
Events make up for one-fifth of the marketing budget. Many companies are promoting their brands through events to create demand, produce customer acquisitions and augment brand reach. The concern that most marketers face is stiff competition in the crowded space. Being strategic in event planning and marketing will attract the right crowd to your company’s brand. When stretching the marketing budget for an event, it is essential to devise marketing plans and tactics to stand out amongst the competition and reflect your company brand in a positive light.
Thinking outside the box is a surefire way to attract prospects or new customer. Here are some ideas where you can generate an overall awareness of a brand.
Build strategy and positioning.
Brand positioning brings out the uniqueness of the brand’s attribute and value. It also evokes the prospect’s interest to spur buying and using that specific brand. Positioning the brand with a purposeful value proposition will set your product and service apart from your competitor and offers a distinctive status in the customer’s mind.
The first thing that a marketer should do is to create publicity tools or campaigns that bring out the brand’s objectives as well as value-added goals to customer’s needs. There are possible ways to incorporate your brand values to connect with your customer. By educating your audience with the right marketing content, it will perpetuate an authentic interest with buying decisions. Events that focus on engaging instead of selling have a higher chance of gaining customer’s interests. Creating relevant content should include the pain points and demands of a customer. By incorporating data or insights into marketing materials, it will reinforce the brand’s value in the respective market and opens an endless business and client opportunities.
Make marketing noise.
Building the right momentum and creating a vibrant buzz will pull in the right crowds effortlessly. Depending on the nature of the event, it may be worthwhile to produce a website before you have the rest of your marketing collaterals created. It can be as simple as creating a landing page with information about your event with registration to cast a wider net for your attendees. Start a database of contacts to include current customers and new prospects.
Generating publicity through external communications or campaigns will create an initial touchpoint for an event awareness. It will maximize the visitor’s numbers to the booth at a trade show or event attendance to the conference. Another form of pre-publicity effort is to secure coverage in print, television, or publications. Part and parcel of building your online brand are to promote your event with social media hashtags. It is best to create a hashtag surrounding the event’s tagline or include the year with the event’s name if it is an annual event. Social media engagement and marketing are a great way to attract the right crowd to your event. Marketing your event through social media will generate conversations, social media shares, and publicity across other platforms.
Build collaborations and partnerships.
In today’s business climate, it is best to harness the power of brand alliance by developing partnerships. Such partnerships are known as co-branding, and this can be in the form of support of partners and sponsors. Brands can benefit from partnerships as it allows reach to a new audience, shape positive perception, and bring media attention. The advantage of partner support and sponsors is that it can mitigate the costs of high marketing budget and produce measurable ROIs (return on investment).
Collaboration with key opinion leaders (KOLs) can make a real difference in making an event a success. It is a strategic approach to communicate a brand’s message and awareness to the consumers. KOLs are the brand’s sidekick because they influence purchasing decisions even when they are not directly selling the product. In any event, they will address industry issues through keynote speech or make a special appearance at the trade show. KOLs can boost your brand with a connection with the event attendees while supporting your brand’s overall strategy.
Creating a continuous successful outcome.
For every company, it is an exciting opportunity to maximize the brand’s impact on the market, generate leads, or produce acquisitions. It may be over when an event ends but it is important to do necessary follow-up. Event post-mortem is crucial for any events marketing as it will provide valuable takeaways for further improvements to future events. Collating customer feedbacks and business leads are necessary to improve marketing tactics and brand awareness activities. It allows for further analysis of the consumer’s sentiments and response to your brand.
Defining a proper objective and process for the marketing of an event will lead you to your company’s brand success. Having the strategies in place will help you better understand your customer and how you can build success for your brand. It will also bring abundance to your business (revenues, KPIs); as well as elevating your brand performance in the market.
