You have a special event coming up. From large-scale conferences to smaller special evening events, there are some digital marketing best practices that will help streamline communication with your guests, build excitement, and hopefully make the most of your budget and profit! Today we are sharing details on promoting special events to take some of the burden off you as a business owner so you can focus on what matters most — your business!
Before You Begin Promoting Your Special Events
Before you begin promoting your special events make sure you know your mission, branding, and budget. Understanding your mission helps keep your messages on point. Understanding your branding for your event will keep your messages consistent and recognizable. Understanding your budget will help you best allocate funds to get the most bang for your buck.
Plan Your Platforms
In this day and age, to reach your largest audience you must communicate in multiple ways many times. First, identify your target audience for your special event. Then research where that target audience is most active. Then plan the platforms you want to utilize to get the word out.
Do you have a landing page on your website dedicated to your special event?
Do you have an event created on your website calendar?
Which social media platforms will you be using to get the word out?
Are you planning an email marketing campaign about the event? If so, do you have a way for your visitors to opt in easily to receive emails about your event?
Plan Your Need-to-Know Content
When our digital marketing strategists begin their content planning on promoting special events, one of the first things they do is plan backwards. Looking at your calendar, find your event date then work backwards to begin filling in the most important dates and deadlines such as:
- Early bird discounts
- Sponsorship deadlines
- Registration Deadlines
- Payment Deadlines
- Hotel Block Reservation Deadlines
- T-shirt Order Deadlines
- Materials Order Deadlines
Plan Your Excitement Content
Once you have the time-sensitive details noted on your calendars, you can then begin to plan content that will build interest and excitement about your event. This excitement-building content could include:
- Countdown to Event
- Speaker/Musician Announcement Highlights
- Venue Announcements/Highlights
- Swag Details
- Pictures from the Last Event
- Meal/Food details
- Sponsor Highlights/Thank Yous
- Reviews from Past Event Attendees
- Calls to Action to “Bring a Friend!”
- Special Places to Eat/Visit During Your Event
Our marketing strategist, Bekah Gordon shared this valuable advice for promoting special events:
“When posting to stories during events, be sure to post interactive content as well as pictures! Whether it’s a quiz, poll, or a sliding scale, provide a way for your audience to engage with your stories personally.”
Once your excitement content is planned out, place it on your calendar to share with your audience and begin scheduling content to publish. If your event is recurring, senior marketing strategist Elizabeth Bethune shares this important reminder.
“Create content that can be written once and used year after year with slight changes. Pause social media and ad campaigns in the off-season or when the event isn’t running and then easily restart them the next year with just a few updates. Remember when creating time-specific pages on your website, building out the page before the exact day it is needed gives Google and search engines time to see the page. This makes it easier to find when people search the keywords after your event.”
Special Considerations When Promoting Special Events
Remember to create events in many places that lead back to your landing page or registration. Facebook events and events on third-party sites like Eventbrite help to get the word out even further.
When creating an event on your website, use Google’s event schema markup to make sure your event will be listed as an event in Google search results. Your web developer can help you do this.
An email drip campaign may be worthwhile to keep the excitement and answer frequently asked questions from your registered attendees. Put a thought into this content and have it ready to go once registration is open.
Dedicate an ad budget on social media when promoting your special events. A little money can go a long way in registrations or sign-ups!
Consider investing in professional photography and/or videography for your event. Great-looking pictures and an engaging video are very effective to audiences.
Dogwood Loves Promoting Special Events
We love promoting special events here at Dogwood Media Solutions. If you would like help in planning, execution, or both with your digital marketing and next event, contact us to learn more.
