How to ACTUALLY Run Successful Event Marketing
By Stanley Meytin
Events are a hot ticket item right now, but they’ve unfortunately become a one-off sale rather than the long-term marketing strategy they could be. The majority of businesses don’t know how to run successful event marketing that actually creates long-term business growth. They don’t mesh their event department with their marketing team. The event runs smoothly and maybe they make some money on ticket sales or booth product sales, but the event itself is not enough to grow your business.
A few guest speakers and good food won’t get people coming back. You need to establish a strong brand presence from initial marketing until they walk out the door to capture leads for a longer endgame.
So how can you use events to your advantage, how do you run your event marketing, and where does video play a role?
What are the benefits of events?
Events like conferences, trade shows, charity galas, or partnership events are an incredible way to establish your brand and bump up your lead generation. What can participating in or hosting an event do for your business?
1. Brand awareness
Events help you reach more people to get your brand out there. The more people who see your brand name, the wider your reach. The wider your reach, the more people you can market and sell to in the future.
But seeing your brand name on a bulletin board or sports jersey or booth table at an event just isn’t enough. People want to experience your brand firsthand. That’s where events especially excel over other forms of marketing. Your business is interacting one-on-one with the audience. Whether you’re hosting the event or running a table, you can create a unique experience that people will associate with your brand moving forward.
For example, you have a booth at a trade show. Rather than just having one or two people at the table talk to customers about your products, you have iPads that show a video from your founder, team, and customers. You have products there to try out. You’re running a sweepstakes to win a gift certificate. You may even have an interactive VR game that they can take part in.
You’re not just talking to customers. You’re giving them a reason to remember your brand name. That’s what leads to long-term brand awareness and engagement.
2. Lead generation
Once your brand presence is in place, you can start gathering leads at the event itself. There are thousands of attendees at conferences, trade shows, and events. Some attendees may have heard of you, which means they’ll be excited to interact with your business on a more personal level. And some may have no idea who you are, which means it’s a great opportunity to capture a new customer.
Below, we’ll dive deeper how you can actually generate leads from events that captures enduring, loyal customers.
3. Partnerships
You’re likely attending conferences and trade shows that are within your industry, so other similar businesses will also be in attendance. This is a great place to scope out the competition and learn about your industry, but it’s also an opportunity to find new businesses with whom you may want to partner.
Remember that creating partnerships is like selling to a customer. You still have to “sell” your business and benefits to snag awesome partnerships. Video is a great way to show potential partners what makes your business unique and what your customers are saying about you.
How should you run event marketing?
Here’s where most people go wrong with their event. They throw out flyers in-person and online, cross their fingers, and hope that people come to the event. Then, the few people who actually make it to the event see the brand name scattered around without a lot of context or understanding.
The goal of event marketing is to build a brand presence, gain awareness, and engage your leads.
The best way to do this is a method that not a lot of businesses realize yet… Which also means it’s one of the hottest and most successful competitive advantages in the world of events…
Video.
Video will be the most vital aspect of your event strategy from initial touch point through to post-connection.
At True Film, we get a lot of clients calling us last minute that they need a videographer for their event that it’s in a week. We can send a videographer there to create a video of the event that looks great with post-production, but it won’t show the kind of results you could otherwise have. We can make a last-minute video look awesome, but it will still be a last-minute Hail Mary pass.
We recommend planning an event video campaign months, if not an entire year, in advance. Pre-planning means you don’t just get a video of what the event looked like after the fact. You can also use video to…
- Promote your event and encourage more people to attend,
- Engage with those present at the event,
- Engage with those not at the event…while the event is going on (like livestreams),
- Connect with leads after the event,
- & Reuse content from event for future marketing.
If you have an event coming up, now is the time to start preparing your A to Z video event marketing campaign.
Read: Five Tips for Creating An Effective Video Content Strategy For Your Next Conference
How do you use video for event marketing?
We guarantee that once you implement video into your event marketing, you’ll see an incredible uptick in event attendance, engagement, sales, and post-event continued loyalty.
What are some strategies to implement video in your event marketing?
Video ads to promote conference
To get people to your event, you need to promote the experience. Video is one of the most effective forms of event marketing to get people (and money) to events. If you’re hosting the event, you can use video retargeting ads to sell tickets or to sell sponsorship for the conference.
If you’re attending the event as a business, you can use a video about what you’re providing for and bringing to the conference. Why are you attending, and what kind of unique advantage will you offer attendees?
Video provides quality content you can use on social media to push and market the event. This works especially well if you can create a video that tells a story—both about your business and about the event. Show people why they absolutely can’t miss this event.
Read: Why Storytelling Stories Work On Facebook
Video backdrop for presenters and booths
Video captures attention. Strong presenters will often start or end their presentation with a video that describes their business in more detail. This is especially a great spot to present customer testimonials or client stories so the audience can really understand the impact of your business.
You may also want to have a video rolling in your booth, so people can constantly learn about your brand, even if your manpower is occupied.
Videos in-hand of attendees
Give people ownership of your video—and their experience of your brand—by putting it right into their hands. Our clients have found a lot of success utilizing iPads preprogrammed with videos so attendees can explore more about your business on their own time and in their own way. This makes people feel like they’re in control over their experience with your brand, but you’ve already curated that experience by crafting those videos. You build a consistent, uniform message while offering a unique and visual platform for people to enter into conversation with your business.
Read: How To Use Video Storytelling To Inspire Your Audience
FOMO videos
You want to instill a little “fear of missing out” with your audience. Livestreaming the event while it’s happening will show your audience your involvement—and it will make absent customers a little jealous. They’ll want to get involved, and they may be more likely to attend the next event. They’ll see all the awesome stuff your brand is doing and the experience you’re creating, and they’ll want to have that experience themselves—either by attending an event or becoming a customer.
Follow-up video
You don’t want to just give out business cards and hope your customers contact you. You want to capture their information so you have a genuine lead you can contact when the event is over. You want to be in control of the communication. At the event, make sure you’re capturing email addresses and names in a non-intrusive way, like a sign-in sheet (especially one on an iPad or other tech device).
Three or four days after the event, you can send the leads a follow-up video about your brand and products that will seal the deal. The attendee will remember talking to you and experiencing your brand, so they’ll be more likely to try out and buy your product. Include a small discount with the follow-up video as a special “event welcome,” and they’ll be sold.
There’s some flexibility in how you approach the follow-up video. It should complement and supplement any videos you showed during the event. For example, if you showed product videos at the conference, you may want to use a video with your brand mission or customer testimonials in your follow-up. The video should then end with a strong call to action that gives people next steps to further engage with your brand.
Get max ROI with video
Take your event marketing to the next level with video. From promotional videos to highlight reels, a video content strategy can (and will) boost your event participation and engagement drastically.
Don’t wait until the last minute to start planning your event videos. Now is the right time to create a video event marketing strategy that will show serious results.
Reach out to True Film Production to create a story that shares your business and emphasizes your event. We specialize in creating inspirational videos that capture your viewers’ hearts and minds. Let’s start creating.
Reading Time: 7 minutes
By Stanley Meytin
Events are a hot ticket item right now, but they’ve unfortunately become a one-off sale rather than the long-term marketing strategy they could be. The majority of businesses don’t know how to run successful event marketing that actually creates long-term business growth. They don’t mesh their event department with their marketing team. The event runs smoothly and maybe they make some money on ticket sales or booth product sales, but the event itself is not enough to grow your business.
A few guest speakers and good food won’t get people coming back. You need to establish a strong brand presence from initial marketing until they walk out the door to capture leads for a longer endgame.
So how can you use events to your advantage, how do you run your event marketing, and where does video play a role?
What are the benefits of events?
Events like conferences, trade shows, charity galas, or partnership events are an incredible way to establish your brand and bump up your lead generation. What can participating in or hosting an event do for your business?
1. Brand awareness
Events help you reach more people to get your brand out there. The more people who see your brand name, the wider your reach. The wider your reach, the more people you can market and sell to in the future.
But seeing your brand name on a bulletin board or sports jersey or booth table at an event just isn’t enough. People want to experience your brand firsthand. That’s where events especially excel over other forms of marketing. Your business is interacting one-on-one with the audience. Whether you’re hosting the event or running a table, you can create a unique experience that people will associate with your brand moving forward.
For example, you have a booth at a trade show. Rather than just having one or two people at the table talk to customers about your products, you have iPads that show a video from your founder, team, and customers. You have products there to try out. You’re running a sweepstakes to win a gift certificate. You may even have an interactive VR game that they can take part in.
You’re not just talking to customers. You’re giving them a reason to remember your brand name. That’s what leads to long-term brand awareness and engagement.
2. Lead generation
Once your brand presence is in place, you can start gathering leads at the event itself. There are thousands of attendees at conferences, trade shows, and events. Some attendees may have heard of you, which means they’ll be excited to interact with your business on a more personal level. And some may have no idea who you are, which means it’s a great opportunity to capture a new customer.
Below, we’ll dive deeper how you can actually generate leads from events that captures enduring, loyal customers.
3. Partnerships
You’re likely attending conferences and trade shows that are within your industry, so other similar businesses will also be in attendance. This is a great place to scope out the competition and learn about your industry, but it’s also an opportunity to find new businesses with whom you may want to partner.
Remember that creating partnerships is like selling to a customer. You still have to “sell” your business and benefits to snag awesome partnerships. Video is a great way to show potential partners what makes your business unique and what your customers are saying about you.
How should you run event marketing?
Here’s where most people go wrong with their event. They throw out flyers in-person and online, cross their fingers, and hope that people come to the event. Then, the few people who actually make it to the event see the brand name scattered around without a lot of context or understanding.
The goal of event marketing is to build a brand presence, gain awareness, and engage your leads.
The best way to do this is a method that not a lot of businesses realize yet… Which also means it’s one of the hottest and most successful competitive advantages in the world of events…
Video.
Video will be the most vital aspect of your event strategy from initial touch point through to post-connection.
At True Film, we get a lot of clients calling us last minute that they need a videographer for their event that it’s in a week. We can send a videographer there to create a video of the event that looks great with post-production, but it won’t show the kind of results you could otherwise have. We can make a last-minute video look awesome, but it will still be a last-minute Hail Mary pass.
We recommend planning an event video campaign months, if not an entire year, in advance. Pre-planning means you don’t just get a video of what the event looked like after the fact. You can also use video to…
- Promote your event and encourage more people to attend,
- Engage with those present at the event,
- Engage with those not at the event…while the event is going on (like livestreams),
- Connect with leads after the event,
- & Reuse content from event for future marketing.
If you have an event coming up, now is the time to start preparing your A to Z video event marketing campaign.
Read: Five Tips for Creating An Effective Video Content Strategy For Your Next Conference
How do you use video for event marketing?
We guarantee that once you implement video into your event marketing, you’ll see an incredible uptick in event attendance, engagement, sales, and post-event continued loyalty.
What are some strategies to implement video in your event marketing?
Video ads to promote conference
To get people to your event, you need to promote the experience. Video is one of the most effective forms of event marketing to get people (and money) to events. If you’re hosting the event, you can use video retargeting ads to sell tickets or to sell sponsorship for the conference.
If you’re attending the event as a business, you can use a video about what you’re providing for and bringing to the conference. Why are you attending, and what kind of unique advantage will you offer attendees?
Video provides quality content you can use on social media to push and market the event. This works especially well if you can create a video that tells a story—both about your business and about the event. Show people why they absolutely can’t miss this event.
Read: Why Storytelling Stories Work On Facebook
Video backdrop for presenters and booths
Video captures attention. Strong presenters will often start or end their presentation with a video that describes their business in more detail. This is especially a great spot to present customer testimonials or client stories so the audience can really understand the impact of your business.
You may also want to have a video rolling in your booth, so people can constantly learn about your brand, even if your manpower is occupied.
Videos in-hand of attendees
Give people ownership of your video—and their experience of your brand—by putting it right into their hands. Our clients have found a lot of success utilizing iPads preprogrammed with videos so attendees can explore more about your business on their own time and in their own way. This makes people feel like they’re in control over their experience with your brand, but you’ve already curated that experience by crafting those videos. You build a consistent, uniform message while offering a unique and visual platform for people to enter into conversation with your business.
Read: How To Use Video Storytelling To Inspire Your Audience
FOMO videos
You want to instill a little “fear of missing out” with your audience. Livestreaming the event while it’s happening will show your audience your involvement—and it will make absent customers a little jealous. They’ll want to get involved, and they may be more likely to attend the next event. They’ll see all the awesome stuff your brand is doing and the experience you’re creating, and they’ll want to have that experience themselves—either by attending an event or becoming a customer.
Follow-up video
You don’t want to just give out business cards and hope your customers contact you. You want to capture their information so you have a genuine lead you can contact when the event is over. You want to be in control of the communication. At the event, make sure you’re capturing email addresses and names in a non-intrusive way, like a sign-in sheet (especially one on an iPad or other tech device).
Three or four days after the event, you can send the leads a follow-up video about your brand and products that will seal the deal. The attendee will remember talking to you and experiencing your brand, so they’ll be more likely to try out and buy your product. Include a small discount with the follow-up video as a special “event welcome,” and they’ll be sold.
There’s some flexibility in how you approach the follow-up video. It should complement and supplement any videos you showed during the event. For example, if you showed product videos at the conference, you may want to use a video with your brand mission or customer testimonials in your follow-up. The video should then end with a strong call to action that gives people next steps to further engage with your brand.
Get max ROI with video
Take your event marketing to the next level with video. From promotional videos to highlight reels, a video content strategy can (and will) boost your event participation and engagement drastically.
Don’t wait until the last minute to start planning your event videos. Now is the right time to create a video event marketing strategy that will show serious results.
Reach out to True Film Production to create a story that shares your business and emphasizes your event. We specialize in creating inspirational videos that capture your viewers’ hearts and minds. Let’s start creating.
What story would you like to share?
Whether you want to launch an idea, spark a movement or simply get people talking about what you do, you have one shot
at delivering your message in a way that matters. Let’s make sure you do it right.
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