3 Things to Consider Before Marketing Your Event
1. What Social Media Management software will work for you?
Using an online social media management software allows users to monitor data, track their audience engagement and organize their social media all on one site. Using these services not only saves time but is a must to keep up with all the social media accounts needed for marketing a successful event.
The following are favorite social media management tools professionals use:
- Zoho Social
- HootSuite
- Crowdfire
- Sprout Social
- Hubspot
If you rely on multiple platforms, you can access all of them through one account instead of having various logins and accounts to manage. You can also schedule your posts in advance! Imagine having all your social media posts planned for the entire week, and it's only Monday. No more wasting time on remembering to post when you have an online assistant doing it for you.
Most of the social media management software are free with the options to upgrade for different features that can make your life even easier.
2. What are your goals and budget?
Why are you marketing? What are your values? What do you want to achieve?
These questions are the starting point of your marketing plan, and it forces you to focus on your goals while knowing your budget.
Make a list of what you want to accomplish including a mission statement, target markets, services, promotional strategies, competition, marketing goals, and your marketing budget. After looking over these specs ask yourself the following:
- Is this realistic?
- Do the numbers seem practical?
- What is my competition doing or have they done something similar?
- Do I have a positive attitude about what I want to accomplish?
Track and record your goals and monitor them along the way. This will be an outline for you to follow while marketing your service or product and something to help keep you on the right track to a successful event.
3. How are you going to announce your event?
The moment has come for you to introduce your upcoming event. This is the time you broadcast your event to the world and it needs to be available for all to see.
Now is time to evaluate how you plan on marketing your event. Press Release, email blasts, blogs, social media, paid ads; your options are endless, and you should be trying to use as many different platforms as possible. It seems overwhelming, so I will break it down into a few pre-event marketing steps to help get you started.
Step 1: Create a central page to drive people to; this can include all the information about the event, guest speakers, links to social media, photos, videos, blogs and event countdown.
Step 2: Establish your social media as early as you can before the actual event. Building a community of followers is the base for your event, and once you have more content out that is shareable, they will be able to market for you. There is a lot of different social media options to consider based on what kind of event you are promoting. Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Instagram, Snapchat, Pinterest, YouTube, Tumblr, Medium, Reddit, Quora, and so MUCH MORE!
Step 3: Create email invitations for your event. Email is one of the most effective marketing tactics for event promoters and should be just as important as social media. Here is a list of some of the top email marketing service provides.
- Constant Contact (one of my favorites)
- MailChimp
- Zoho Campaigns
- Drip
- ConvertKit
