As an expert in event promotional strategies, our event marketing team keeps a close eye on rising trends to stay abreast of all that’s new and happening in today’s growing marketplace. As a matter of fact, according to 2019 marketing statistics when it comes to event planning, social media platforms are still all the rage when it comes to connecting with consumers when you consider:
- Social media is the most effective tool for event marketing (74%), followed by email marketing (66%), the use of their website (60%) and event registration sites (26%)
- Over 90% of event managers connect on a B2B level online
- Before, during and after the event, these promoters use social media in marketing 58% of the time
- 65% of event planners increased their marketing budgets in 2018
Other successful strategies include offering special “early bird” rates that are cited by a majority of event planners as an effective tactic for selling tickets and increasing registration. On the other hand, almost a quarter of them report discount codes are the most effective. Perhaps most importantly, almost half of these event planners utilize a dedicated social media team and 10% of them outsource their social media marketing.
Let’s look at five other value-based ways we’ll achieve greater success and higher ROI rates in 2019 and beyond when it comes to marketing our important events:
1 – Today’s Mobile Apps
On the subject of social media, other stats point to mobile applications continuing to dominate this important online marketplace. From gaming to communicating, caring and sharing, dating and relating the use these of monumentally popular apps are still blowing up online. Applications associated with social media accounts average almost 40% of today’s total internet usage.
Downloading these apps is commonplace given all of today’s technology and the biggest surge of users today are Millennials who report opening these applications over 20% of the time on a daily basis. When it comes to removing these programs, about half of respondents report deleting them after not using them after around a week. This 50-50 chance is still worth the risk when it comes to ROI when it comes to event promotion.
2 – Content Reigns Supreme Over Direct Advertising
Coined in Bill Gates essay “content is king” back in 1996, still rules today. Recent content marketing statistics share this form of connecting with consumers outshines other, more traditional forms of advertising. Especially when it comes to reaching a younger, growing audience, consider:
- Nearly 85% of millennials don’t trust traditional ads
- Generation Z aren’t influenced by advertisements and one in five are more affected by Snapchat
- 615 million devices have ad-blocking technology installed with over two-thirds of millennials using these blockers
- Almost 85% of people expect brands to create content
Today’s consumers are crafty at spotting promotional pushes and are craving content instead. Non-promotional advertising ranks better during internet queries and builds trust with consumers since 85% of users ignore online ads and focus more on organic search results.
3 – How Content Beats Paid These Platforms
Content has the ability to drive traffic and receive engagement without ongoing fees incurred by utilizing paid advertising platforms like PPC (or pay-per-click). Like other paid ads, there are no guarantees on how many people will see them and among those that do, they may not register for the event. While some PPC calculators show positive ROI results, this is still a form of gambling when it comes to paying these types of ongoing fees.
Conversely, content connects with consumers on a more meaningful level that piques their interest in a more relative and associative way. It could be a video or positive testimonials from a former event, a schedule along with a list of keynote speakers, a white paper about the topics being covered and PowerPoint presentations including a list of the many benefits of attendance.
4 – Getting Up Close and Personal
A failure to understand an audiences’ key demographics is like putting a kettle on the stove without any water. It’s simply a waste of time and the results can be disastrous for event marketing. The same is true when it comes to choosing the correct platform for connecting with potential attendees. For example, if you’re looking at attendance from an older crowd, according to recent research, Facebook is the most platform for this group. Younger users are drawn more towards YouTube and Instagram when they’re online.
These platforms are also indicative of demographic preferences in other ways since sites like Pinterest are substantially more popular with women. When it comes to college graduates and those in a higher income bracket, LinkedIn is heavily used by this crowd compared to those with a high school diploma and smaller bank accounts. Reaching out to consumers on their preferred platforms is the way to get results when connecting with today’s users online.
5 – Making Messages Count
The average consumer reads more than ten pieces of content before making purchasing decisions or in this case signing up for an event. In a 2017 Adobe consumer email survey, almost half of respondents revealed they prefer messages that are less promotional and more informative as we revealed earlier. Instead of pushing the event, creative content that’s more revealing and interactive with blogs posts, infographics containing important statistics and always including images or a video as an important part of these presentations.
With paid online presentations of your content, you never know where your message will appear even though you’re promised it will reach a relative and interested audience. When directly releasing the content themselves, event marketers have the ability to hit their targeted audience and even control the time of day, week or month the message will be revealed. This type of control allows marketers to ensure the content is better received and read by the audience it’s intended to reach.
Learn More About Event Marketing
Looking for better ways to achieve higher ROI results with your event marketing techniques? Look to the professionals and contact us today. We’ve got the proven methods and top techniques to draw the biggest possible crowds to your next event.
