We have done some amazing work on event marketing. We have got public testimonials for NASSCOM for NASSCOM Emerge Kolkata, TiE Kolkata for TiEGer (the flagship event), Startup Saturday, TFM&A (First time in India, one of the largest event organizer across the globe) to name a few. If you are not using digital marketing for your event, probably you are missing big opportunity to make your event bigger. Even today, we help TiE Kolkata with all the events and online activities (as a TiE Member, we have taken this responsibility), it works really nice, we get amazing response through online activities.
3 Parts of Event Digital Marketing:
- Pre Event Marketing
- During Event Marketing
- Post Event Marketing
Pre Event Marketing through online media:
You should create following presence:
- Official website - Center of all communication (At times it can be different from your corporate site, you may need a site focusing on the event itself). You can also use SAAS based website like http://sched.org/ (It can speed up the website creation), if it is a regular event, don't use sched, use a different website.
- Social Media presence: Facebook, Twitter and Linkedin
- Have a team doing the documents and marketing it. (We generally use dropbox and share it with all stake holders)
- Get listed on all the major event websites active in your location. Many people explore the events through these event websites.
- Get supporting partners and get your event listed there as well.
- You can use Google docs for event registration, with every post mention the URL to register, we have seen that every posting helps.
- Email marketing must be used. (all connected people, people who attended last event, prospect attendees etc)
- If needed you can call them as well (at times when we see that it is dull, we do call up previous attendees)
You must create a base community on Facebook using ads (Target Location & interest). Keep the page active for atleast 2 months before the event, keep promoting it with new content, about the theme, sponsors etc. A great online presence will increase the reach and thus more attractive for sponsors.
Activities on Facebook: Create few cover images which you can rotate regularly, create an event on the page, invite all friends who might find the event interesting and request people to invite their friends, generally this invite helps a lot. Keep 1 to 2 posting every day. Post about people. If you have planning meeting, take pictures and post it back, people want to see themselves on the page.
You can also Google moderator for QA session, opening QA for the world. Twitter hash should be defined, all pictures can be posted to instagraph, flickr, FB, Twitter so that it can spread, have few videos on youtube and spread.
During Event, online marketing activities :
You must have wifi if possible. Must print a big banner saying, we are on web, join us at Facebook.com/EventName ... Example Facebook.com/TiEKolkata and Twitter hash tag. This will allow the people coming for event to stay connect and bring in their friends. Make sure you are taking their Email ID and Phone number so that you can contact them back with their pictures. Do mention that all your pictures will be available on Facebook.
Make sure you do following:
- Take multiple photos of every person, everyone wants to see some good pics of theirs. Also capture special moments like the person talking to the speaker, asking questions etc. Don't miss any important moment. If possible have few volunteer cameras and explain them about the purpose "Capture people and moments, not the speaker or event"
- Video recording in parts (session by session by session)
- Video recording of people's engagement, you can also ask opinion from the people attending, "How was the event" - This can work for the marketing material.
- Anyone commenting on social media during the event, do comment back asap during the event and spread it.
- get registration for next event during this event.
Post event digital marketing:
There are multiple activities here:
- Make friends with all who attended the event personally on Facebook, linkedin and twitter
- Upload their pictures on Facebook and tag all. ("tagging is very important")
- Get some details about the people so that while adding the pictures you can market the person.
- Upload videos asap
- Upload pictures asap, if possible that night itself. Share it when it is hot, people move on to next thing, the very next day.
- Run some more ads and promote the post event
- Write blog posts about the event.
- Have some more follow up interviews
- Announce the next event and start the registration
- Do motivate people to refer their friends. (Do things before they forget)
These are just few of the sections mentioned, please contact us on how to create more buzz for an event.