Our top-10 cool promotional tools for events
Any event planner trying to get the word out about their event knows how difficult it can be to gain that extra edge when it comes to maximizing conversions. There are several promotional tools that promise to amplify your event marketing. Which ones are worth your investment? More importantly, how can you make the most of the promotional tools you already have?
Here are our top-10 promotional tools to get the word out about your event:
- An optimized event website that converts
- Blog content that draws people in
- Social media that builds a community
- Event influencer marketing
- Email marketing
- Remarketing for highly targeted promotion
- Event chatbots
- Gamification to boost engagement
- Video marketing
- Landing pages
1. An optimized event website that converts
Without a doubt, your event needs a dedicated website, which is the centralized nucleus that all your other marketing initiatives lead back to. The question is, how can you turn your existing website into one of your most valuable promotional tools? To close deals, give visitors everything they need to make an informed decision. Answer their questions and ensure key details like pricing, contact info, and social media handles are easy to find. Never forget to put yourself in the minds of potential delegates and address their concerns while succinctly demonstrating the results and outcomes of attending. Don’t invest in anything else until your website is in top shape! If your association has many events, consider integrating a simple-yet-attractive WordPress event calendar into your website.
2. Blog content that draws people in
A blog is a natural expansion of your website and one of the key pillars of our list of promotional tools for events. Blogs are valuable to prospective event participants ONLY when they deliver what’s known as deep content – the news and insights that your audience will find interesting and shareable. Note that this does not include fluffy self-promotion or ads disguised as real stories. Be creative and get the inside scoop on what makes your audience tick: produce video interviews with keynote speakers, write posts about your most loyal attendees, and curate the most sought-after industry resources. Serve your community by giving them what they want and you’ll receive their undivided attention.
3. Social media that builds a community
No other media offers you the chance to reach so many people for so little money, which is why social media is one of our top promotional tools. Event professionals use social media before, during, and after their event to keep momentum and visibility going, which goes a long way towards building a following. With social media, you only get out what you put in. Do some research to understand which hashtags are most popular with your community and make frequent posts using these. Count all speakers, sponsors, executives, and influencers among the profiles you follow. Then devise a content strategy that befits each platform. On Twitter, post and retweet news several times a day to stay current and top-of-mind. On Facebook, aim to post once or twice a day and keep your tone light for the more general audience that’s present there. Do the same on LinkedIn but employ a professional, business-minded tone. With the right mix of self-promotion and deep content, you’ll quickly gain visibility among a highly relevant network of new prospects.
4. Event influencer marketing – one of the coolest promotional tools
Influencer marketing is proving to be one of the most powerful promotional tools across all industries, from fashion to e-commerce and beyond. Companies are purposely approaching influencers that have niche followings because they are highly trusted and have direct ties to high-quality leads. But choosing ambassadors for your brand is risky business; beware of the many unprepared, untrustworthy, and irrelevant influencers out there! As more marketers began to adopt influencer marketing strategies, it became clear that the events space required its own set of tools and guidelines. That’s how snöball was born, and by using it to empower your core group of trusted event speakers, sponsors, participants, and partners, you too can amplify your reach and get more butts in seats. Skip the mega-stars and enlist your reliable and relevant community to build the buzz surrounding your event. It’s a team effort!
5. Email marketing
Before you dismiss this one as too old-fashioned, hear us out. A prospect’s inbox is where you want to be, and if you can do your utmost to create an email that will stay out of their spam or trash folder, you’ll find that email readers are a lucrative and captive audience.
Some email marketing tips to keep in mind:
- Keep your design simple and to-the-point, with no more than three unique messages or topics per email.
- Use images, GIFs. and personalized merge tags when possible.
- Be inspired by subject lines that convert and borrow their approach to make sure yours is intriguing enough to your audience.
- Put a limit on self-promotional fluff and make your emails interesting for your (ideally segmented) audience of industry professionals.
Despite your best efforts, don’t be surprised to see your open rates hover around the 20% mark, with click-rates being around 2%; this is an event marketing industry standard. If you’re not satisfied with those numbers (we wouldn’t be either), you need hand over the megaphone to your audience to spread the word about your event using snöball. snöball event marketing campaigns send event influencers emails with their very own personalized marketing toolkit to promote their participation at your event. These emails garner anywhere from 40% to 70% open rates!
6. Retargeting
For the prospects that get away, slipping through the cracks despite your best efforts at retaining their interest, consider launching a retargeting initiative. In events, many prospects will procrastinate before finally registering (which is why we love the go-go early-bird period). Retargeting allows you to target those that left your website without registering by serving them ads as they browse other sites. This is a great opportunity to offer them a small discount, restate your value proposition, or remind them that space is filling up fast. It’s often enough to provide the small nudge many people need to make a final decision. snöball offers retargeting capabilities led by a dedicated team of strategists to save you time!
7. Event chatbots
Another one of the promotional tools that can help you capture those that are on the fence about registering, chatbots have become highly sophisticated website integrations. They can immediately answer questions that potential attendees may have in a way that’s personal and conversational. Think of all the time you’ll save by having your digital assistant field questions about dates, rates, directions, speakers, and other frequently asked questions! Chatbots can even register attendees by asking them a series of questions to have a conversation that can replace traditional daunting sign-up forms. Use a chatbot for messaging and enjoy high open rates thanks to its helpful, personal nature.
8. Gamification to boost engagement
Contests, giveaways, and competitions are surefire ways to increase the buzz surrounding your event. People need to feel motivated to discuss, share, or attend your event, and if you can turn some of this into a game, the motivation to win increases. One great snöball feature is the ability to gamify influencer marketing. By keeping track of which of your sponsors, speakers, delegates, and other participants are sharing and earning the most clicks to your registration page, snöball provides you with a virtual scoreboard. Encourage your influencers to put some work into spreading the word, and reward them with perks like discounted registration, value adds, merchandise, and the like. That way, you’re rewarding behaviour that is valuable to your event’s promotion, instead of running a contest or giveaway that only sees short-term benefits.
9. Video marketing
Video traffic will account for 82% of all internet traffic by 2021, so make sure to integrate videos into your digital content strategy now to capitalize on their ever-increasing popularity as promotional tools. Video content doesn’t have to be professional-grade thanks to the fact that the smartphone camera in your pocket can capture more-than-acceptable footage. Plus, a raw look and feel only adds to perceived authenticity. In the association events space, the key for video content is to have it be both informative and entertaining. Make it fun, whether by highlighting your destination or capturing spontaneous delegate reactions. To step your game up even further and generate more views of your videos, grab a 360° camera and step into the world of “virtual” experience!
10. Landing pages – promotional tools by the dozen
A fully-optimized landing page can truly sell itself. By landing page, we mean the page on your website where people make the final decision regarding registration. Best practice tells us that this page should be concise and focused; no other buttons should be present that allow viewers to navigate away. It MUST be mobile responsive, and it needs to speak to the specific needs of your target audience’s personas.
Ready for the mind-blowing part? You can have more than one landing page, and the more you have, the more chances you have of converting!
Using a tool like snöball, you can provide all of your event participants with their own customized landing pages, empowering them to reach out to their network and expand your event attendance. With all those landing pages, you have a litany of promotional tools working for you to capture as many conversions as possible.
Bottom line
You don’t need fancy promotional tools to properly promote your event. You just need to optimize what you have and make the most of the opportunities within reach. If you’re looking to expand your promotional arsenal, give snöball a try. It was tailor-made for events and provides you with a turnkey event influencer marketing solution that’s low-risk and high-reward.