Let me ask you a quick question: What’s more memorable: A blink-and-you’ll-miss-it Facebook ad or a transformative marketing event?
Which one do you think will help your leads remember your brand better?
What’s the best strategy to get people to react to your brand, services, or products?
Obviously, the easy way is to pour all of your resources into digital marketing.
But is it the most effective way?
There’s nothing more efficient than face-to-face interactions between brands and their (potential) consumers.
Fancy Instagram posts or tricky media campaigns won’t help you much, especially if you aren’t a social media superstar with hundreds of thousands of followers.
To really get people interested in your brand, you need to touch people’s hearts and emotions. You need a different approach, a more human one. That’s why events as marketing tools are transformative and powerful.
“What’s the transformation about?” you might be asking.
Well, think about it: What goal are you trying to achieve with your brand event? Are you trying to get people to know your products or services better? Or strengthen the loyalty of your existing clients?
No matter what your intentions are, the main reason why you want to plan an event is to influence (a.k.a transform) an opinion (attract people to your brand) or behavior (turn people into leads).
That’s why, to have satisfying results, you must redirect your efforts to plan a marketing event that actually will transform your attendees behavior and thoughts related to your brand.
If you’ve never planned a transformative marketing event before, chances are you may disregard a great deal of important factors.
To help you overcome this challenge, we’ve put together a list of 35 things you should remember when planning a transformative marketing event.
The list is based on five main categories that are the actual pillars of every single successful brand event.
Let’s get started:
Event technology
More and more event professionals and people who just happen to plan events are discovering the real potential technology holds in facilitating the entire event life cycle.
Digital planning
Nowadays, planning events shouldn’t be a source of agitation anymore. Thanks to different digital solutions, people can easily solve their logistic challenges and minimize the amount of effort and stress they put into managing events.
Online registration
Another important aspect you should consider when planning a transformative marketing event is making sure the registration process is easy for your potential attendees. The more difficulty your guests have trying to register, the more likely they are to just forget about it and not attend the event.
Event webpage
The attractiveness, responsiveness, and friendliness of your event website all play a big role in marketing. The way you present the information (and the information itself, or the content marketing strategy) will influence your brand outreach and your trustworthiness.
Attendee segmentation
To plan a transformative and proficient marketing event, you need to make the most of planning technology and create different attendee types. Segmenting the audience will help you establish different pricing plans, decide the structure of the registration forms, and personalize the event agenda according to each type’s interests and needs.
Immediate updates
Quality event management technology aims to decrease the effort you put into planning and managing events. Considering all the last-minute changes that seem to pop up during every event, this technology should be able to easily update the event-related information.
Progressive event mobile app
What’s better than using an efficient event mobile app? Using a progressive event mobile app. Taking into account the fact that attendees are typically resistant to download new apps onto their phones, it’s always good to offer an app that can be accessed immediately from a browser.
Immediate check-in
A transformative marketing event isn’t focused just on providing awesome experiences. It’s also about helping the attendees easily navigate the environment and event logistics. Make the most out of your event technology and guarantee these basics, like no waiting in lines while getting accredited during check-in.
Analytics
How can you be sure that you’ve managed to plan a truly transformative marketing event? Evaluating the ROI-related numbers and the KPIs are imperative. Thanks to new developed technology, we can gain access to more and more data about our events.
All-inclusive event management software
To excel at planning events and winning over your attendees, it’s essential to choose first-rate planning software that can cover all the logistic aspects.
Event Marketing
You plan events to promote your brands, services, and products. However, you also must think about ways in which you can promote your brand events.
Storytelling
What’s the brand story you want to promote? To get people interested about your event, you must design an emotional trigger. This is only possible by crafting a story.
Word-of-mouth
There’s nothing more influential for a brand than when someone recommends it (or one of its events) to their friends or audiences. Check the trust bias at work. People tend to listen to or take the advice of those that they love, respect, or actively follow. Spread the word about your event.
Content creation
To attract more people to your transformative marketing event, you must focus on providing immediate solutions to their problems. You can do that by producing valuable content (such a blog with useful articles). This will show your potential attendees and leads that you’re not playing around and you are always true to your word.
Email marketing
No, email marketing didn’t die. So why aren’t people opening your invitations? Maybe it’s because you don’t have anything interesting to say? Before blaming the recipients for not reading your emails, think about your messages and if they’re truly authentic or worth reading.
Media campaigns
Turn your event into a news story. What crazy thing can you come up to get people excited and wanting to share the story about your event?
Micro-influencers
Reaching to influencers is fine but connecting with micro-influencers is even better. Thanks to their small yet engaged audiences, their messages have more clout.
Event advocacy
A truly successful transformative marketing event has the potential to actually convert your attendees into brand advocates.
Marketing hell
An important concept to consider is the need for a well-defined and strategic marketing strategy. You don’t want to be everywhere, putting your resources and efforts into pushing your message through different platforms. Focus on one strong marketing tool (use the media where your buyer personas are) and group your efforts around building a laser-cut marketing action.
ATTENDEES
For whom are you planning this transformative marketing event? Who are your guests? What are their needs? What exactly do you want from them?
Leads
Events are awesome lead generators. Once you manage to attract and enchant your attendees, they’ll want to follow your brand.
Customers
According to statistics, 70% of guests become regular customers after an experiential marketing event. If this is your goal, you are on the right path.
Attendee psychology
To plan a truly transformative marketing event, you must understand your attendees’ motivations, requirements, and psychological makeup. You’ll need to know how to surprise your attendees, react to their needs, and get them to interact with the environment.
Burning pains
Whether it’s a product launch or an informative session, you should identify what pains your attendees have, and then plan the event around the solutions they’re searching for.
Community
Building a community is not easy but running a transformative marketing event may help. That’s why it’s so important to follow up after the event and keep the conversation going.
Powerful connections
Thinking about your attendees’ needs is always a plus. Providing them with an environment for truly meaningful networking and possible business relationships will jumpstart the image of both your event and your brand.
Active engagement
Don’t treat your attendees as passive observers. For a memorable experience, make sure they actively participate during the event.
Product Launch Experience
The key to a transformative marketing event is the experience you’ll design for the attendees.
Brand experience
Brand experience assures the emotional connection between your brand, guaranteeing its memorable character, and your potential customers. Before planning your brand event, keep in mind the need to design an authentic, compelling, and immersive brand experience that will encourage your attendees to feel the essence of your brand firsthand.
Authenticity
Instead of running events during which you try to sell your products and services (very bad move), design a transformative marketing event that will highlight your authenticity and honest desire to add value and help your attendees overcome their challenges.
Unique venues
A transformative marketing event is directly linked to awesome environments. Whether it’s a vineyard or an airport hangar, the weirder the location, the more likely you are to create a memorable event.
Local flavors
If you’re planning an international brand event, you can always take great advantage of the local settings and enthrall your attendees with extraordinary experiences.
Customization
Not all attendees have similar needs or expectations. That’s why personalization is a dynamic experience that will strengthen your attendees’ positive attitude toward your brand.
ADDED VALUE
Unless your company is Tesla or Apple, people won’t attend your event just for the sake of your brand. They have their own agenda. This means you must design a transformative marketing event that can provide actual value. Here’s what the ultimate transformative marketing event should have:
A space for co-creation
Co-creation can be broken down into three components. First, it represents the experience itself, based on active participant engagement for the common good. Second, event co-creation defines the new era of conscious attendees who have control over their environment. Third, collaboration relies on authenticity and crowd expertise, indicating a broader notion of value creation.
Quality speakers
Chose industry leaders and influencers to speak at your brand event. This will attract more attendees and make your event more interesting for prospects.
Actionable solutions
To provide a truly transformative marketing event, you must show your attendees you care about them. That’s why it’s essential to wrap the event around free, actionable solutions that will help your guests overcome their challenges.
Knowledge sessions
The informative richness of the keynote speeches or round tables can impact your attendees’ perception about your brand. They may start seeing your brand as a true leader in the industry that is not only cutting edge, but also reliable and trustworthy.
Attending benefits
Will your guests have some discounts or VIP privileges if they attend your brand event? No? Maybe you should think about some attending benefits for them?
Face-to-face interaction
There’s nothing more valuable than the possibility to interact with like-minded people in the flesh.
Wrap-up
Planning a transformative marketing event is not an easy task, especially if you’re new to it. It’s like trying to solve a puzzle. All the pieces need to fit together to form one cohesive picture.
But the sky’s the limit.
Considering the fast-paced evolution of planning technology and a deeper understanding of both marketing and attendee psychology, you have multiple options to upgrade and skyrocket the quality of your events.