Event Marketing & Experience

5 Mistakes to Avoid when Running Your First Brand Experience Event

Victoria Rudi
July 13, 2017

Table of Contents

Ever wonder why some entrepreneurs can sell their products or services better?

Do they spend crazy amounts of money on Facebook ads? Are they applying an aggressive SEO strategy? Do they obsessively try to grow their email lists?

They probably do all of these things. But more importantly, they also understand the great business potential that a brand experience event involves.

The crazy thing about running a brand experience event is the possibility to break through the social media clutter and promote your services or products through engagement marketing and a personalized brand experience.

According to Chris Cavanaugh, EVP and CMO of Freeman, “For a while, people thought we could just live online and stay at home in dark, dim-lit rooms eating bon-bons and never talking to people again. But we now know that’s not true. The combination of live engagement, dimensionalized experiences, and digital is proving to be the trigger for most brands’ products and services.”

How does this work?

As Gail F. Goodman explains in her book Engagement Marketing: How Small Business Wins in a Socially Connected World, there are three steps of engagement marketing:

Step 1:

Ensure a WOW! experience and make your potential clients to remember your business, associating it with a positive feeling.

Step 2:

Encourage your customers to stay in touch through social media or emails.

Step 3:

Engage people via content and social media, providing as much value as possible.

As you can understand, by running a brand experience event, you can design and deliver that “WOW!” experience to “hook” your customers (a.k.a. attendees) and convince them to connect with your brand on a different level.

That’s why, as an entrepreneur or marketer, you may find the idea of a brand experience event (or multiple events) as a valuable way to promote your services or products, offering your audience and potential clients personalized brand experiences.

However, before throwing yourself in the turmoil of setting up your first brand experience event, brush up on common planning and communication mistakes you might commit that can put your attendees’ entire experience at risk:

Mistake 1. Not dispensing the help of an event professional

 

 

According to our recent research, 50% of the survey respondents won’t engage the services of an event planner. At first glance, this might not seem like a problem, especially if you’re using event management software.

Yet when you start planning your first brand experience event, you’ll quickly realize how time and energy consuming this activity can be. Moreover, if you have no planning experience at all, you run the risk of sabotaging your very first event.

So if you’re about to plan your brand experience event, consider hiring an event professional to help. This can save you many headaches and assure your attendees receive a high-quality experience.

Mistake 2. Ignore the power of content marketing

 

 

As an entrepreneur or marketer, you must understand the potential of inbound marketing as a way to promote not only your services or products, but also your brand experience event. That’s why you must create a powerful content strategy (blog posts, guest posting, eBooks, etc.) to build a powerful connection with your fans or potential clients, subsequently using the same means to announce your event and attract people to attend.

Mistake 3. Set up untargeted email campaigns

 

 

What can be worse than not knowing the profile of your buyer personas? “But I know who my target group is,” you might be protesting. Then you should know who your potential attendees are. Moreover, you must design targeted email campaigns to attract as many people as possible.

Before planning your first brand experience event, make a list of your “attendee” personas and define their different profiles and how you should personalize their invitation messages accordingly.

Mistake 4. Ignore your attendees’ needs and expectations

 

 

You don’t run a brand experience event just to brag about how good your products or services are. You run a brand experience event to help your attendees (a.k.a. potential clients) solve their own problems or challenges. When designing your event, always keep in mind the benefits your guests will gain by attending.

Mistake 5. Sell your products during the live brand event

 

 

The surest way to lose potential clients is blatantly try and sell them your products or services during the event. Do not force that on them, especially during your first brand experience event. Design a 100% attendee-centered experience and make the event about them. Don’t sell—listen and help.

Final thoughts

As Greg Oates, senior editor at Skift, signalizes, “Chief marketing officers are investing more in event and experiential marketing because live brand experiences are proving their ability to engage audiences effectively in an increasingly noisy world filled with so much daily digital marketing.”

By running a brand experience event that is truly attractive, helpful, and engaging, you’ll be able to understand your potential clients better and build a meaningful connection with them. So don’t miss this chance and start thinking about it today.

 

Discover how Eventtia helps world-leading brands digitize and scale their events

Learn more

Discover how Eventtia helps world-leading brands digitize and scale their events

Victoria Rudi
Senior Content Specialist
With a Master’s degree in Event Management and a keen follower of SaaS technologies, Victoria is an event content master, producing insightful and valuable for Eventtia’s blog and beyond

All-in-one event management software