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As an event planner, much of your success relies on your ability to organize top-notch events and keep your customers coming back. And while you can hope your events speak for themselves (and maybe they do!), The reality is that you need great marketing to stand out from other event organizers and attract new customers. This is where this post on event organizer marketing comes in.
In this post, we explore five proven strategies, tips, and examples that every event planner should know to empower their marketing efforts. The competition is fierce - use this post to stand out from the crowd.
- Find your niche
No business can be successful without a clear target audience to serve. In event planning, this means determining the types of events that can be produced most successfully, as well as the customers for whom they can be delivered. This is the starting point for all your marketing efforts.
Rather than focusing on demographics or generic definitions, find specific ideal customers using as many details as possible. In English they are called “Customer Personas” and they help shape your marketing strategy for the event organizer in many ways. By knowing your ideal customer, you can determine the images to show on your website, the social media channels to focus on, where to spend your advertising budget, and which event trends will be important to your business. The more you know your customer, the easier it will be to chart your marketing plan.
To figure out what your niche is, take a look at your most successful past events. Or, explore the events of others you'd like to emulate. What aspects do they have in common? Are they all of a certain size, in a certain type of place, or are they all about a specific topic? What about the organizers of the event or the attendees: were they from a certain industry? How would you describe their goals?
All of these questions should help you create a good idea of what your target audience is on which you can model the best offer. Here are some examples:
- “I organize extravagant weddings for high profile couples and celebrities who want to impress their guests”.
- "My company offers high-impact virtual and in-person conferences for nonprofits."
- "My business focuses on the organization of virtual corporate events for the financial sector"
Once you've defined your audience, share it with your team and discuss what it means for your marketing. Where will you find the ideal customers from your statement? How will you communicate the value proposition through your website? What branding makes sense for the type of events you are planning? What content can be useful to my audience? Along with your mission statement, this statement will provide you with a clear path to your event organizer marketing strategy.
2. Make your website a priority
With your audience targeting statement in mind, it's time to take a look at your website. Go ahead and navigate on it imagining you are seeing it for the first time. Take note of some basic things:
- What are the first things you notice?
- Without shaking, can you understand what the site is about?
- Is the logo clearly visible even without shaking?
- Using a maximum of 3 clicks, can you contact someone for information?
- Are the images explanatory and of high quality?
- Are customer reviews present and easily accessible on the site?
- Is the navigation clear? Can the visitor easily understand where to find the information he is looking for?
Use your answers to these questions to make sure your website is clear, compelling, and matches the style and tone of your events.
3. Create and grow relationships, both online and offline
One of the great things about marketing your event planning business is that you don't have to do it alone. By building relationships in your community and industry, you can build a network of supporters who can help you achieve your goals.
Here are some simple ideas for developing and leveraging your connections:
- Partner with local suppliers who offer services you use in your events. A restaurateur, a florist, an electronics store, a transport provider, an audio / visual company, etc., will ensure you high quality services and references for future business.
- Choose one or two social media channels based on which ones are the most used by your audience and engage with them. Ask questions, provide value, give advice, and get to know the people in your audience.
- Consider going offline and creating a closed or membership-based community. These communities are on the rise. They give planners a way to interact more closely with a certain group of people, getting to know them and helping them solve problems along the way.
- Find ways to co-market with local organizations. You could offer restaurant gift certificates as door rewards, include artwork by local artists in your event graphics, offer mini-massage sessions from a local spa during scheduling breaks, or even ask a local food truck .
- Be seen and heard in your community. You probably have a lot of opinions about your industry and local events, so be sure to share them. You never know who will hear your message and decide to know more about you.
- Build a digital community using social media appropriately.
If you want to discover other strategies we recommend that you read this article: How to build a community of attendees to your event
4. Show your style ... everywhere ...
No matter what kind of events you host, you can build a reputation by having a clear point of view. Your goal here is for customers and attendees to know it's one of your events without knowing you're involved. This could manifest itself in exclusive welcome gifts, in the way you manage group sessions, in fun interactive elements, or in the tone or theme of the event as a whole.
Once you've identified your style, highlight it for maximum exposure. Curate the images on your website and social media to show your style and point of view. Create a digital portfolio that you can show to potential customers during sales meetings. Share pictures and videos from past events that really tell a story about you as an event planner.
Your style doesn't have to be a specific visual element. The idea is not to be "the wedding planner who always uses purple". Instead, try to find something unique that you can offer in your market. Maybe you are known for turning muted rural places into outdoor dream landscapes. Maybe your events are sustainable and eco-conscious. You may also be known for being trendy and understanding all the latest in event technology. Whatever your unique offer is, highlighting it to your target audience will help you attract new customers.
5. Manage the user's path from start to finish
Marketing can sometimes seem like it's all about awareness. You may feel like you are constantly looking for new customers, trying to attract visitors to your website in an effort to increase your visibility. But while awareness is very important, it's not the only piece of the event planner's marketing puzzle.
Each prospect will go on a journey before choosing a planner for their next event. And while that journey will be different for each client, there are a few things we can generalize. The client will generally have a period of inspiration and research as they view their future event. Then they will start narrowing down the options for planners based on concrete criteria like budget, location, and area of expertise. They will contact a list of people and choose the one they think is right. And after the event, they will potentially share their experience with others.
This journey means you have plenty of opportunities beyond an initial web search to get in touch with your prospects. Here are some ideas for marketing throughout the entire customer journey:
- Optimize your website for search engines (SEO) by choosing strategic keywords for your market. Use a tool like Google Keyword Planner to strategize and search for key phrases.
- Create separate landing pages for each type of event and audience you target. This way, you can write more specific copy on each page and better rank the search terms related to those pages.
- Create an email newsletter with suggestions for your type of event. Attract subscribers with a free download, like a scheduling checklist or events calendar.
- Provide high-quality content to educate potential customers about events in their industry.
- Manage your reputation by responding to reviews and feedback online.
- Display testimonials and pictures or videos of past events on your website.
- Include answers to frequently asked questions on your website so it's easy for customers to choose you.
- Encourage user-generated content at your events and share it via your social media channels.
- If appropriate, establish a loyalty program or customer appreciation events and offers for customers who book more than one event.
Remember that your customers are busy people with more to do in their life than this single event. Show them that you can streamline the planning process and are well on your way to earning their business.
Put these event planner marketing strategies into practice today!
Remember, there is no one-size-fits-all approach to event organizer marketing. But if you follow the strategies above and tailor them to your specific business, you will be well on your way to reaching more potential customers.
