Marketing News: Are you getting the most from your event marketing budget?

Marketing News: How can live videos boost your brand in 2017?
Are you getting the most from your event marketing budget?
Event marketing is regarded by many as one of the most effective forms of marketing available. After all, it gives exhibitors the chance to raise brand awareness and connect with a specific audience in a very direct way. With an eye-catching display in place, you can engage with both potential customers and industry contacts, and even leave them with lasting reminders of your brand such as branded pens, keyrings, notepads and mugs bearing your name, logo and contact details.No wonder then that event marketing budgets are continuing to rise. The latest Bellwether report from the Institute of Practitioners in Advertising shows that in the final quarter of 2016, 22% of the leading marketers in the UK spent more heavily in this area. In fact, the 12% increase between October and December was the 13th consecutive quarter of growth in event marketing spending.

But it’s worth remembering you can take your participation in an event much further than the venue itself, and use it to position your brand as a credible thought leader in your sector.

Here are a few ways to do this…

Live blogs and videos
More and more organisations are using Twitter as a platform to offer regular updates on what they are seeing and hearing at an event. This approach connects with those individuals who aren’t able to attend a particular occasion, as well as opens opportunities to interact with your online audience and get them involved. A live blog and video also enables an event to have a lasting impression well beyond the day itself, as they can be archived on your website and provide a permanent record of your participation.

Embrace event tech
If you’re organising an event, then technology offers you a wonderful opportunity to measure return on investment in a very quantifiable way. As Victoria Morrison, Event & Marketing Manager at Gorkana, said recently: ‘Events can provide a ‘wow’ that connects directly with customers, more than other forms of marketing. Being able to measure this more scientifically will be part of the future of event technology and live event marketing.’

Mike Piddock, Chief Executive of event tech firm Glisser, agrees, saying: ‘There is a massive opportunity to utilise data – like other sectors – to provide meaningful context to the value of live events, and to help event professionals demonstrate this to colleagues across their businesses who may not understand the impact they are having.’ Interestingly, he noted that about 25% of a typical corporate marketing budget goes on events,yet it is actually the area that corporates measure the least.

Use a lead scanner to gather data of visitors to your stand
A lead scanner can be a great way to collect information relating to people who come to your display, with registration information being retrieved from their badges. This will be automatically put on a registration database and give you a clear of who might be worth targeting in the future. This will be determined largely by the goals you set before arriving at the event and should be at the heart of identifying hot leads.

The basics of attending events remain unchanged and they will forever offer valuable opportunities to meet people face-to-face and make them remember your brand. But digital technology gives you an opportunity to go a significant step further. Now, you can really make the most of your participation and shout about it to a wider audience, as well as identify and follow up prospective leads straight away.

 

Sources / Further Reading
Bellwether Q4 2016: the inexorable rise of event marketing event
Event tech offers ‘massive’ opportunity to measure ROI meetpie