The SmartEVENT MARKETINGPLAYBOOK

Everything The Modern Event Planner Should KnowAbout Marketing A Conference Or Professional Event

Table of Contents

Page 3 Event Marketing Basics

Page 6 Knowing Your Audience

Page 8 Creating A Brand

Page 11 Content Marketing

Page 14 Search Engine Optimization (SEO)

Page 15 Social Media Marketing

Page 18 Creating A Community

Page 21 Paid Advertising

Page 24 Advocacy Marketing

Page 26 Conclusion

Many event organizers would agree that the e�ectiveness of their event market-ing campaign has a profound e�ect on the success of their event. However, building an event marketing plan of action, that is e�ective and e�cient can be di�cult for even the most seasoned event planners and event marketers.

In this eBook you will find a detailed guide on the essential things event organizers must know about event marketing strategy if they are going to succeed.

By the end of this eBook, you’ll understand how to launch a multi-channel event mar-keting campaign that will have the power to take your conference, convention or other professional event to extraordinary new heights.

2Bizzabo

You’ve been assigned the task of organizing an event. Whether it is a promotional event for a new clothing brand or a bi-annual conference for an association, tech community, or industry, you’re going to be faced with some of the following questions:

How do I promote my event to attract relevant attendees? How do I generate tra�c to my event website? How do I make sure people will remember my event? These ques-tions illuminate the necessity of having a structured, thoughtful, and comprehensive event marketing campaign when planning any event or conference.

What is Event Marketing?An event itself is a marketing tool for many companies. Ranging from award ceremonies to product launches, companies use events as promotional mechanisms to connect with their clients.

You, the event organizer, take on the responsibility of making sure the event succeeds. In order for the event to succeed, you must coordinate a marketing plan to expand the network of high quality potential attendees, among other event specific goals you might have.

Event marketing is important because it sets the stage for creating long-lasting relationships between attendees and the event. Event marketing is crucial specifically for you, because it impacts how your employer, clients, attendees and sponsors evaluate your own performance.

For some event organizers who sell tickets or registrations to their events, event marketing ultimately maximizes event ticketing revenue by accelerating ticket sales.

Event Marketing Basics

3Bizzabo

Setting Good GoalsLet’s be honest. Your event won’t succeed if you don’t know what success entails or how to measure it. Event organizers should try to create S.M.A.R.T. goals. Here are five excellent and essential characteristics of a successful marketing goal:

Specific - The more specific you are when articulating your event goals, the closer you will be to achieving them. Your goal should be explained so clearly that it should be understood by anyone in the same way. Asking detailed questions can be a great way to come up with comprehensive answers.

Measurable - Create goals that can be quantified. Easily measurable factors like costs and deadlines are the best way to answer the question, “how will I know my goals have been achieved?” Some event manage-ment platforms can continuously monitor these goals for you.

Achievable - Setting competitive goals are a great way to make the most out of your event. However, there is a di�erence between setting aggressive goals and setting unreasonable goals. You should set a goal that you think you and your team will reach 50% of the time if you had to repeat the event over. You can set an additional “reach goal” that you think your team will reach only 10% of the time, as an additional motivator.

Results-Focused - Goals should measure results and not activities. While it might be helpful to send 50 individual emails to prospective event sponsors, what good is doing this activity if your event doesn’t increase revenue or secure a premium sponsor? A better goal would be to secure a hard commitment from 5 event sponsors at least two months before the day of the event.

Time-Bound - Keep time in mind when setting and assessing your goals. Create a timeline for your goal and analyze how it will develop and what it will look like at di�erent points in time.

4Bizzabo

S M A R TSpecific Measurable Actionable Reasonable Time Sensitive

For example: let’s say that you are setting a goal that involves registering event attendees to your networking communi-ty. When will this goal end? When will you know you’ve reached your goals? Is the endpoint of the goal just the day of the event? Consider setting event related goals so that they end a few weeks prior to event day. That way, you and your team will be able to make last-minute changes to your marketing strategy with time to spare.

A good example of a S.M.A.R.T event planning goal is to register 1,500 event attendees to your network-ing community three weeks prior to event day.

This goal is specific since it includes a specific number, and it’s also clearly measurable if you are using an event networking platform that can provide information about people in your community. We can assume that the goal is achievable, and it is clearly results focused. Lastly, since we picked a specific completion date, in advance of event day, it is also time-bound.

5Bizzabo

People register to an event with the expectation that they will get something out of it. As an event organizer, you need to make sure potential attendees are convinced that the event they intend to attend will match or even exceed their expectations.

You are going to need to market the aspects of your event that match what attendees are looking for. In order to do that, you need to define and understand the audience of potential attendees.

Creating PersonasThe marketing automation company, Hubspot defines personas as “fictional, generalized characters that encompass the various needs, goals, and observed behavior patterns among your real and potential cus-tomers.” In other words, creating personas is a comprehensive method of organizing your base of potential attendees into easy-to-analyze archetypes that can help to inform your marketing strategy.

In order to create a persona for your event, you should ask yourself the following comprehensive questions and then answer them as if you were a potential attendee.

In addition to creating an ideal persona, creating a ‘negative’ persona can be just as helpful in determining your target audience. A negative person is an embodiment of the type of person who would not be quali-fied to attend an event you are planning.

Some tips before you get started: Be as specific as possible in answering these questions and be sure to ask questions that tackle the potential attendee’s personality, motivations and expectations.

Knowing Your Audience

6Bizzabo

What is the persona’s age?What is their education?Are they tech savvy?How comfortable are they communicating online?What makes them decide to make a purchase?What is their job level?What are their goals when using social media?What industry does their company belong to?Where do they look to find business or career tips?What are their job responsibilities?

How Will Creating Personas Impact My Marketing Strategy?Di�erent events require unique personas. Thus, your event marketing strategy should change depending on the specific type of event you are organizing. For example, when you create an event blog (an element of content marketing that will be discussed later on), you will want to direct each post to a specific persona, because not doing so will prevent your blog from reaching any deep level of connectivity with its reader. An unfocused and irrelevant blog post will surely not convert the reader into a potential attendee.

However, don’t be surprised if you have a few personas for one event. By creating marketing collateral that caters to all of your personas, you are on your way to maximizing your chances of reaching high quality potential attendees.

7Bizzabo

Every component of your event marketing endeavor will incorporate and depend on the brand you create for your event. www.Entrepreneur.com defines branding as “the marketing practice of creating a name, symbol or design that identifies and di�erenti-ates a product [or service] from others.”

A brand is the bridge that connects people to your event. Without it, people will have a hard time remembering the event, and won’t share it with others. This lack of awareness will ultimately prevent potential event attendees from purchasing tickets.

E�ective branding will allow your event to stand out among the hundreds of other events in your industry.

What types of branding techniques are out there?Many sources agree that the two main types of branding are “‘In Your Face Branding” and “Subliminal Branding.” In this chapter, we will point out the most important characteristics of both techniques that event organizers should be sure to utilize when marketing for their event.

“In Your Face” BrandingEvent organizers tend to choose this type of branding when it comes to marketing their event because it is often cost-e�cient, fast, and e�ective in creating a memorable identity for an event.

For example, organizers put their event logo on every page of their event website in order for site visitors to remember the event brand.

Creating A Brand

8Bizzabo

Organizers also put the event logo in many high-visibility places during the event itself. From sta�er t-shirts, to entrance signs, to branded title slides used by event speakers.

In-Your-Face branding can also be used as a way of promoting event sponsors, or featured partner brands. After all, one of the main interests in other organizations partnering with an event or event series is because of the added exposure events o�er.

It is a good idea for event organizers to factor this into any event branding exercise. Placing sponsor logos prominently on the event website, app and during the event can be good places to start.

Subliminal BrandingSubliminal Branding is all about trying to get your potential event attendees to experience the brand of your event. Finding unique and experiential ways to create a relationship between attendees and the event’s brand identity does not necessarily require a huge budget, as long as you take these three aspects of subliminal branding into consideration:

1. Make careful and unique choicesEverything from the venue you use to the sponsors you choose will a�ect the image of your event brand. Choose a unique and memorable event venue that people will not forget! Make sure that the venue you choose actually aligns to your brand's values.

For example, The Cult Gathering, is an annual event for marketers who work for prestigious and innova-tive brands. For the last two years, the organizers of this conference have chosen to host the event at a hotel high in the mountains of Ban�, Canada. The venue allows busy marketers to escape to a luxurious mountain retreat that helps attendees to unplug and re-imagine how best to do their jobs.

2. Be consistentChoose or create an event theme that will subtly show up throughout all aspects of attendees' event experience - from the event site to the event itself.Variables that event organizers often overlook, like the quality of the event goodie bags, or the catering can actually have a big impact on how event attendees perceive the quality of an event. Organizers must be meticulous in inspecting any touchpoint that an attendee or sponsor will have to make sure that it is up to the event’s standards.

Every component of your event marketing endeavor will incorporate and depend on the brand you create for your event. www.Entrepreneur.com defines branding as “the marketing practice of creating a name, symbol or design that identifies and di�erenti-ates a product [or service] from others.”

A brand is the bridge that connects people to your event. Without it, people will have a hard time remembering the event, and won’t share it with others. This lack of awareness will ultimately prevent potential event attendees from purchasing tickets.

E�ective branding will allow your event to stand out among the hundreds of other events in your industry.

What types of branding techniques are out there?Many sources agree that the two main types of branding are “‘In Your Face Branding” and “Subliminal Branding.” In this chapter, we will point out the most important characteristics of both techniques that event organizers should be sure to utilize when marketing for their event.

“In Your Face” BrandingEvent organizers tend to choose this type of branding when it comes to marketing their event because it is often cost-e�cient, fast, and e�ective in creating a memorable identity for an event.

For example, organizers put their event logo on every page of their event website in order for site visitors to remember the event brand.

9Bizzabo

Organizers also put the event logo in many high-visibility places during the event itself. From sta�er t-shirts, to entrance signs, to branded title slides used by event speakers.

In-Your-Face branding can also be used as a way of promoting event sponsors, or featured partner brands. After all, one of the main interests in other organizations partnering with an event or event series is because of the added exposure events o�er.

It is a good idea for event organizers to factor this into any event branding exercise. Placing sponsor logos prominently on the event website, app and during the event can be good places to start.

Subliminal BrandingSubliminal Branding is all about trying to get your potential event attendees to experience the brand of your event. Finding unique and experiential ways to create a relationship between attendees and the event’s brand identity does not necessarily require a huge budget, as long as you take these three aspects of subliminal branding into consideration:

1. Make careful and unique choicesEverything from the venue you use to the sponsors you choose will a�ect the image of your event brand. Choose a unique and memorable event venue that people will not forget! Make sure that the venue you choose actually aligns to your brand's values.

For example, The Cult Gathering, is an annual event for marketers who work for prestigious and innova-tive brands. For the last two years, the organizers of this conference have chosen to host the event at a hotel high in the mountains of Ban�, Canada. The venue allows busy marketers to escape to a luxurious mountain retreat that helps attendees to unplug and re-imagine how best to do their jobs.

2. Be consistentChoose or create an event theme that will subtly show up throughout all aspects of attendees' event experience - from the event site to the event itself.Variables that event organizers often overlook, like the quality of the event goodie bags, or the catering can actually have a big impact on how event attendees perceive the quality of an event. Organizers must be meticulous in inspecting any touchpoint that an attendee or sponsor will have to make sure that it is up to the event’s standards.

10Bizzabo

3. Create a multi-touch branded experience

Subliminal branding is something that impacts attendees at many di�erent touch-points.

Don’t be afraid to take a risk as an event organizer and connect with attendees in novel ways.

During a recent trade show for example, the automotive company, Nissan, created a booth that

automatically sprayed a specially formulated perfume. Marketers at Nissan wanted attendees to have a

memorable experience with their brand, so they tried to appeal to attendees not only visually, but also

olfactorily.

While most event organizers won’t have the budget to formulate an event specific scent, they can create

a memorable atmosphere for event participants by creating an experience that appeals to all 5 senses.

From smell, to feel, to sound, organizers should be mindful of how participants will experience the event

in all senses of the word (pun intended).

According to one recent study from www.contentmarketinginstitute.com, 92 percent of companies focus on content marketing as part of their marketing agenda. If nearly all marketers are focused on content marketing as part of their strategy, than event marketers must also pay attention to content as well.

Just like crafting a unique event brand, content marketing is important because it uses the event identity to build trust between the event organizer and potential attendees.

What is Content Marketing?The Content Marketing Institute defines content marketing as “a strategic marketing approach focused on creating and distributing valuable, relevant, and consistent content to attract and retain a clearly-de-fined audience - and, ultimately, to drive profitable customer action.”

Content marketing allows you to impact the way potential attendees interact with your event - and ultimately to create a community - by creating relevant, engaging, and informative content that potential attendees can use.

How Does Content Marketing Work?Now that you know your audience and you’ve created an awesome brand for your event, you have the tools you’ll need to create content that will help to build the relationship between your event and potential attendees.

By creating valuable content for attendees and potential attendees to consume, you’ll show both audienc-es that your event can engage in thought leadership.

Content Marketing

11Bizzabo

Furthermore, if you create content that is truly valuable, you’ll help to broaden your audience as those who read your content share it with other new readers.

Content marketing should play a significant role in your event marketing strategy. Not only can it be used to attract attendees via social media (www.bizzabo.com/social-buzz), it can also help to improve the discov-erability of your event online through search engines.

In short, content marketing is a type of marketing that attempts to help those who consume the content, and through helping readers, the brand behind the content helps to solidify it’s place as a real source of innovation within a specific industry. Content marketing bridges the gap between branding and other forms of marketing used to generate buzz surrounding an event by providing helpful and shareable marketing assets.

Create An Event BlogAn event blog is a great, cost-e�ective, and strategic element of content marketing that has the potential to draw in additional attendees, sponsors and/or exhibitors.

Setting up a blog is easy to do, as there are many free platforms such as Tumblr, Wordpress, or Blogger that can host your blog. Just be sure to somehow link your event blog to your main event website.

Most importantly, make sure each post is directed to your targeted attendee audience. Here is where the personas that were discussed previously in this eBook would come in.

Each blog post should be directed towards one of the personas that you generated in the previous stage of your event marketing campaign.

The event blog should therefore respond to real questions that you anticipate readers might have about the industry your event is in or about the event specifically.

12Bizzabo

Write a Guest PostGuest posting on industry blogs is a great way to direct people to your event website. By creating genuine-ly helpful content for other outlets that your target audience reads, you’ll be able to reach new potential attendees, sponsors or exhibitors. If you insert a link in your guest post to your event website, you’ll be able to attract visitors to your site and will be able to retain them by o�ering other helpful content on your own blog.

Share PhotosFor those who have planned events in the past, sharing photos from your last event is a great content mar-keting technique to both excite past attendees about your next event, and to better educate potential attendees about previous events. These photos can be shared on your event website, and also on social media platforms like Instagram, which is a popular photo sharing social media network with over 300 million users to-date.

Share VideosVideo content provides event organizers with an opportunity to truly showcase their event to attendees and potential attendees. Consider showing clips of keynote speak-ers, and create videos that showcase your event venue. If this is another event in a series, you can showcase previous events as a way of attracting new attendees. Be sure to upload your contentto popular video hosting websites like YouTube or Vimeo.

Other Ways To CreateAnd Distribute Content

13Bizzabo

According to Imforza, ninety-three percent of online experiences begin with a search engine and 70-80 percent of users focus on organic results in lieu of paid ads. These stats illuminate the massive importance of Search Engine Optimization. While SEO is a somewhat technical marketing initiative, it is very important to master in order to make the most out of your event marketing endeavor.Part of the reason content marketing is so e�ective, is because it can increase the footprint of your event website on search engines. If a potential attendee searches a question they have that your piece of content answers, your event website could very well be listed as a top result on popular search engines.

In short, those search engines can drive qualified tra�c to your event website, as long as you are following a few SEO best practices.

What is S.E.O?Moz, an SEO software company, defines S.E.O. as “a marketing discipline focused on growing visibility in organic (non-paid) search engine results.”

Essentially, to rank well on search engines, you must write website content in such a way that it aligns with what search engines are “crawling” the web for. By showing consistency on a web page, you’ll provide your website with a chance to rank for various keywords that users on search engines are entering.

For a comprehensive guide on how to build an event website that ranks well on search engines, download our dedicated ebook: The Complete SEO Guide For Event Planners(http://welcome.bizzabo.com/seo-guide-for-event-planners).

Search Engine Optimization(S.E.O.)

14Bizzabo

Social Media Marketing

Social media is arguably one o�or the most e�ective elements of any event marketing initia-tive. When used properly, social media has the power to engage your existing audience while reaching a wider audience at the same time.

Since social media platforms make it easy for users to reshare a message, it also has the ability to turn your event attendees into event marketers through the process of evangelism.

15Bizzabo

Valuable Social Media ChannelsIt might seem like a daunting task to limit your social media presence to a few online channels, but it is nec-essary to do if you and your limited event planning team hopes to truly master the medium.

Choose a few platforms that you think your event attendees and potential attendees currently use. If you’re wondering what social media platforms are best, see our summaries below.

1. Facebook: Everyone uses Facebook (about 1.6 billion people to be more precise). Besides the amazing ways it shares information, Facebook’s platform also has features like business and event pages that can showcase your event to a wide audience.

2. Twitter: One of the best ways to drive tra�c to your event website is through Twitter. Twitter can be used at all points of the event process, from before the event to after the event has concluded! Twitter can be an event marketing powerhouse when incorporating an event hashtag, more on that later!

3. LinkedIn: Perfect for professional and business events, LinkedIn is a great tool to reach professionals interested in networking, or improving their business knowledge. You can create a public LinkedIn Group for your event, which will create conversation around your event through its collaborative group discus-sion capabilities. The added benefit of LinkedIn is that the people who use it are already interested in expanding business connections and learning business best-practices, both primary goals of many event planners.

4. Instagram: Instagram is worth looking at, because according it has the ability to truly engage users. While an estimated 5% of tweets are seen by Twitter followers, 20% of Instagram posts are seen by Instagram followers. With the ability to filter pictures, Instagram can be a great tool to showcase your event and inspire others to take a closer look at what your event has to o�er!

5. YouTube: Creating videos is a can accelerate buzz around your event. Examples of good video content include videos designed to educate views about a certain industry topic, sharing videos of interviews with event speakers to excite attendees, or sharing videos from past events are all great ways to harness the power of video to promote an event.

16Bizzabo

6. Pinterest: With 70 million users, Pinterest is one of the internet’s most popular social networks. This visual bookmarking tool is designed to help people save and share photos of things they love. Users create Pinterest boards of various themes and other users can re-share the photos saved to the boards. Pinterest is a great opportunity for organizers to showcase the event venue, speakers, sponsors, and rele-vant quotes to broaded the reach of an event.

7. Meerkat & Periscope: Both of these live streaming platforms integrate with Twitter and empower anyone with the Meerkat or Periscope app to share live video with anyone who chooses to view a feed. Both platforms rely on Twitter to attract viewers, and are being used by event attendees who live stream various event sessions. Organizers should consider harnessing the growing popularity of live streaming to broaden their audience online, as a way of improving brand awareness.

What is a Hashtag?Hashtags are key components of your event’s social media presence. Hashtags are used on multiple social media platforms, but are most popular on Twitter. A hashtag allows the person sharing content to classify it, making it easier for other social media users to discover the post.

Trending hashtags, are hashtags that are used by a high percentage of users at a given moment in time. Popular trending hashtags often pertain to a political movement such aslike #ObamaForPresident, a large TV spectacle, for examplelike, #SuperBowlXLIX, or a live event such aslike #SXSW15.

How?Now you are probably asking yourself, how do I successfully use hashtags to market my event? First, you must create a specific hashtag that relates to your event. Typically this is an abbreviation of the event title. For example Social Media Examiner created the hashtag #SMMW15 for their Social Media Marketing World event. Event attendees were encouraged to use this o�cial hashtag when posting content related to the event on social media.

The best way to promote an o�cial hashtag during an event is to include it in prominent places throughout the event! You should take an “in-your-face” branding technique to encourage those associated with your event to use your specific event hashtag online.

17Bizzabo

Create A Community

After following these tips to create a brand, a successful event hashtag, an event blog, and more, you are on your way to creating an event community that lasts beyond the date of your event.

Creating a community is important for event planners, especially for those who organize numerous events per year, in order to to maintain a strong base of potential attendees, while keeping your brand at the top of their mind. Having a community is a must-have aspect of any long term event marketing process!

18Bizzabo

Create A Thriving Event CommunityFostering an event community is a pre, during, and post event endeavor. Failing to build and maintain an event community throughout the lifecycle of an event is a common oversight many event organizers make. But, by avoiding this mistake, organizers will help to improve the lifespan of their event, and will also be able to provide valuable additional resources to event attendees.

Stage One: Before the EventOnce potential leads start buying tickets or register, you already have a community to work with. One of the most important steps in creating a comprehensive event community is to keep in touch with those already registered for your event. Don’t let them forget about your event. By taking your engagement with potential attendees to the next level, there is more of a chance these contacts will be sharing your event with potential attendees.

Stage Two: During the EventMany event attendees will be going to your event in order to make valuable new connections. While meet-ing face-to-face is something that simply cannot be replaced, you can make it easier for event attendees to meet one another if you give them access to an event networking community (www.bizzabo.com/event-experience) that exists online and on an app.

By providing attendees with additional networking resources, you’re helping to create value to them. By adding value, you’re strengthening your brand.

Stage Three: After the EventThe last thing an event organizer wants is for attendees to forget about the event they worked so hard to plan. In order to avoid this, be sure to keep in touch with attendees after the event. There are various ways to do this, but below are three great ways to keep in touch with event attendees after the event has occurred:

1. Email Newsletters: Sending out newsletters by email is a great way to prevent attendees from forget-ting about your event. In these newsletters, you can include industry or company updates, share post-event statistic, and eventually promote your next event. You can also o�er discounts to your next event to previous event attendees.

19Bizzabo

2. Surveys: Can be used to help you keep the conversation going between your event identity and your previous event attendees, but also as a way to compile more data about your audience that can help you better plan for your next event. This data might even help you better flesh out the marketing personas we talked about earlier in this eBook.

Ask questions that give you a better look into audience expectations, such as “What part of last year’s event was most valuable to you?” or “what 3 event speakers would you like to see at this year’s event?”

3. Contests: Contests are a great way to create buzz around your event, even after the event has con-cluded. You can create competitions that involve the specific industry of your event, or have contests that o�er prizes such as free or discounted tickets to your next event. Either way, contests will be sure to maximize engagement with previous attendees while also promoting your next event.

20Bizzabo

Not all event marketing can be done for free. Paid advertising can be a hugely e�ective way to promote an event online, but it will require a small financial investment to make it happen. Organizers should understand the di�erent paid advertising avenues that are available, before writing o� this marketing method entirely.

While some paid ad placements or campaigns can cost thousand of dollars others can cost as little as $10. The key to any paid advertising campaign is first and foremost, un-derstanding your audience. That’s why creating marketing personas is first in this eBook. Once you’ve done that, you’ll better understand what advertising channels have a chance to be highly e�ective.

Pay-Per-Click (PPC)If you enter a search in a search engine, you’ll likely see “organic” links to websites, and “paid” links to web-sites. While organic links appear thanks to good SEO. Paid links appear because an advertiser is paying the search engine every time a user clicks on a featured link.

Often the only visible di�erence between a paid link and an organic link is a small “ad” tag near the paid link.

The price the advertiser will pay for each person who clicks on a paid link will vary depending on how the search engine calculates the popularity of the keyword associated with the search.

Marketers who choose to use PPC campaigns create their ad, and set a daily, weekly or monthly budget that they would like to spend. Then, they set a maximum bid amount that they are willing to pay for a spe-cific keyword, and the search engine does the rest.

Paid Advertising

21Bizzabo

Your ad will be placed into a hidden auction, where the PPC platform’s algorithms examine the quality of the web page the ad is promoting, in addition to the maximum bid amount. Based on these two variables, the ad platform selects the ads it will display for a given search. This process happens billions of times a day, as new search queries are made.

Media PlacementsWhile pay-per-click advertising can cost as little as $10 per day, media placements tend to cost more and typically run for multiple days, if not months at a time. If you visit the New York Times, you’ll notice various image-based ads across the website. These ads are examples of media placements.

Typically, the advertiser pays a negotiated amount up front, but does not need to pay for each click. Media placements can been great for increasing brand awareness, or for reaching a specific group of people who you think might be highly interested in your event.

Let’s say that you are planning a tech conference, a media placement on influential tech websites likewww.VentureBeat.com, www.TechCrunch.com or www.TheNextWeb.com could be a good idea, since all three of those websites are read by people interested in technology and innovation.

The most successful media placements are placed on websites that fit with an event’s brand identity and that match the interests of marketing personas.

Remember, that unlike PPC ads, media placements are based on visuals and not text. It might be worth working with a talented graphic designer to create a truly stunning visual ad to ensure your media place-ment is a success.

Retargeting AdsHave you ever felt like one company's ads were following you around the internet? If you said yes, you’ve likely experienced retargeted ads.

When you visit a website, that website may embed a special tracking code in your web browser. These codes are known as Pixels, and they allow advertising platforms to know what ads to show you.

Retargeting ads can be incredibly e�ective at encouraging someone who visits a website to complete an

action. If for example you start the checkout process on Amazon, but abandon your shopping cart, it’s likely that you’ll see an ad for the product you almost bought on other websites.

Event organizers can harness the power of retargeting ads to boost the number of people who register for an event.

Imagine for that an event attendee begins the event registration process, but doesn’t complete the regis-tration. Your website can display a special retargeting ad that says something like, “Don’t forget to com-plete your event registration.”

This ad can be displayed across di�erent websites who work with advertising companies that support retar-geting ads, like www.AdRoll.com, www.Retargeter.com or www.Chango.com.

A recent report from CMO Magazine (www.cmo.com) suggests that implementing retargeting ads can increase conversion rates (think ticket sales) by 50-60%.

Not all event marketing can be done for free. Paid advertising can be a hugely e�ective way to promote an event online, but it will require a small financial investment to make it happen. Organizers should understand the di�erent paid advertising avenues that are available, before writing o� this marketing method entirely.

While some paid ad placements or campaigns can cost thousand of dollars others can cost as little as $10. The key to any paid advertising campaign is first and foremost, un-derstanding your audience. That’s why creating marketing personas is first in this eBook. Once you’ve done that, you’ll better understand what advertising channels have a chance to be highly e�ective.

Pay-Per-Click (PPC)If you enter a search in a search engine, you’ll likely see “organic” links to websites, and “paid” links to web-sites. While organic links appear thanks to good SEO. Paid links appear because an advertiser is paying the search engine every time a user clicks on a featured link.

Often the only visible di�erence between a paid link and an organic link is a small “ad” tag near the paid link.

The price the advertiser will pay for each person who clicks on a paid link will vary depending on how the search engine calculates the popularity of the keyword associated with the search.

Marketers who choose to use PPC campaigns create their ad, and set a daily, weekly or monthly budget that they would like to spend. Then, they set a maximum bid amount that they are willing to pay for a spe-cific keyword, and the search engine does the rest.

22Bizzabo

Your ad will be placed into a hidden auction, where the PPC platform’s algorithms examine the quality of the web page the ad is promoting, in addition to the maximum bid amount. Based on these two variables, the ad platform selects the ads it will display for a given search. This process happens billions of times a day, as new search queries are made.

Media PlacementsWhile pay-per-click advertising can cost as little as $10 per day, media placements tend to cost more and typically run for multiple days, if not months at a time. If you visit the New York Times, you’ll notice various image-based ads across the website. These ads are examples of media placements.

Typically, the advertiser pays a negotiated amount up front, but does not need to pay for each click. Media placements can been great for increasing brand awareness, or for reaching a specific group of people who you think might be highly interested in your event.

Let’s say that you are planning a tech conference, a media placement on influential tech websites likewww.VentureBeat.com, www.TechCrunch.com or www.TheNextWeb.com could be a good idea, since all three of those websites are read by people interested in technology and innovation.

The most successful media placements are placed on websites that fit with an event’s brand identity and that match the interests of marketing personas.

Remember, that unlike PPC ads, media placements are based on visuals and not text. It might be worth working with a talented graphic designer to create a truly stunning visual ad to ensure your media place-ment is a success.

Retargeting AdsHave you ever felt like one company's ads were following you around the internet? If you said yes, you’ve likely experienced retargeted ads.

When you visit a website, that website may embed a special tracking code in your web browser. These codes are known as Pixels, and they allow advertising platforms to know what ads to show you.

Retargeting ads can be incredibly e�ective at encouraging someone who visits a website to complete an

action. If for example you start the checkout process on Amazon, but abandon your shopping cart, it’s likely that you’ll see an ad for the product you almost bought on other websites.

Event organizers can harness the power of retargeting ads to boost the number of people who register for an event.

Imagine for that an event attendee begins the event registration process, but doesn’t complete the regis-tration. Your website can display a special retargeting ad that says something like, “Don’t forget to com-plete your event registration.”

This ad can be displayed across di�erent websites who work with advertising companies that support retar-geting ads, like www.AdRoll.com, www.Retargeter.com or www.Chango.com.

A recent report from CMO Magazine (www.cmo.com) suggests that implementing retargeting ads can increase conversion rates (think ticket sales) by 50-60%.

Not all event marketing can be done for free. Paid advertising can be a hugely e�ective way to promote an event online, but it will require a small financial investment to make it happen. Organizers should understand the di�erent paid advertising avenues that are available, before writing o� this marketing method entirely.

While some paid ad placements or campaigns can cost thousand of dollars others can cost as little as $10. The key to any paid advertising campaign is first and foremost, un-derstanding your audience. That’s why creating marketing personas is first in this eBook. Once you’ve done that, you’ll better understand what advertising channels have a chance to be highly e�ective.

Pay-Per-Click (PPC)If you enter a search in a search engine, you’ll likely see “organic” links to websites, and “paid” links to web-sites. While organic links appear thanks to good SEO. Paid links appear because an advertiser is paying the search engine every time a user clicks on a featured link.

Often the only visible di�erence between a paid link and an organic link is a small “ad” tag near the paid link.

The price the advertiser will pay for each person who clicks on a paid link will vary depending on how the search engine calculates the popularity of the keyword associated with the search.

Marketers who choose to use PPC campaigns create their ad, and set a daily, weekly or monthly budget that they would like to spend. Then, they set a maximum bid amount that they are willing to pay for a spe-cific keyword, and the search engine does the rest.

Your ad will be placed into a hidden auction, where the PPC platform’s algorithms examine the quality of the web page the ad is promoting, in addition to the maximum bid amount. Based on these two variables, the ad platform selects the ads it will display for a given search. This process happens billions of times a day, as new search queries are made.

Media PlacementsWhile pay-per-click advertising can cost as little as $10 per day, media placements tend to cost more and typically run for multiple days, if not months at a time. If you visit the New York Times, you’ll notice various image-based ads across the website. These ads are examples of media placements.

Typically, the advertiser pays a negotiated amount up front, but does not need to pay for each click. Media placements can been great for increasing brand awareness, or for reaching a specific group of people who you think might be highly interested in your event.

Let’s say that you are planning a tech conference, a media placement on influential tech websites likewww.VentureBeat.com, www.TechCrunch.com or www.TheNextWeb.com could be a good idea, since all three of those websites are read by people interested in technology and innovation.

The most successful media placements are placed on websites that fit with an event’s brand identity and that match the interests of marketing personas.

Remember, that unlike PPC ads, media placements are based on visuals and not text. It might be worth working with a talented graphic designer to create a truly stunning visual ad to ensure your media place-ment is a success.

Retargeting AdsHave you ever felt like one company's ads were following you around the internet? If you said yes, you’ve likely experienced retargeted ads.

When you visit a website, that website may embed a special tracking code in your web browser. These codes are known as Pixels, and they allow advertising platforms to know what ads to show you.

Retargeting ads can be incredibly e�ective at encouraging someone who visits a website to complete an

23Bizzabo

action. If for example you start the checkout process on Amazon, but abandon your shopping cart, it’s likely that you’ll see an ad for the product you almost bought on other websites.

Event organizers can harness the power of retargeting ads to boost the number of people who register for an event.

Imagine for that an event attendee begins the event registration process, but doesn’t complete the regis-tration. Your website can display a special retargeting ad that says something like, “Don’t forget to com-plete your event registration.”

This ad can be displayed across di�erent websites who work with advertising companies that support retar-geting ads, like www.AdRoll.com, www.Retargeter.com or www.Chango.com.

A recent report from CMO Magazine (www.cmo.com) suggests that implementing retargeting ads can increase conversion rates (think ticket sales) by 50-60%.

One of the best ways to increase the reach of an event is through advocacy marketing. That’s because it typically costs nothing, or very little for the event organizer, but it can greatly improve brand awareness and drive ticket sales or increase registrations.

Some of the fastest growing companies ever created rely on advocacy marketing to grow their businesses. In short, advocacy marketing harnesses the power of those already associated with a brand, and encourages those people to evangelize the brand to friends, family and colleagues.

An example of advocacy marketing is when someone posts a positive review of a new product on social media, or when someone recommends a new product or service to someone else.

Harness The Influence Of Your SpeakersIt’s often the case that your event speakers will already have their own sphere of influence online. Per-haps your keynote speaker has a considerable and loyal social media following. Or maybe an industry expert has acquired a dedicated group of people who read his or her blog. In either case, those followers will take to heart any recommendations that your speakers make. So if an event speakers encourages followers to attend an upcoming event, some of those people will attend.

It’s completely acceptable to ask your event speakers to promote your event on their social media pro-files, via email or via their personal blog or website. Afterall, it’s in the speaker’s best interest for the event they are speaking at to be filled with people interested in their session.

Advocacy Marketing

24Bizzabo

To further encourage the speaker to promote the event, you can create a unique discount for attendees who register based on a speaker’s recommendation. That way, the speaker will be providing added value to their followers.

Turn Attendees Into Event PromotersAdvocacy marketing shouldn’t end when your speakers have tweeted about your event. The best event marketers know how to turn those who have registered for the event into event promoters.

The best way to create promoters is to o�er your current attendees a real reason to share your event with their contacts. One great way to do that is through double-sided referral systems. Event organizers can o�er those who just registered for an event a discounted ticket for every additional person the attendee successfully refers to the event.

“Double-sided” referral systems provide an additional incentive for the potential attendee, as they too will be o�ered a discounted ticket.

Companies like Uber and Dropbox (some of the fastest growing companies in the world) use double-sid-ed referral systems because they are proven to work.

Event organizers can implement an equally successful referral system by using tools like Ticket Boost. Ticket Boost enables organizers to incorporate referral systems within the event registration process, thus creating a seamless experience for attendees who are registering for your event.

One of the best ways to increase the reach of an event is through advocacy marketing. That’s because it typically costs nothing, or very little for the event organizer, but it can greatly improve brand awareness and drive ticket sales or increase registrations.

Some of the fastest growing companies ever created rely on advocacy marketing to grow their businesses. In short, advocacy marketing harnesses the power of those already associated with a brand, and encourages those people to evangelize the brand to friends, family and colleagues.

An example of advocacy marketing is when someone posts a positive review of a new product on social media, or when someone recommends a new product or service to someone else.

Harness The Influence Of Your SpeakersIt’s often the case that your event speakers will already have their own sphere of influence online. Per-haps your keynote speaker has a considerable and loyal social media following. Or maybe an industry expert has acquired a dedicated group of people who read his or her blog. In either case, those followers will take to heart any recommendations that your speakers make. So if an event speakers encourages followers to attend an upcoming event, some of those people will attend.

It’s completely acceptable to ask your event speakers to promote your event on their social media pro-files, via email or via their personal blog or website. Afterall, it’s in the speaker’s best interest for the event they are speaking at to be filled with people interested in their session.

25Bizzabo

To further encourage the speaker to promote the event, you can create a unique discount for attendees who register based on a speaker’s recommendation. That way, the speaker will be providing added value to their followers.

Turn Attendees Into Event PromotersAdvocacy marketing shouldn’t end when your speakers have tweeted about your event. The best event marketers know how to turn those who have registered for the event into event promoters.

The best way to create promoters is to o�er your current attendees a real reason to share your event with their contacts. One great way to do that is through double-sided referral systems. Event organizers can o�er those who just registered for an event a discounted ticket for every additional person the attendee successfully refers to the event.

“Double-sided” referral systems provide an additional incentive for the potential attendee, as they too will be o�ered a discounted ticket.

Companies like Uber and Dropbox (some of the fastest growing companies in the world) use double-sid-ed referral systems because they are proven to work.

Event organizers can implement an equally successful referral system by using tools like Ticket Boost. Ticket Boost enables organizers to incorporate referral systems within the event registration process, thus creating a seamless experience for attendees who are registering for your event.

Like it or not, event marketing plays a critical role in the overall success of any event you are planning. Whether your aim is to attract event attendees, sponsors, exhibitors, or if you are host-ing a corporate event and need to generate excitement within a company, marketing will play a pivotal role.

The key to a good marketing plan, comes with understanding your audience. First, create up to four fully fleshed our marketing personas.

With these personas in mind, begin crafting a branding strategy. Will you opt for the “In Your Face” rout, or go for something subtler?

Once you brand assets, you can begin applying them on your event website and on the content you create to attract potential attendees. Be sure to use social media platforms to share this content, and to attract a broader audience.

Creating content for your event website, will also help you improve your event website’s SEO performance.

Be sure to create an event networking community prior to the event, and keep it going until well after event day so that you have an audience in place to market to for other future events.

You make one final push to increase the reach of your event by implementing a paid digital ad campaign, and by using referral tools to encourage event attendees to share your event with their friends and colleagues.

Conclusion:How To Use Marketing To

Launch And Grow Your Event

26Bizzabo

sales@bizzabo.com 1-800-604-BIZZ www.bizzabo.com

Bizzabo’s event success platform was designed to help readers like you plan, market and execute more successful events. From launching your event with Bizzabo’s all-in-one platform, to growing your event with our ticketing and event registration tools, Bizzabo was designed to make

you a smarter event organizer.

Experience how Bizzabo’s platform can help you launch your event.