Your Event Marketing Guide: Strategies for Success [Updated for 2024]

Over the past 15 years, the landscape of event promotion has undergone significant transformations. With the rise of social media and the dominance of smartphones in our lives, event promoters have had to adapt to a whole new set of rules. Even traditional platforms like email have evolved drastically in the past decade. Keep reading to discover the latest platforms for promoting your events online and learn how to enhance traditional marketing techniques with innovative tools.

1. Pick a connected venue

When choosing a venue for your upcoming event, it's important to take into account their dedication to supporting the promotion of your event. This includes onsite marketing and online marketing, particularly social media and if they send any mailers. Ask yourself these key questions when deciding on the perfect venue for your event. The more connected the venue is on social media, the better they can assist you in promoting your event through their channels.

• What promotional support do they offer event organizers?
• Are their online channels regularly updated with upcoming events?
• How extensive and relevant are their online followers and email lists?

Expert tip: Make sure your event makes a lasting impact by hiring a photographer and or videographer or utilizing the venue's photographer. This content is golden for post-promotion and for promoting future events.

2. Harness Social Media

In today's dynamic event marketing landscape, embracing the power of social media is an absolute must. Building a consistent online audience can be challenging, but with the right strategies across platforms like Instagram, Twitter, TikTok, Facebook, and LinkedIn, you can kickstart the process and ensure your events get the attention they deserve. Here are some specific tips per platform: 

Promoting events on Instagram:

• Engaging Visual Content: Instagram revolves around visuals, so create compelling images and videos relevant to your event. Utilize features like Stories, Reels, and IGTV to diversify your content and engage your audience.
  
  
• Strategic Hashtags: Incorporate relevant event, location, and category-specific hashtags to enhance discoverability. Consider creating a unique event hashtag that attendees can use to share their experiences and generate buzz.

• Influencer Collaborations: Partner with local influencers or those within your event's niche to promote it. Influencers can expand your reach and provide authentic endorsements.

• Instagram Ads: Invest in targeted Instagram ads to reach a wider audience. Utilize Instagram's advertising tools to tailor your ads to specific demographics effectively.

Twitter Tips:

1. Tweet Regularly: Keep your Twitter feed active by posting regular updates about your event. Use relevant event hashtags and mention key participants or speakers to increase engagement.

2. Engage with Followers: Respond to comments, retweets, and direct messages promptly. Engaging with your audience on Twitter builds a sense of community and encourages event promotion.

3. Twitter Chats: Consider hosting or participating in Twitter chats related to your event's theme. This can help you connect with potential attendees and experts in your field.

TikTok Tips:

1. Creative Short Videos: TikTok thrives on short, creative videos. Craft fun and engaging content related to your event. Incorporate catchy music and trending challenges to capture the platform's spirit.

2. Leverage User-Generated Content: Encourage event attendees to create and share TikToks about your event. User-generated content can go viral and generate excitement.

3. Collaborate with TikTok Influencers: Partner with TikTok influencers who align with your event's theme. They can create content and promotions that resonate with their followers.

4. Hashtag Challenges: Initiate a unique event-related hashtag challenge on TikTok. Encourage users to participate and challenge their friends to join in on the fun.

Facebook Tips:

1. Engaging Posts: Craft engaging and informative posts about your event on Facebook. Use a variety of content formats, such as text, images, videos, and live streams, to keep your audience intrigued.

2. Facebook Events: Create and promote your event using Facebook Events. This feature allows attendees to RSVP, receive updates, and share the event with their network.

3. Paid Promotion: Consider investing in Facebook ads to target specific demographics and reach a broader audience. Use Facebook's ad targeting options to maximize your campaign's effectiveness.

LinkedIn Tips:

1. Professional Event Page: Create a professional event page on LinkedIn with detailed information about your event, including speakers, agenda, and highlights. Use high-quality images and compelling descriptions.

2. LinkedIn Articles: Publish informative articles related to your event's industry or topic. Share these articles on your event page to establish authority and attract professionals interested in your event.

3. Network and Engage: Connect with relevant professionals and groups on LinkedIn. Share event updates and discussions within these networks to reach potential attendees who align with your event's objectives.

By incorporating these up-to-date strategies across Instagram, Twitter, TikTok, Facebook, and LinkedIn, you'll have a comprehensive approach to promoting your events on various social channels. This will help you connect with your audience in meaningful ways, increase visibility, and ensure the success of your events.

Customise your Facebook page

Your Facebook page is a great place to let people know about your events and see what people think of them. To customise your page you’ll need to use Static FBML. Static FBML is a Facebook application that allows you to add basic HTML to your Facebook page, making it look that bit more professional. With Static FBML you can create an attractive landing page, insert a from to collect email addresses for a newsletter connected to a competition and have a link back to your main website to generate some traffic. – Follow Evvnt on Facebook

To find out more about Static FBML and making your Facebook page ‘pop’ see our guide: How to Create a Facebook Landing Page. Facebook most recent update to Pages also make it possible to add IFrames to landing pages on Facebook. This lets you import and control any style of web page on Facebook.

Consider a live TwitterFeed at your event

If you (or the club) have a projector as well as an internet connection at your event, you can display your followers tweets, live at the event. Think of the number of followers you’ll gain as a result and this will provide a meaningful link between your social media activity before the event and with the night itself. You’ll need some software like Twitterfall (best for larger events as you can effectively censor tweets) or StreamTwitter (if you want to maximise the tweets). Follow us on Twitter

3. Make your email work for you

A mailing list is essential so people can keep track of your events and the venues where you are hosting them. A popular mailing list will make you more attractive to a prospective venue as they will see all the clients you are bringing with you. Email is a targeted approach to stay in touch with your clients and as an event promoter you have a wealth of material for a newsletter; pictures from previous events, interviews with acts and guests or your current favourite bit of content.

Top 3 email marketing tips for events

4. Go mobile
With mobile marketing comes the opportunity for events with a secret destination and mobile tickets. In the past promoters have used these techniques like these to make sure the club plays ball with a promoter’s requirements; if people only find out on the day where a party is happening, you can move it nearer to the event without too much trouble. These techniques will help you to play on an exclusive reputation for your events.

Mobile campaigns deliver the latest news and content from an event and create a feeling of exclusiveness. It is also a useful route to sponsorship as it offers a mobile vehicle for the placement of event branding and advertisement . You can either opt for a standard SMS or for a richer, more elaborate MMS. Evently makes it easy to design both of these and integrate mobile marketing into your existing campaign.
Top 3 mobile marketing tips for events
i) Timing
It is generally advised for your mobile campaign to go live a week before the event. Include a teaser, an interview of the featured artist or a competition with prizes.
ii) A ticket countdown
Once your campaign is launched, you can gradually apply pressure as the event becomes imminent. For instance, include a countdown of the number of tickets available.
iii) Evaluate
Take the time to do a debriefing of how effective the mobile campaign was. Whilst analysing your ‘opt-in’ rate, be wary of the barriers such as perceived costs, lack of awareness or relevance, that could prevent customers to opting-in. Be sure to use these analytics in order to improve your next mobile campaign.

5. Use event listings to promote events
Event listings websites form an important part of any event marketing strategy. Free listing services such as Yelp, Qype, Upcoming, Spoonfed, Eventful, LastFM and dozens more offer event promoters access to an enormous local and global audience of over 78 million event-goers per month. With that kind of reach, it’s very important that promoters take advantage of this free promotion method.
The pros are obvious – for free, promoters can access many new channels for marketing event information, ticket links and artist lineups. This can drive awareness, attendance and, critically, ticket sales. By piggy-backing on the popularity of some of the world’s top event sites, event organisers can overcome relative obscurity especially with brand new events. There are, however, some downsides. Adding listings to these sites is time consuming, taking up hours or even days depending on the number of events and how many sites are used. Additionally, sometimes editorial restrictions on the individual listing sites make it difficult to categorise events properly and premium content can steal away reader attention.

Top 3 tips for listing your events

• Make sure your events are properly categorized.
  Always tag your events with specific keywords. Don’t just use terms like ‘music’ or ‘gig,’ try to delve into minor genres and use artist names, venue names, and locations to help searchers as well. If there’s no field for tags when submitting your event, include it in an email to the listing site editor, or add tags to the event description. There’s no point in listing your event on sites if no one can find it!
  
  
• Time it right (and well in advance) 
  Make sure that you get in touch with a website or magazine at least a month in advance. London-based websites such as Time Out and Spoonfed are particularly strict about this and may not list your event at all if you do not give them enough advance notice.
  
  
• Be relevant
  Spend some time on the websites you want to post your events on. Have a look to check that your events fit in with the ethos or style of the websites on your broadcast list and consider tailoring your language or the images to what they like.

Choose the right image for your event

Event listings with images are more likely to get attention than ones without. Readers tend to briefly scan websites, so using an interesting picture for your event will increase the chance of a user clicking on your event.

• Take a look at the competition
  A good first step is to have a look at what your competition is doing. Visit some of the most popular listings websites to see what imagery is being used by other venues and promoters in your genre. It’s always a good idea to find ways to help your events stand out from the crowd – so if most of the events in your genre have white backgrounds, you might consider using a coloured background instead.
  
  
• Use imagery from your past events
  After spending precious time and money on designing a flyer, it makes sense to use this same design in as many places as possible. Consistent branding can help boost the profile of your events, so using your flyer for event listing websites can be a shrewd move. However, make sure you check how your target websites crop or shrink images and consider uploading a listing-friendly version that might include the name of your event with a picture.
  
  
• Create eye-catching promotional material for your event using design templates
  Graphic design software can be expensive, but there are lots of amazing free tools and templates that will allow you to create promotional material including Canva, Adobe Express, and Pixlr. 
  
  
• Sell tickets online
  Whatever the size of your event, selling tickets should be the end goal of all your event promotion. Promoters who enjoy a good relationship with their venue will usually leave it up to them to offer ticket sales via phone or one of the major online ticket providers. If you’re new to event promotion or planning a small, independent event, there are lots of useful tools available to sell event tickets online. Eventbrite, Facebook and Etickets are all food options if you’re new to selling event tickets online.

8. Broadcast your live event online

With the advent of websites like UStream.tv and Audioboo making it easier than ever before to stream events online instantly, your event can reach an international audience. This live engagement means make it easy to spread your events online and get fans involved even if they didn’t buy a ticket this time. Twitter has an extremely short timescale, and is best used just before or even on the day of a live music event. Remember to keep a saved search in Twitter for relevant tweets and these will later serve as testimonials for your past events.

Video or audio streaming services are becoming an increasingly popular way for people to share live events around the globe. Live streaming allows hundreds or even thousands of people to be part of the live experience and access events on their computer or mobile phone.