Category: Technicals

Most companies are aware that a strong brand is vital to their success, as it distinguishes a business from its competitors. A brand has to showcase the company’s unique value proposition, i.e., the unique way a business solves its target clients’ problems. As a business, you may have already spent countless hours trying to find the perfect logo, color palette, or tagline.

Did you know that your events can help you build that brand awareness? But only if you can distinguish your event from others like it in a world where events seem to pop up every other day, and people are overwhelmed with information.

Indeed, you are not organizing events to fill up space in a calendar. You’ve gone through all the trouble of identifying a lacuna in the market and carving out your niche. There is a chance that others have identified the same need. Now, what’s the best way to communicate your unique value proposition to an audience that has a lot of options to choose from? How do you make sure your event stands out? In other words, how do you increase brand awareness for a specific event and ultimately for your business?

There are many ways to showcase your event’s personality. In this article, we will share five tried-and-tested marketing tactics to make your event brand stand out.

What is brand awareness, and why is it essential for your business?

First of all, we need to define what we mean by brand and brand awareness.

A brand is what makes your business, product, or service’s image unique, meaningful, consistent, and authentic. A well-crafted brand creates a mental and emotional connection between your business and your target audience. It usually comprises a logo, color palette, fonts, tone of voice, values, name, tagline, etc. All these elements work together to make your brand unique and easily recognizable. In a nutshell, your brand tells your company’s story.

As to brand awareness, according to TrackMaven, a Marketing Insights Company, “it is the level of consumer consciousness of a company. It measures a potential customer’s ability to not only recognize a brand image but to also associate it with a certain company’s product or service.”

Brand awareness is the perception of your brand by your audience. Therefore, building awareness makes it easier for your target to know you exist and what your offer is, as well as making that offer desirable to them. With so many products and services options available to customers, differentiating your offer is of tantamount importance.

How can events help you build that brand awareness?

Your events are an integral part of your marketing strategy. As such, a strong event brand is a perfect vehicle for delivering your unique value proposition.

By giving your event its own recognizable “personality,” in line with your overall brand image, you will attract the kind of audience you want and contribute to making your event memorable. You want attendees to talk positively about you and your event and return if it’s a recurring event. If you manage to build highly effective branding, you can even get to the point where your event becomes a “must attend.”

Here are a few ideas to help you craft that brand and build awareness among your audience.

Five tactics to increase your brand awareness through your events

Use social media to its full potential

A study published by EventMB showed that 74% of event planners in 2018 recognized social media as the most effective tool for event marketing, followed by email marketing (66%), their website (60%), and event registration site (26%). Additionally, Facebook seems to be the most effective for event promotion, followed by LinkedIn.

People are on their mobile devices almost non-stop these days, so if you create highly entertaining and shareable content on social media, they will, without a doubt, help you increase your event exposure. Don’t forget, though, to make your event social media strategy consistent with your overall brand. Building a solid social media presence for your event will, in turn, bring the spotlight to your business brand.

All stages of an event can lend themselves to social media exposure, increasing brand awareness during the whole process. Before the event, dedicated Facebook and LinkedIn pages where you post regularly can build up expectations (make sure to create an easy-to-remember hashtag that attendees can share). During the event, a Twitter account can help you share exciting highlights of what’s going on at the event.

After the event, share pictures and videos on Twitter, Facebook, or Instagram to keep people engaged with your brand.

Make the most of email as a way to build expectations

As stated above, 66% of event planners think that email marketing is effective for event marketing, just behind social media.

If you want to raise awareness about your event, a newsletter sent to your email list can be a powerful tool by keeping your audience posted on all things relevant to your event: the preparation process, which speakers you have lined up so far, what sessions or conferences are already planned, etc.

Create a specific website for your event

A lot of companies create only a landing page for their events. Here, we are talking about a complete event website. Remember that the event website may well be the first introduction to your event for most of your future attendees. Therefore, you need it to be ready in the early stages of the event process, weeks if not months before the event is due to take place.

This website is going to be one of the first elements that communicate your brand, and you need to make sure everything works well together and creates a consistent impression (fonts, graphics, logo, color palette, etc.). Make your website an authentic experience in itself, fitting your narrative.

Make sure your content motivates people to engage with your brand

Creating valuable content is a powerful tool for building a long-term relationship with your target audience. The only downside is that it takes time and resources. It’s also an ongoing process, not a one-time strategy: you have to inform and educate your readers about subjects that matter to them if you want to build trust in your brand over time.

You can definitely apply your content strategy to specific events: for example, you could write a few blog posts for a trade magazine in relation to your event.

Encouraging attendees to take pictures at your event and sharing them will help you develop user-generated content after the event, building your public image further. In addition, if you engage in a dialogue with your target audience and give them a voice, the perception they have of your brand will definitely be improved.

Create a genuine experience through your onsite design

On the day of the event, all the decor elements have to integrate fully with your brand image and be consistent with what you have showcased so far. The onsite design has to carry the story you developed in the early stages of the event process, as it is that story that attracted attendees to your event in the first place. This concerns all the elements of your event, from the venue to the programming. For example, suppose you are hosting a conference on sustainability. In that case, the venue you picked has to showcase its own green efforts (see our previous article for examples of convention centers in the USA that keep their sustainability promises).

The same goes for your programming. It has to be consistent with your narrative: you cannot have only male speakers at an event designed to promote female entrepreneurship. The whole decor has to be consistent with your brand image. For example, you can experiment with using your logo in creative ways, such as gobo effects or light 3-D projections.

You can also incorporate branding into items as long as they are relevant to your storytelling: it can make sense to brand a yoga mat or a sports bag if you are hosting a conference on wellness.

In conclusion

These days, people’s attention is divided among so many stimuli that it gets harder and harder for businesses to get their message through. Simultaneously it is more important than ever for companies to set their brand apart.

If you diversify the ways your potential customers can get acquainted with your brand, you will increase your chances to grab their attention, get your brand recognized, and get them to engage with it. That should go a long way in helping you to convert them.

We highlighted a few methods in this article that should help you build a solid basis for your brand marketing efforts.  Most importantly, remember that your brand needs to be consistent throughout all of your communication, regardless of the medium.

And if you are an exhibitor at a tradeshow, let’s discuss all the ways totm exposition can help you make sure your custom booth represents your brand as perfectly as possible. Contact us today!

American Express’s Global Meetings and Events Forecast predicts that the expected meeting spending for 2021 in North America will be down 6% compared to 2020. This departure from previous years is essentially due to the COVID-19 pandemic, which has impacted the events industry hard. As a result, most event planners have to work on tighter budgets.

Even before COVID-19 hit, marketing budgets were usually among the first to get reduced when the economy was suffering, especially the part related to events. The pandemic has literally stopped all in-person events for more than a year in most countries, and it’s not over yet. 

For the past eighteen months, virtual events have helped many companies weather the pandemic, but people, for the most part, are eager to go back to in-person meetings.

There are still restrictions in place on travel and large gatherings, but professionals see the light at the end of the tunnel. They are, though, facing either a reallocation of budgets to other parts of the company or a significant reduction because of the economic difficulties and hardship brought by the pandemic. Indeed, MarketingWeek reports that 80% of marketers in the UK foresee cutting spend for events marketing, the worst hit as a category.

So, as an event planner, what are your options? 

We’ve compiled four areas of interest that could help you work around a smaller budget without sacrificing the quality of the experience for your attendees.

Let’s give them a closer look.

Go smaller

Organize smaller events but make them count

Having a smaller event with fewer attendees means a direct reduction in your food and beverage costs.

You might not be able, though, to pick a smaller venue, which would typically be cheaper. Indeed, with COVID-19, you might need the same event space to accommodate fewer people because of social distancing measures and regulations on the number of people allowed to gather per square foot.

In any case, if you organize a smaller event and want to generate interest, try and create FOMO by promoting it as an exclusive opportunity for a few fortunate people. Make it the event they can’t afford to miss.

You could also sell access to non-locals through live streaming software, as people might be very interested in your event but not able/willing to travel to attend, especially with COVID variants still spreading. That will help you save big on food and beverage while still getting the revenue, as well as making sure the space you choose is adapted to social distancing measures.

Be aware, though, that you will need to devote part of your budget to live streaming equipment/technology or mailing swag to attendees who were not present in person so that they can have the best experience even from afar. Virtual events (or at least the virtual part of your hybrid event) need to be highly produced to be successful. It can’t be just a live stream anymore; people are tired of Zoom-type conferences and expect a lot more in terms of experience.

Choose the portable or modular option for your exhibitions

For your exhibitions and trade shows, forego the one-of-a-kind, more expensive, custom booth, and pick a portable booth or modular booth that you can reuse. As a bonus, it’s better for the planet!

But, if you have to go custom, ask yourself if you really need that double-decker booth covering 2,000 square feet. Chances are, you can make it smaller and still attract the attention of potential clients by using a clever design that will showcase your products most effectively.

Smarten your Marketing 

According to a study by Eventbrite, marketing and promotion represent the top costs for an event. It makes sense thus to try and reduce their impact on your budget as much as possible. Here are a few tactics to do that.

Put your existing audience front and center

As a general rule, it always costs less to get someone to attend one of your events again than it does to convince them to try you out to begin with. Therefore, it makes a lot of sense to promote heavily towards your existing and former clients.

Use social media to your full advantage

Besides social media platforms being free to use, advertising on them is significantly cheaper than the more traditional alternatives. If you know exactly which platforms your target audience uses most, promote your event on these, and involve your speakers or performers by asking them to advertise their participation on their own social media feeds.

 Widen your sponsorship options

Sponsorship is one of the most effective ways to increase your revenue as almost any area of your event can be sponsored: venue, food & beverage, swag, event tech, etc. You could also try approaching local businesses to offer them the excellent opportunity for promotional exposure that your event represents.

Reconsider printed materials

Invest in high-quality prints that you can reuse several times and keep branding generic whenever possible. This means no indication of a specific date, venue, etc., on anything printed. Instead, use screens to display this ephemeral information.

And, as much as possible, forget print, and go digital! This means offering online registration as your guests’ only possibility (no mailed tickets, badges, or documentation), using email invitations and scannable QR codes, sharing documentation and presentations online after the event.

Go local

Try local talents and offer VIP sessions with your experts

Having local performers will help you save big on travel and accommodation costs. As a second benefit, local audiences are usually excited to see experts who come from their own community. And if some of your experts are willing to play along, offering private VIP sessions with them can generate interest in your event (and help pay for the expert’s fee…).

On a side note, because of COVID-19, many people are not willing or able to travel internationally anymore. Therefore, if your speakers are not local, why not having them present virtually via a live video feed? It will save time for them and money for you. Be careful, though; the broadcast needs to be flawless for your attendees to enjoy the performance as if the speaker was there in person.

Work with DMOs and CVBs

Destination Management Organizations and Convention and Visitors Bureaus are eager to bring business to their area and often have excellent connections to the local community. They will help you, for free, with sourcing venues and suppliers and can get preferential pricing.

Negotiate, negotiate, negotiate

Start the planning process as early as possible and be flexible

If you want the best deals, starting the negotiation process early is critical. Giving suppliers and vendors long-term visibility usually makes it easier for them to provide you with discounted rates. If you show up at the last minute, not so much…

Also, if your event doesn’t have to take place on a specific date, ask your vendors when their availability is the greatest for further discounted rates.

Try one-stop venues

More and more venues offer all-in-one packages, including catering, tables, linens, AV, etc. You might want to consider this alternative as that might come cheaper than having to pick multiple vendors. As a bonus, you will have only one interlocutor to deal with, which should save you a lot of time in the process.

In conclusion

Events help create new business relationships as well as strengthen existing ones. Unfortunately, the COVID-19 pandemic has significantly reduced the possibility of organizing in-person events for several months and created new costs, typically regarding health and safety. Also, inflation seems like a real possibility which means everything is getting more expensive, from lumber to ice.

All this means that your usual event budget might not be available anymore or, at the very least, significantly reduced. 

Dealing with a tighter budget while attendees have constant if not higher expectations is indeed a balancing act for many planners. But as we’ve seen, there are some creative ways for an event planner to manage to keep their audience engaged and entertained while keeping their costs down.