Event marketing can be one of the most effective ways to turn consumers into loyal customers. Yet, too often, the goals for an event are not clearly spelled out, or a brand fails to deploy reliable methods to achieve their stated goals.
We are involved in thousands of event activations per year, and see the good, the bad, and the ugly. Below are the four biggest event marketing mistakes, along with measurable strategies that allow you to surpass your goals…
Mistake #1. Shallow Onsite Engagement
Among all forms of marketing, events are uniquely suited to deliver an immersive brand experience. But the opportunity is lost unless a Brand offers a solid way to engage with attendees. Your brand might have spent $100K on the event display, but if the attendee strolls through it without engaging or creating memories, was it worth the cost?
Our solution: A video or photo capture opportunity connects event attendees to the brand in a way that is far more engaging than other types of event interactions. Whether a brand opts for an elaborate Camera Array studio or uses a single roaming video interviewer, the act of having one’s photo taken creates a memorable experience for an attendee. Results with our system show that photo activation typically engages 35% to 75% of your attendees.
Mistake #2. Lack of Lead Generation
Even if lead generation isn’t the primary goal of your event, don’t miss the opportunity to let attendees opt-in with basic contact information to receive ongoing email communications. Everything is already in place. You simply need to ask for the leads. For example, a well-managed nationwide shopper marketing program reached its goal of selling product to 4% of the consumers engaged, but left money on the table by failing to engage the other 96% with a positive brand experience that generated lead information.
Our solution: Event attendees will enthusiastically provide their email address, and even answer extensive surveys in exchange for accessing their event photo. Willingness to provide personal survey data is a sure sign that the consumer values the brand interaction. While many brands tend to shy away from surveys as being ‘too intrusive,’ our tests show that the survey drop off, just prior to photo view, is less than 2%.
Mistake #3. Lack of Attendee Social Media Sharing
People share what’s cool, surprising or remarkable. If no one bothers to share their event experience with friends on social media, not only did the brand miss an opportunity to amplify their event presence, but this is a sure sign that the sponsorship basically had little or no impact on the attendees.
Our solution: The most shareable content is a photo or video of oneself that has been transformed into something remarkable. Metrics show that, this type of “personal visual story” crushes other forms of giveaways. On average, every single event photo engagement results in hundreds of branded views on the most popular social networks.
Mistake #4. Lack of Feedback Loops
Brands should not use events to push a one-way message at attendees. Events are an ideal way to gather feedback from a targeted group of potential customers. Another key feedback loop is to enable brand ambassadors to report the quantitative and qualitative results from the event. This is critical in discovering what is really happening at your events so improvements can be made.
Our solution: Our visual reporting system enables event staff to use their mobile phone as an all-in-one event reporting tool. Fotozap captures numeric results, GPS coordinates, staff comments, time of arrival and departure, and brings the ability to add real-time photo review, showing your management team photos of: the location, who worked the event, what happened, and how the event made an impact on consumers. And, Fotozap visual reporting typically costs less than a few dollars per event day.
An Action Plan for Your Event
If you are planning an upcoming event, you should have an action plan to engage consumers. A memorable, engaging experience leads to social media sharing, lead generation and measurable results.
My offer to you is this: my team and I will recommend an action plan based on your particular goals. No obligation. Take a look at our recommendations and offerings–to see if what we offer is a good match for your goals. To start, let me know which of the above four areas is most important for your event. Call us at (949) 429-3030, or fill out this form.
If you prefer to test-drive the technology, we can set you up with a branded campaign that will allow your event team to digitally deliver photos to attendees to share as social media. Try it for free, to see if this can help you reach your event goals.
