Events have a lot to offer your organization. They bring more awareness, opportunities to fundraise, time for engagement and networking, and can even boost supporter recruitment and retention. Having great event management software and practices in place is key to making these occasions a success—but so is attracting the right attendees.

To reach potential event participants, get them to your registration page, and inspire them to attend, you’ll need a compelling digital marketing strategy. This ensures you reach your ideal audience with persuasive messages and excellent timing.

In this guide, we’ll explore the top tips you need to consider when planning your event marketing campaign. Let’s begin!

Start With Clear Goals and Objectives

Clear goals should be the beginning of any marketing plan. These goals are the driving force of your efforts, and you should use them as a guide when crafting your marketing strategies and messages.

First, understand the difference between goals and objectives in marketing:

• Goals are broad, overarching statements focused on what you want to achieve with the campaign. Goals are often more general and focus on the big picture, such as increasing brand awareness or getting donations for a fundraiser.
• Objectives are smaller, more specific actions that help your organization achieve its goals. For example, if your goal is to increase attendance at your next event, some objectives might be to sell 300 tickets or more in the first three months of the campaign or boost social media engagement by 50%.

Next, determine your organization’s goal and outline corresponding objectives. If you feel stuck, start by identifying top organizational goals, needs, and priorities. Then, pinpoint the ways that your event can address or contribute to those goals, given the available resources and timeline.

From there, you can work with your team to determine a concrete goal and the objectives that will help you reach it.

Identify and Segment Your Audience

You should have a deep understanding of your audience prior to starting the marketing campaign. Here are the basic steps you should follow to identify and understand your target audience:

1. Review past data. Reference the data you have in your database to identify trends in your audience, specifically among those who have attended events in the past. Remember to migrate data stored in event management tools to your constituent relationship management platform (CRM).
2. Define donor segmentation criteria. As you study your data, you’ll likely notice emerging trends among those who have engaged with past events. Define segmentation criteria, such as demographics, past event attendance, relationship with your organization, etc. For example, perhaps you have a small but growing group of Gen Z attendees you want to engage. Or, maybe you segment members based on where they fall in the membership lifecycle.
3. Create audience profiles. Take a deeper dive into each segment and create audience profiles that detail the typical demographics, interests, motivations, occupations, and any other key traits of that group. From here, you’ll start brainstorming unique messages that will target members of this audience.

Keep in mind that your data must be accurate, complete, and up-to-date to yield high-quality insights. If you’re missing information, Deep Sync’s guide to data enrichment suggests supplementing your organization’s database with third-party data to get the most comprehensive view of your audience.

Plan Engaging Content

Content like social media posts, blogs, emails, images, and videos are what your members and supporters will actually see and engage with, so it has to be compelling.

Allegiance Group + Pursuant recommends developing a core message—which should be aligned with your campaign’s goals—that you can represent in each component of the campaign. You’ll also need to clarify how you can adjust or position this message to appeal to each audience.

Some intriguing content types to try when promoting your event include:

• An event page: Create a dedicated event landing page to host more details about your event. Make the most sought-after assets of the event, like a well-known speaker or musical performance, the focus. Drive traffic from other marketing channels to this page, and make sure to include a prominent link or button leading people to the registration form.
• Sneak peeks: Give potential attendees a taste of what they could experience at your event to get them interested and harness their fear of missing out. For example, you might detail some of the ways you plan to gamify the event and provide a peek at the incentives or prizes at stake.
• Influencers and brand ambassadors: Boost your credibility and reach new audiences by using influencers and brand ambassadors to promote the event. Choose influencers who are impactful thought leaders in your industry.

Because this content will take many different formats and live on several different communication channels, consistent branding is essential. Using the same colors, logo, and tone across every channel will help the audience recognize that the messages belong to you and boost brand recognition.

Optimize Registration

Registration is the action that you want your audience to take after they see your marketing messages. In other words, it’s the action at the bottom of your marketing funnel that qualifies as a conversion, meaning it deserves a place in your marketing plan.

The action you’re asking people to take should be as easy and convenient as possible—the more resistance, the more people will drop out before registering. To do this, make sure to:

• Drive traffic directly to the registration form via links in your digital marketing messages
• Include scannable QR codes linking to the form on physical media like an event or fundraising flyer
• Leverage event registration software that makes the process easy to access and navigate
• Streamline the form as much as possible, asking for only the information you need

If attendees will need to purchase tickets, opt for a solution with a built-in, secure payment processor. Again, this will simplify the process, make it quick and convenient for participants, and instill trust in your organization.

Remember to Follow Up

You might think that your marketing plan should only describe the planning and initial rollout of your campaign. However, this can cause disjointed experiences for your audience and even cause you to lose prospective attendees along the way.

Combat this by baking any follow-up communication processes into your marketing plan from the beginning. For example, plan out how, when, and where you’ll share:

• Registration confirmation notifications
• Pre-event announcements
• Upcoming event reminders
• Thank-you messages
• Other post-event follow-up, such as engaging potential new members with recruitment materials

Don’t forget to track key performance indicators (KPIs) like conversion and click-through rates to track the success of your marketing efforts. Additionally, consider metrics that are relevant to your event’s performance, such as attendance, ticket sales, revenue, attendee satisfaction and engagement, net new leads, and more.

Events require significant investments of your organization’s time, effort, and funding. A strategic, targeted marketing campaign can make that investment pay off. Charting out cohesive and effective messaging will help you attract attendees who are willing to engage with your organization during the event and beyond.