The Complete Guide to Event Advertising in 2022

You create events for the audience, and advertisements help you reach them. Event advertising can help you reach a larger audience.

Advertising is very important for any form of business be it selling a product or service or selling tickets for an event.

The entire purpose of hosting an event is to invite the audience and to present what you have for them. The sole purpose will go in vain if the audience doesn’t turn up for your event.

And how will you ensure that the audience turns up for your event?

However, the answer is simple – Through promotions and advertisements.

Advertising for an event would be the most crucial step for any organizer after the idea. 

If the potential audience doesn’t find your event advertising activities engaging enough then they may lose interest. In other words, with the industry’s ever-changing trends. It is essential for you to stay creative with your event advertising.

Today, your audience is being exposed to too many ads, and it is very important for you not to get lost in their marketing clutter. Above all, event organizers have a very limited time between the announcement and the actual event. This will create an impression in the mind of the target audience. And the way to do this is by optimizing your event promotion strategy.

In this blog post, we’ll guide you through the methods you can follow in your event advertising in order to enhance your event marketing strategies.

Basics First 

Before planning for advertising any event, the event organizers must be very clear about the goals and objectives they want to achieve. The more clear the event organizer is with its objectives, the better it would plan its event advertisements. 

In order to design a creative event marketing campaign, every organizer must be very clear with the answer to the following questions. One’s you have answers to these questions you can add a few of them to your event description.

1. What is the idea behind organizing this event?
2. Who is the niche that you are targeting?
3. Where can you find your niche?
4. What incentive are you providing to your audience?
5. How are you different from other events? 

Many organizers don’t realize the importance of being clear about the event’s objective and enter into the trap of Marketing Myopia. Event organizers tend to market what they want to offer instead of what the audience is looking for. 

Every event organizer should develop their event marketing strategy in such a way as to reach a large audience, stimulate interest in them, remind them from time to time and reinforce them to register for your event.

Enter into the shoes of the attendee when planning your event advertising strategy.

Basics Of Designing Event Advertisements

Before dwelling deep into the framework, it is very important to make the basics of your ads strong.

Sometimes, event marketers create amazing content for their ads, but forget to add some of the basics things and miss out on converting potential customers.

As a marketing professional, during your event planning stage make sure to add these basic points in your event advertisements.

• Title – The title of the event must always be highlighted in your ad. The person watching your ad must not be confused with our event and some other event

• Tagline – Make sure to add a tagline to your event to convey what you are delivering.

• Logo – The logo of the event should also be highlighted along with the title as that represents your brand.

• Call to action – This is one of the crucial aspects. Every advertisement must have a call to action. Here there is a hack. Most organizers keep Book Now button as CTA but the audience doesn’t want to commit that much early and skips the ad. Instead, you can keep CTA that captures their interest and retarget them with reminders. Check how At AllEvents we use this strategy to maximize conversions.

• Event theme – The event theme of the advertisement must be consistent throughout the campaign. 

• Contact details – Never forget to mention your contact details in some form or the other. Contact details would lead the audience to you in case they have any queries. Your contact details can be in the form of contact number, email ID, event website social media handles, or bots.

How To Get Attention Of Right Audience?

Event ads are meant to capture attention in the very first go. No event organizer would like his audience to drop after watching the ad.

However, one of the primary reasons for the potential audiences not joining your event is the lack of clarity in your advertisements. You can include pre-event engagement activities to make your event sound more interesting. Many times, clear information about – what the event is about, who it is for, and what is in it for me are not stated in the advertisement.

This lack of clarity creates a big question in the mind of the attendees – Is this event really for me?

Every event marketeer must clearly highlight the following in their event ads-

• What the event is all about?
• Who is it designed for?
• What value is the target audience receiving from the event? / Why is it important for the target audience to attend the event?
• What are the pre-requisites (if any) for the event?

A few seconds of ad time is all you have to capture the attention of the audience. Cover all the essentials precisely in order to ensure that no one misses out. Because this can happen due to the lack of information provided.

3C Framework Of Event Advertising

A lot many things would go into building a perfect event marketing campaign. But three things will be the most crucial for designing your campaign – Content, Creativity, and Channels.

These three pretty much cover everything that’s required for a successful advertising campaign for your event.

Great content combined with creativity, distributed in the right channels will win you the audience for your event.

Keeping in mind the basics and focusing on improving constantly on these aspects will do wonders for your upcoming event. Let’s look at these three aspects individually in detail.

Content For Event Advertising

Content is the core of any promotional activity. Any ad without content will be like a body without a soul.

Moreover, the essence of your ad will be lost if the content of your ad fails to deliver the message it intends to deliver.

Content alone can help you stand apart from the rest. If your content is strong enough, the potential attendees will choose your event over that of the competitors. In fact, if your ad content is very great, even your competitors will plan to attend it to check out what’s new on your event that they can follow.

Here are a few ideas you can incorporate into your event advertising activities –

Art of Storytelling

The best way to interact with your audience is to tell them a story instead of simply advertising your event. Good stories would build great events.

In fact, the target audience recalls stories 22 times more than just simple facts. 

Event marketing is not about the tickets you sell but the story you tell. 

Great event marketers would use storytelling as a tool in their advertisements. In order to engage the potential attendee in a conversation that will ultimately prompt them to attend the event. 

Above all, the story about your event’s advertisement should convey a message. It can be in the form of a need, creating urgency, telling them their story, or about how you came up with the event’s idea.

The more audience will be engaged with your story, the more they’ll be willing to attend your event.

Good stories would lead to better engagement with the potential audience. This would increase the likelihood of them attending the event, making the event successful. 

Targeting pain points

The best event ads would always target the pain points of the consumer. Imposing a question that’ll make the consumer want to attend your event.

Showcasing what you have or the consumer in your ads is always good. But what is better is showcasing why it is important for them to attend your event.

How the event is going to change something about you that you always wanted tohow the event is going to answer the question you were always looking for.

Mystery Event Marketing

Curiosity is not only the cure for boredom but also for capturing the attention of consumers. 

Humans have a tendency to find the answer to the question which is deliberately left unanswered for them. And this is an excellent way of event advertising as well. 

Similarly, mystery marketing creates curiosity in the mind of consumers to know the unknown.

Marketing your event mysteriously can prove to be one of the most influential and creative ways to promote an event. Therefore, it can generate interest like no other form of marketing. 

Create event advertising content that spreads like a virus

The content of your event’s advertisement will decide whether your event is going to witness a large number of participants or not. The content being the soul of your advertising, if framed creatively, will do the magic.

We all know that word of mouth is the best technique of marketing. If the content of your event impresses your target audience, they’ll start sharing your event ads in their own network and the chain will continue.

And once the start sharing your event on social media, it’ll organically boost your post in explore tab.

Creativity For Event Advertising

The Second C is as critical as the first one. In order to win anyone’s attention, your event advertisement has to be creative. A creative ad will undoubtedly perform well.

In fact, creativity overpowers content in some cases. But, creativity along with powerful content wins it all.

Creativity captures attention.

Here are some creative ideas you can use in your event ads –

Fill your design with creativity

The design will be your first step toward showcasing how creative you are with your event advertising efforts.

Based on how creatively you design your event ads, one would want to attend your event.

Creative use of colors, fonts, and infographics can help you grab the audience’s attention.

While designing your event advertisement, make sure that it resonates well with your brand so that anyone could easily recognize it.

There are resources that might be helpful to design your ad campaign. You can use tools like-

• Dribble and Pinterest- For design ideas
• Freepik and Storyset – for free templates
• Envanto – For professional templates
• Fiverr – For professional freelancer designers

Make Impressive Invitations

Invitations (via emails or through other channels) can be the first point of contact for most of your target audience. It is essential to engage your audience at the first point of contact.

In addition, every event organizer must ensure that the impact of their invitation is impressive enough to generate a positive response. 

With changing trends, email invitations have also evolved. Event marketers are now getting engagement through creative invitations which include decent colors, creative Gifs, and video invitations to promote their event.

HTML email templates have become very popular recently. So, you can design them according to the theme of your event and run your email marketing campaign with the same.

Want some free ready-to-use downloadable event email template?

AllEvents.in provides a variety of event invite templates that are categorized based on the type of events.

Let your audience participate in your event

You win the trust of the consumer by trusting them.

Featuring the audience in your event advertisements is a very creative move. In this way, your ad is bound to be shared in their network. On the other hand, the ad being a testimonial can win the trust of your target audience.

The best part about this promotional technique is that the attendee is motivated to attend your event and promote your event to his social circle. This is one of the low-cost yet effective techniques.

Engaging your audience by making them ambassadors could give you benefits in the long run. Over time, you’ll be able to develop your community.

You can leverage word-of-mouth promotion with the help of this technique. The ambassadors would spread the word for your event as they feel that they are important.

Organize contests as a part of the event advertising

The best way to engage your audience for your event is to organize contests for them. It is very easy to conduct contests and competitions in offline events, but comparatively difficult in virtual events. But there are a few ways in which you could arrange competitions for the attendees and engage them before your event.

These competitions would also serve you a lot of content for advertising your event as well as it’ll spread the word on the social networks of the audience as and when they participate.

You could organize competitions like –

• Make art with the name of the event or from the theme of the event
• Guess the guests
• Review our event and win goodies
• Share and get a chance to win free tickets
• Get tickets and win a free ebook

Contests always boost up your marketing efforts. The simple reason for that is that you can not reach everyone, but, when your network starts sharing your event in their network, the cycle of word o mouth is begun, leading to enhancing your brand awareness.

Experiential Marketing

Experiential marketing by the term is self-explanatory.

This type of advertising is done in order to deliver users an experience. This experience can be in the form of delivering the experience of how the event will be, or the experience about the deliverables, or in the form of the previous events or the experience of some product or service or trade shows. Moreover, experiential marketing is all about content marketing, in a very creative manner.

For virtual events, you can provide a 3D experience about the event’s venue which might attract potential attendees.

It is also not always necessary to deliver something to the audience. Sometimes showing a video and imposing a simple question to the audience can also give them chills and force them to introspect. For this, you can also have pre-event survey forms. Such type of event advertising is also considered in experiential marketing.

Successful delivery of experience will ensure a successful event.

Channels Of Distribution

You created the perfect content with a pinch of creativity, but your efforts would go in vain if it is not distributed to the right audience.

In fact, the very reason for the success of some events is the seamless distribution of their ads.

The entire purpose of your event is to invite the audience. You do that by creating ads. Imagine you create great ads but fail to reach the right audience. In that case, even by being creative and creating great content, you’ll fail to capture leads for your event.

Study the characteristics of the audience, find the channels where you can target them, set goals, and reach the maximum audience.

Following are some marketing channels of distribution where you’ll find the right audience for your event if targeted in the right manner.

Event Discovery Platforms

Event Discovery platforms are a great way for every event organizer to start promoting their event. Any person planning to attend any event would usually visit event discover platforms like AllEvents to check the upcoming events based on their interest, geography, and schedule. So, it is your chance to win these attendees by marketing your event on these platforms.

These platforms segregate events based on different criteria like event type, interests, geography, schedule, and online or offline. 

Event discovery platforms are the best platform for event organizers to advertise to their Target Market. There are a lot of reasons for this channel is the best to market your event –

• The most authentic channel
• Dedicated to advertising and promoting events only
• The audience visiting these websites is genuinely interested to attend an event
• You get to serve those people who want to be served, unlike other platforms where your ad pop-ups to the audience who’s visiting some platform for some other purpose.
• These platforms are also integrated with other platforms, so you can control all channels from one place.

AllEvents.in is one such platform where event organizers across the globe can create an event, present it and market them professionally. You can also integrate ticketing on your event website with AllEvents.in

Publish your event now 🠮

Social Media Advertising

Social media channels are the perfect place to advertise your event. But, social media is a very large place. Advertising on social media is more about targeting the right audience and less about what content is being posted. Advertising on Facebook can be profitable because of the active vast audience there.

According to the data by AllEvents.in, 43% of event attendees buy their tickets through redirecting from social media channels. In fact, you can engage with your audience post-event also.

Social media has become the hub of event advertisements these days. To make sure you reach the right audience with the right message, you need to be very careful. Therefore, target the audience where they are present. Many social media handles have a dedicated audience who’s interested might be interested in your event. Try to collaborate with those pages and try putting your event’s post on their pages. You can also indulge in influencer marketing.

Social media can win you the amount of audience you wish for, you just need the right targeting.

And with tools specifically designed for events, organizers must utilize them to their best advantage. 

Traditional media – Newspapers, TV ads, radio, etc.

Traditional media is here to stay. Even today, a lot of big companies spend a great chunk of their marketing budget on advertising in these traditional media.

You get a lot of coverage from these channels. These can be the best channels to create brand awareness of your company and promote events alongside.

Paid Ads to optimize the reach of your event

Any expenditure on advertisements is not an expenditure, but an investment.

Paid ads are very crucial for the success of any event. Though organic reach is the best way out, reaching a mass by using the services provided by different media platforms is not bad.

Paid ads can be very helpful to you in reaching out genuine audience for your event who has not been exposed to your event through organic reach.

The following can be different channels for paid ads.

Google ads

Google ads can be the most effective way for your event advertising. Any and every type of event can be easily advertised on google. Google offers many kinds of ads tools like –

• Search Network campaigns – text format, displayed on Google search engine page
• Display Network campaigns – Text or Image Format, Displayed on websites or apps, or emails.
• Video campaigns – usually 6 or 15-second videos, displayed before YouTube content

There are many benefits of using Google ads, some examples of them can be –

• Can be done on a limited budget- Pay only when they click
• Massive reach
• Accurate targeting
• Can target the intent
• Analytics
• Automated suggestions

Facebook ads

Facebook, the largest social media platform, provides a plethora of opportunities to reach out to your potential audience and uniquely target them.

In addition, paid ads on Facebook let you target a particular set of users for your webinar need. It serves different purposes like increasing engagement on an ad, directing the audience to your website, and generating more leads. Great event engagement ideas can lead to a better advertisement.

Special features of Facebook ads

• Create lookalike audience
• Interest targeting
• Behavioral targeting
• Retargeting ads

Instagram ads

Instagram as a tool for promotion is recently gaining a lot of popularity. The youth today is more inclined towards Instagram than any other social media. Advertising event on Instagram is equally important as Facebook promotions. It provides you with a variety of options to advertise.

You can create an Instagram ad with a Facebook ad manager account only.

LinkedIn Ads

Linkedin is the HubSpot for professional networking. You can create an event on Linkedin. If you plan to host any webinar that targets directly any user associated with any business, it should be marketed on LinkedIn. In fact, 46% of B2B social media traffic is generated from Linkedin. The stats is enough to speak about the importance of this media for your webinar.

LinkedIn as a mode of marketing professional events is the perfect place. You get a dedicated audience for business events. The network of professionals is just the right place for your paid ads.

LinkedIn ads are usually more expensive than other channels’ ads.

Retargeting Audience For Your Event

The audience that clicked on your ad or visited your landing page to check out the information about your event would be the interested audience for your event but somehow missed out to purchase the ticket.

It is very important for any event organizer to make sure to retarget these attendees.

Retargeting the audience gives them a little push to complete the registration for the event.

Most of the methods to retarget your audience falls into the category of the paid form of marketing. Like Google ads, Facebook ads, LinkedIn ads, etc.

But some platforms allow you to retarget your audience for free. 

AllEvents is one such platform. With AllEvents, you just need to publish your event. We will help you retarget the audience interested in your event with the help of reminder emails and push notifications.

Wrap up

Event advertising is a must for events.

Before starting to plan for your event advertising, you should get your basics very strong.

Follow the 3C framework while creating your advertisement.

Great content combined with creativity, distributed in the right channels.

Content is the soul of any ad.

Be creative in your content and create content that the audience can relate to.

Brainstorm and generate ideas for your event ads.

The distribution of your ads is equally important

Don’t forget to add your event on event discovery platforms like AllEvents.

Successful ads will boost your ticket sales which will lead to a successful event.