Book a great location: check!
Stock the bar: check!
Commission a mobile event app: check!
Hire pirouetting flamencos: working on it!
So we’re ready to go, right?
Nope. No matter how great your event is, it just won’t be a success if no one’s there to see it. So how do you let people know?
Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, Pinterest, flyers, posters, Snapchat, Google, email…Modern day #EventProfs have to be pretty slick when it comes to running successful marketing campaigns.
Luckily, the brilliant team over at Eventbrite have got together to create a study of 1,000 recent event attendees from around the country and find out more about how they find the events they attend.
The survey covers attendees at a wide range of events from gigs and cultural festivals to business networking and community gatherings. Respondents ranged in age from 16-64.
The survey highlighted some of the best channels to use to reach out to potential attendees and it also looked at the ways specific groups of people engage with event marketing. Don’t forget that with our mobile event apps you can quickly gather feedback about your event and how people found out about it without having to do time consuming surveys or post-event follow up (yeah, ok, we’re showing off, but if you’ve got it, flaunt it).
Top 5 Marketing Channels:
- Facebook (48%)
- Word of mouth (19%)
- Twitter (9%)
- Email (8%)
- Google (4%)
Key Insights
Don’t get sucked in by the latest digital trends
It may be tempting to be on the lookout for the next big social trend to try and beat the competition, but in reality, a very small proportion of event attendees find their events on the newer social media sites including SnapChat, Pinterest and Instagram. Stick to the more established social media channels for the biggest impact.
Word of mouth never goes out of fashion
In fact, it was four times more influential than the newest social networks. There are ways to modernize your approach here though. Instead of leaving it to luck, reach out to key influencers who have a strong online presence and offer them free tickets in return for some posts about your event.
Understand who you’re trying to reach
Be tactical about where you’ll best use your resources to find your potential audience. Create a profile of your perfect target attendee. Consider factors including age, gender and geography.
How Do You Reach Your Target Age Group?
The survey shed some light on the key differences in the ways people of different age groups find events. Whilst baby boomers (aged 52-70) fulfilled expectations and responded well to flyers, emails and listings sites (including Eventbrite), researchers were surprised to find that Millennials (aged 18-32) were also responsive to offline media including flyers, posters and magazine advertising.
Unpaid social media on the two biggest networks (Facebook and Twitter) were also effective as a way of reaching Millenials, although only 3.5% found out about events on either Instagram, Pinterest or Snapchat.
How Do You Best Reach Men or Women?
The survey found that women were 50% more likely to discover an event through Twitter or email than men. 18% of women had also found their event through a magazine advert compared to just 10% of men. Men were 70% more likely to discover events through traditional media including flyers and listing sites than women. Men also found Instagram and LinkedIn twice as useful for finding events than women. They were also 3 times as likely to use an event listing service such as Eventbrite.
Are you Targeting Londoners?
When it came to location, the survey found that Londoners were a massive 80% more likely to find an event through LinkedIn than those outside the capital. In general, people from London were more likely to find events online being 28% more reliant on Instagram than the rest of the UK. Outside London, magazine adverts were considered to be one of the best ways to advertise events with 47% more traction than in the capital. Those outside of London were also 25% more likely to hear about events via word of mouth.
So there you have it, when it comes to marketing events, the key is to keep things simple and not to get distracted by the latest fads. Which should leave you with plenty of time to find those pirouetting flamencos. Winning!
Noodle Live can provide a mobile event app for your next event. Our apps make great event tech easier than ever with real time updates and alerts, live polling, personalised schedules and instant messaging. Feeling daunted? Let us talk you through your options with a quick demo or free workshop.
