What is Event Marketing?
If you need to take your marketing to the next level, few things can engage an audience better than event marketing. Event-based marketing can be the perfect solution to promote your brand, your service, or launch a new product.
But what is event marketing? How does it work? Let’s take a look.
What is event marketing?
At its most simple, event marketing is about creating a themed gathering where potential customers can gather to learn more about your product, service, or company. At their best, marketing events are immersive, engaging, and interactive.
Gartner’s Marketing Glossary says that “Event marketing is a strategy that includes live and/or virtual promotional events where audiences interact with a product or brand face-to-face; or they engage with a meeting solutions platform via polls, chat boxes, social networking, and discussion features.”
Event marketing examples
Because event marketing can be so effective, there are a number of excellent examples of these types of events that you may already be familiar with. Apple’s annual events are certainly in this category, as they use them to build hype and contact around specific products.
Hubspot highlights M&M’s immersive pop-up event in New York City. These events featured “flavor rooms,” “which were each complete with decor and fragrances unique to a certain flavor. The pop-up also included snack and drink lounges with M&M-themed cocktails.”
Types of event marketing
There are many types of events that qualify as event marketing. These include
- Conventions
- Conferences
- Trade shows
- home/RV/boat shows
- Seminars
- Pop-up shops
- Luncheons or happy hours
- Workshops
- Launch parties
And even this list is not exhaustive. Nearly any live event might be considered event marketing provided it has a target audience, provides a customer experience, and invites event attendees to converge around a brand, product, or service.
One category of event marketing that is gaining traction is the virtual event. These function just like in-person events, only they take place with attendees (and sometimes presenters and vendors) connecting from their homes.
Virtual event marketing can include features of digital marketing, but will often include an array of features designed to stimulate audience engagement. Some examples include:
- Social networking groups
- Gamification and leaderboards
- Augmented reality (AR) technology
And if that’s not high-tech enough, intrepid planners are also creating virtual reality (VR) events that take place inside of a fully navigable 3D environment where attendees can interact with avatars of other attendees.
At Virtual Event Site, we are passionate about event marketing. We enjoy working as event planners to help plan marketing events that can take your hybrid or virtual event to the next level.
