Creative Marketing Ideas for Attending and Running Events

It is not just a creative way to promote an event with others, you also have a chance to see how big businesses use creative advertising ideas, gain knowledge, and develop professionally. It also gets you out of the office and away from the day to day routines, which is something we all need when we find ourselves in a creative marketing rut.

Creative Marketing Ideas for Events

Marketing events offer a real opportunity for growing a company's lead list and building the presence of their brand. However, there is a challenge when marketing your brand in a huge event. You have hundreds of other competitors, some of which have lots of sponsors. So how do you stand out among the rest?

For those who do the marketing and planning of events, you are always on the lookout for new and creative campaign ideas and marketing gimmicks. Promoting your own big event can also be a challenge. There's the planning, building up hype to gain attendees, the big day itself, and then the follow up with the contacts you made at the event.

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Whether you are joining an event or planning your own event, we're going to look at ways that will help get your presence noticed. Let's first take a look at tips for creative marketing ideas to get your presence noticed.

Creative Advertising Ideas When Attending Events

Geotargeting

Promoting the fact that you are going to be attending an event can make a huge difference, and you can do this effectively using social media and Geotargeting with the use of the conferences' hashtag. While sending an email out to your client database is ok, it doesn't get your message out there to all of the right people and its limited to your list. As a creative campaign idea, Geotargeting can mean having more visitors to your booth at the event. It lets you target people in the location of the event and make them aware of what you have to offer.

Hashtags Are a Great Tool

With any big event, there will always be hype and conversations before the event. Make sure you not only follow the conferences' hashtag but join in on the conversations to make your presence known. You basically have a whole community of attendees online that you can utilize well before the event. Use your company's brand account when joining in so people know who you are. It's a subtle, yet effective way to let people know you will have a booth there for them to visit.

Instagram

Instagram has a feature called Instagram Stories, which has over 300 million users. It's a great way to promote that your presence will be at an event. You can create stories that show you and your team preparing for the big day, introduce team members, or find fun ways that will bring more visitors to your booth on the day, like giving out freebies.

Word of Mouth

Word of mouth has always been a great way to get your presence recognized. Get your colleagues to spread the word to as many people as they are able to. You never know who you may bump into and it's a great way to start a conversation. Something simple like asking if they are going to the event, and if they are, mention your colleague will be there and invite them to stop by the booth.

Creative Marketing ideas For You Own Event

Now we can look at ways to market your own event. This can feel a bit more overwhelming because you are hosting a place for other attendees. It's just as important to market the event beforehand as it is when you are attending an event.

Digital Marketing

It's your event and you will want to use all of your digital marketing arsenal to reach out to as many people as possible. Everyone that is in your database can be a prospect. Send emails, use display adds, and use social media. You want to get as many of these possible attendees on board. Those who don't convert into an attendee the first time around can be placed on a retargeting list. You can then send out a more urgent advertisement a couple of days later to this group. Wait a few more days and send a second email/message and repeat this until you get them to convert. It's a bit more aggressive but is a very good marketing idea.

Websites

Another really great creative advertising idea is to create a website specifically for your event. It's much better than just having a landing page on your own website because it allows attendees and future attendees to explore, ask questions, and you can inspire a bit of excitement for the event.  There are so many free to use platforms that can provide you with pre-made templates for a webpage so its easy to do.

On the website you can have your sponsors listed, offer discount tickets for early birds, talk about the event's history and why you are doing it, upload inspirational videos, and just about anything else that attendees would find interesting. 

Free Stuff

It's no secret that people love to get free stuff. Use this to your advantage by giving away a few free tickets. It's not about how many you are offering, its more about drawing interest in the event itself. A contest will get more people to visit the website who will hopefully convert into attendees.  You can use social media to advertise the giveaway as well, which lets you get more leads and spreads the word about the event even further.

Creative Marketing Tips when you’re At the Event

Whether you are running a booth at an event or sponsoring the event, you want to give attendees something to be excited about. If you have attended a big event you have probably come back with a load of free stuff like branded key chains, USBs, shirts, and water bottles. One of the biggest complaints of attendees is having too much stuff to carry around, most of which ends up in the trash. Here's where you can be creative and helpful! Give out free bags to hold all of their stuff with your brand on it. You are giving them something useful and of value. Do a bit of homework about the event, where it's located, and the types of people attending, then put yourself in their shoes. What would you want to get for free at an event like this?

Mini Events At The Event

You want to keep visitors interested enough to eventually convert to your brand. Have smaller events, like a guest speaker, a lunch hour, after drinks gathering, or whatever creative marketing gimmick you can think of to keep them interested. When they visit your booth, talk about the speaker and get them to go. At the speaker event, talk about the gathering and get them to go there. You are effectively funneling customers to your brand.

Your creative marketing ideas are only as big or small as you allow them to be. Don't be afraid to go big or get really creative. Know your audience, know what they want, and then give that to them. Attending events is a great way to get ideas for marketing, so look at what the competition is doing to get so many visitors at their booths and then see how you can build on this for your brand. Events are about human connection too, so being approachable, answering questions, starting good conversations, and giving them something of value will make them remember you.