Event Marketing. How to do it right?

This is the text Events, with a red liquid v.

This is the time of year that event marketing becomes a very important thing for most people. The question is, how do you do it and how do you do it right? For a perfect event marketing effort you need to take full advantage of all the free things you can. If your budget allows, then take advantage of some paid advertising also. Here is a timeline of when things should be done and some resources to do so:

16 weeks prior to the event you should send out an email to your database. In this email there should be a story of why you are doing the event. If possible or if you have them, you should have a sponsor also write a story about why they are involved. Guest blogging gives a lot of validity on the event. Social media announcement is key to this step and an event on social media should be created. Last but not least, find at least three local social media influencers to help you promote this event. Invite them to the event personally and thank them for considering coming.

14 weeks prior you should send another email and write another blog about new things that have been solidified for the event. Maybe you have a new sponsor or a new member, or maybe you have another portion of the event that you didn’t publicize before. This is also the time that you should be issuing your first press release. Utilize sites like PRLOG.com to get it out to the media. Find local editor emails online for the local papers and make sure you send them a personal copy of the press release. If your budget allows, this is the time to create an event and start publicizing on Search Engine Marketing and Paid Social. Everybody thinks that they should spread the budget evenly for the next 14 weeks, I challenge that. If you have $280 for 14 weeks of advertising do not advertise at $20 per week. Your final couple of weeks are going to be the most important to get the public to the event so save at least 50% of the $280 for the final 3 weeks. Ultimately, you want to spend 25% of the amount in the final week of registration or the final week prior to the event. Obviously continuing to post on social media regularly is very important to the success.

Here is where the timing gets skewed. Our biggest success is when we take the remaining time and spread things out therefore maximizing the amount of times people see the event. Emails and blogs should be posted every 3 weeks. Social Media posts should go out 1–2 times per week. Regular press releases should be sent at week 10 and then every 3 weeks with the last one going out 1 week prior to the event.

The final week prior to the event, you should send out your last email, your last press release, and turn up your social media to at least three times that week. You should check in with your influencers to verify that they are coming, then make your final checklist to assure everything is ready. Make sure you turn up your paid advertising and maximize who it goes to. This is also the time to do retargeting and make sure everyone that has been to your website sees the event again. Also, reach out to your local papers and see if they are going to be able to come to the event.

Now, here is were most people fail. The event is done, everything is cleaned up, and you want to take a break because it has been a whirlwind these last couple of months. I am sorry to say it but, NO it is not time to relax yet. You have three days to get a follow up email out thanking people for coming. Send out surveys via your multiple advertising directions to see how everybody enjoyed the event. Follow up with media to see what they thought and if and when the media will be running an article or video about the event. Once you get all of this, you share it and write a press release about the success of the event. Include quotes from executives about how they felt the event went and quotes from the people that came. It is time to start promoting for next year! Isn’t it grand how the job of a an event marketer never ends?

Marketing and Community volunteering. Do they go together?

This is a compilation of Community advocate words.

Let me give you the short answer, YES definitely volunteer!! This would not be a blog if I just left it at that though, as I need to make sure this article is SEO friendly. Many of us do things for others and being a good corporate citizen, we will take on community needs quite often. As a company, we take on about 10 of them in total. Even though we are a small business, we have a belief that the more we give the more we get. Our belief in this philosophy is so strong that our president requires us to be a part of something. We have youth coaches, board members, and volunteers all as part of our organization. Admittedly though, we have never really taken any credit for anything we do. We do it because we love it; we believe in the organization and their cause. That is where we are right and wrong at the same time.

We are right because morally it is the right thing to do. One of the organizations that we help take care of is our veterans, which we all should have a responsibility to. Some other organizations we are involved with are taking care of our children and of families that do not have the money for health insurance. Last but not least, we help churches with marketing for new members of a congregation and also internally with current congregates. We believe that God has put us in a position to help and that is why we HAVE to do it.

However, we are wrong as well. We are wrong to not take the credit for helping. We are wrong in not trying to advertise that we are helping a great organization. Ultimately, if you think about it, we are helping the organization and ourselves at the same time. By us saying that we are helping the organization we are telling more people about the organization and the mission they believe in.

This can be a double edged sword however. You want to check into the organization before you start supporting them. A few things we take a look at are location, financials, leadership and their overall goal. Remember that your name is going to be attached with this organization so you want to make sure that they are a reputable company that supports the mission they created. We have all heard of large organizations that have a reputation for extravagance. The amount of money you donate does not go directly to the mission. I personally have heard of admin fees reaching 80% or more. So, make sure you do your homework first and make sure that you not only want the mission, but the organization is one that you can offer your full support to as well.

So, YES you should take credit for your generosity. You are helping them as much, if not more, than you are helping yourself. Whatever you decide is right for you and your organization, your heart is in the right place. Charitable organizations depend on people like you to improve and enhance the mission they set into motion.

Millennials are a different type of Marketing

This is a clip art of Millennials and marketing.

I find research for millennials and what they want very fascinating. See, I love the psychology of marketing and what makes people want to do things and work with companies. First, let’s define what a millennial is, it is said that a millennial is born between 1982 and 2004 although some demographers just say early 1980’s to mid 1990’s or early 2000’s. There are approximately 76 million of them in the United States alone and according to a recent article, 81% of us want to work with a company that are community advocates and boast about it. As a matter of fact, millennials will go through pain to support a company that does. I heard a story once that a gentleman bought a new pair of shoes every 6 weeks even though they were uncomfortable just because the company donated a pair of shoes for every pair he bought. Now that is loyalty!

Multitasking is the new normal for millennials. They have this innate ability to switch between cell phones, tablets, desktop and laptops all within a minute and understand everything on all the screens. What is my friend doing today, how is the latest celebrity spending the day or whatever the latest trend is in the life of a millennial, this is the relaxation that they look forward to. The social life of a millennial is the most important thing in their life and that is all done through technology. The next generation is not getting any better either, as a matter of fact it is getting worse. I think any parent of teenagers today will agree that the worst thing in the world for their teen is having their phone taken away or taking away technology in general. Their life is over if you do that. Telling them to walk down to a friends house and see if they can hang out, is something they think is from the caveman days.

So, how do you get these generations to act? It is relatively simple yet difficult at the same time.

1. They are very click minded individuals and very social. So, you must go where they are, which is Facebook, Instagram, Snapchat, podcasts and many other social sites that are out there. These generations do very little reading, unfortunately, so you must make your writing concise and to the point. The best way to get the attention of this generation is video, however they need to be powerful and very concise. Their attention span is only a minute or so.
2. Show that you are community advocates and you support organizations like homelessness, veterans, or women’s rights. As human beings, we all want to help and many of us do. It is not done because we want publicity or even recognition. It is done because it is the right thing to do and we want to help. Why not do both though? You can support organizations that you believe in and also get publicity for your company. So go for it!
3. You must get personal with this generation. They want to be acknowledged as individuals and not part of the crowd. Everything you do must individualize the experience for them. Tell a story and do not command them to do anything.

Here is the great thing about millennials, they are the most loyal group that you will ever have the pleasure to work with. The old quote, “People do business with people they like and trust” are not just words for millennials. It is required and they WILL tell all of their friends!

To Be Found Or Not To Be Found, That Is The Question

This is a woman searching something on Google on her laptop.

When you go into your phone and you type in air conditioning repair you get a list of people nearby that do that, right? Imagine if you are the business owner and somebody is 20 feet from your location and they type in air conditioning repair but your name doesn’t come up? That would probably upset you, correct? Well that is because you are not listed correctly with the major search engines. The last I checked there are over 700 online directories that you can be listed on. Do all of them make sense to you? NO.

There are many directories that are specific to industries that do not make sense for everybody. If you are a doctors office then it makes sense to be listed on WebMD however if you do AC repair then it does not. How do you know which ones you should be listed on? How much time does it take to go into each one individually and make sure everything is exact. That is where a Marketing company comes in with listing expertise.

Listings are very important to SEO for a website. There are a lot of decisions that have to be made with listing and no matter how little you think they are it is very important that you make decisions prior to starting the project. Decisions like Spelling Avenue or using Ave with or without a period? What phone number do you want to use? What email? What are your hours? If you are a restaurant do you want the menu? What pictures do you want to use? What keywords do you want to use? These all seem like basic things but they are very important because ALL of your listings need to be EXACT across all platforms!

Furthermore if you take this project on yourself you have to go in and fix these on a very regular basis. There are crawlers that will go in and change the information within 6 days of fixing it. At first it is one or maybe 2 sites. After 30 days over half of the sites you fixed are changed. That is why it is much more cost effective to work with a Listing Power user service like we are. We constantly fix listings and once they are fixed the crawlers can not change them. There is a fee of course, however how much would it cost you to have to go in and fix them all the time?

What I hear all the time is that I will hire an employee to do this and make sure I stay up to date. Let’s figure this out mathematically. You pay an employee $10 per hour to go in and fix your listings and keep them up to date. Each listing service will take about 30 minutes to fix. That means you are paying that employee $360 every time they have to go through all 72 sites. Now only about half of them get changes monthly. So you will have to pay an employee $180 every month to keep them fixed. These numbers do not include taxes, insurance and all the extra payments you need to make for every employee you have. For a listing professional to come in and have them constantly fixed it will cost you between $100 – $150 per month. So the math is easy right?

You are found online, now what?

When creating a website there’s many things to think about. You want it to represent you and your company. You want it to represent your core beliefs and how you want the public to perceive those beliefs.

 

We come across one issue all the time. We offer free web reports and listing reports as part of our service. The web report is graded on many levels with 100 be the highest score that your website can get. 90 if you do not have a SSL certificate. We constantly run across sites that are 85-90 without SSL certificate. Pretty good right? Wrong! See the issue is that they are not getting conversions off of the site. The site is Mobile, It is Keyworded, it is maintained, updated, easy to navigate and linked to analytics. It ticks all of the boxes for a good site except one.

 

Can you guess what it is?

This one thing it is missing is more important than anything else.

This one thing they are missing is the largest representation of the company that can be.

This one thing is what makes people want to click to learn more.

Do you give up on what it is yet?

 

ATTRACTION! Yes I said attraction! You can have the best site in the world. It can get people to come to your site by the hundreds or even thousands. However if it does not look good than people will not want to know more about your company, product or service? Why do people want to click the contact form if they do not like what they see online? 81% of consumers research you online before they make a decision so in this case you are found but you do not look good as a company.

 

Imagine a website likes this scenario. You are looking to buy a car. You run across 2 ads for the exact same car and the exact same price and mileage. One is an ad that is just words and the other has pictures and a video. Which ad will you request information from? The same goes for your website. You can have the best wording in the world and you could have a literary genius write it but if people can’t see it then they can’t relate to it. I read this statistic recently “90% of information transmitted to the brain is visual which the brain will process 60,000 times faster than text information. That is an amazing number. I also read another statistic that having a video on your homepage will increase your conversions by 80%. We are in a visual world so your website needs to be as well!

How do I choose the right Marketing company?

An image of a group of people working together.

Choosing the right Marketing company is a very difficult decision and I would say that you have to do your homework and due diligence. You would think that you need to find a company that has worked with your product before. A company that has had success in your product line before or a company that knows your product. This thought is both right and wrong in my opinion. I know some great Marketing companies that do a very good job that do have verticals. They do the same thing with the same type of company and they have had great success with that model. I also have know some great marketing companies that concentrate on only one client in any specific industry or vertical. I have worked with both types of companies and they both have given me success in one form or another.

What I suggest is go with a company you trust. Interview all options and go with the person that you feel is truly going to give you the best bang for your buck. There are 5 simple questions that you should ask a marketing company.

What Key performance indicators do you measure?
Key performance indicators are one of the most important measurements to know that your Marketing Company is working hard for you. Depending on which Marketing avenue they are doing it could be calls, clicks to a site, conversions, impressions, views, or many other things depending on if it is Traditional or Non-Traditional based advertising.

How do you evaluate your success with my business?
A Marketing company must be able to track what is happening with your account. It is
very difficult sometimes to track everything however ultimately a Cost Per lead should be
established and evaluated on a regular basis.

Who will be working on my account?
Most times it is not the Account Executive that will actually be handling the day to day of your account. So find out who the manager is and what their experience is.

What marketing medium do you favor?
There are many different kinds of Marketing companies. Some specialize on Digital Marketing, some on website design and other on traditional avenues. A great company can work with all of them so you can get one Fantastic overall plan.

What do you know about my company?
Ultimately this all comes down to trust. Do I trust you with my money to spend in the advertising world? Therefor any good Marketing company is going to do some research on your company before they get there. They may even give you reports or a synopsis of what they found or how they found you. If they don’t then how do they even know they can help you?

After all this you will have a feeling of trust with the company that you choose. Ultimately that is what you need. A Marketing company that you choose should be a will be a major part of your team.