The nights may be drawing in, but there's a whole raft of seasonal events on the horizon to warm those chilly nights. From Halloween festivities and Guy Fawkes' Night, to Christmas parties and New Year's celebrations, it’s the perfect time of year for a party.

If your brand has something special planned in the coming months, you'll no doubt appreciate that there's more to corporate planning than venue hire and logistics. To squeeze the absolute most from your event in terms of ROI, you need to maximise attendance, ramp up the excitement and get everyone talking about your occasion as widely as possible for as long as possible.

Don't forget digital

It's now impossible to ignore digital marketing as part of your event planning. With a strong digital strategy, brands can get the maximum exposure for their event, grow the buzz, ensure good attendance and get the most from all their investment. But with so much else to plan, where should you start, digitally?

1. Build landing pages

Before you even announce your festive event, creating an online “base” for it should be on your priority list. Setting up dedicated landing pages which are optimised to prompt the greatest possible number of registrations, sign ups or ticket sales is essential.

If you have the resources, using A/B testing to fine tune your landing pages is a powerful way to increase conversions. If you're targeting a broad audience with your event, you may also want to consider creating different landing pages for different segments of your target market.

2. Have a content strategy

Before the announcement, it's a good idea to have a firm content marketing strategy in place. This content can be published on your own website, hosted on guest publications or shared via digital news outlets. Once published, this content is perfect for sharing via social media to gain more attention and boost buzz.

3. Get social

The social platforms you chose to embrace will depend on the nature of your brand and the event you have planned. Facebook, for example, is very helpful for publicising events, inviting guests and building buzz, but for more formal or corporate occasions, it isn't appropriate.

Twitter is an essential tool whether you're a relaxed B2C or a formal B2B, giving you a platform to share the content you're creating and send out reminders and information. For brands with visual impact, Instagram is a useful way to build excitement about an event with exclusive “behind the scenes” snaps.

4. Embrace the hashtag

Select a dedicated hashtag and use it for all event-related tweets. Incorporate it into your landing pages, online content, event presentations and marketing materials to encourage attendees to use it to talk about your event online. This will help spread the word to their followers, allow guests to connect with your brand and other attendees, plus get your event and name out there.

Keep that activity going throughout the event - make sure that staff have easy access to key platforms, so they can answer questions and support interaction as it develops. Using the Twitter hashtag throughout the event provides guests with a shared touching point for questions, problems or praise which your team can then respond to in real-time. Twitter Walls are a popular way of integrating this conversation into the physical event environment. Ideal for conferences, they are an excellent tool for driving the debate and further encouraging people to interact. Again, Instagram is perfect for the live curation of highly shareable visuals, with easy cross-posting to other platforms a particular strength.

5. Follow up with email

Your sign up forms and registration tools should have captured lots of email addresses belonging to your guests. If they have given permission for further contact, follow up your event with a well-designed email marketing campaign. From simple “thank you” emails including helpful links and resources related to the event, to calendars of similar upcoming goings-on, making the most of your new bank of email contacts can be a very powerful way to increase the ROI of your event.

 

By Ofer Yatziv, sales and marketing manager at BetterVenues.org.uk.

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