Category: Online Marketing

We all know the pressure rises as time starts to tick away getting closer to the “BIG DAY.” Of course we’d love to schedule every little feature and post long in advance of our event, but we don’t always have that luxury or organization (procrastinators raise your hands). So we’ve come up with a few things we think are a must for you to tweak to refresh your online marketing and give your customers something new and exciting to look at while keeping your key ingredients in the mix.

Homepage Update

Imagery: Who wants to look at the same old info and same old photos day in and day out, year-round? No one! We know it can take some effort to locate images or files that are worthy of your homepage, but it will be SO worth it! The likelihood of an image getting clicked on (taking your customer further into your website – thus, closer to making a purchase or deciding to attend) is much greater than just a link or a page in your drop down menu. What does that tell us? We need to have fresh and inviting photography on our homepage. Make the effort to find images from recent events that are action-packed or evoke a personal emotion and put those pictures on your homepage to get your customers clicking!

Dates/Hours/Times: One way to really drive home your customer loyalty and comfort with your website is to make the dates of your event incredibly clear on your website (for fun, you may even want to include a countdown). Be sure that your dates are in a legible font, very large, and if you can, put them in the header of your website so that they are on every page. Then be sure your customer has access to your specific hours of operation so they know how early they can show up and how late they can leave. We know that during your event you don’t have time to answer the phone, and your website is your first line of defense against the #1 question asked: “What are your hours?” So save yourself some time and put that information in an accessible (dare I say obvious) place on your website. Your customers will feel confidence and enjoy their experience on your website if they know exactly when they should attend.

Email

We can’t say it enough, email marketing is not dead. At about two months before your event, you should start pinging your customers and letting them know you’re getting geared up for your event and that they should jump on board with the excitement. A trickle of announcements can be the best way to peak interest and keep them coming back for more. We recommend that EVERY day of your event you remind folks what’s going on at your facility so they can be prepared as they make plans. Things like parking, ticket prices at the gate, and major performances will always encourage attendance and turn those last minute decision makers into buying customers.

Ecommerce

Are you selling your tickets in advance online? What about carnival items like wristbands and tokens or sponsorships and vendor registrations? Collecting money through your website is one sure-fire way to guarantee money in the bank before your event starts and put a little bit of cushion in your pockets. However, be sure that you’ve got all of your prices in order well in advance. Scheduling a ticket for sale for your early bird specials is a great way to increase traffic to your website AND ease your own anxieties about revenue.

Social Media

It’s how people stay connected, why not keep them connected to your brand by beginning to engage them weeks before your event? Lucky for you, social media is available on mobile and your customers are starting to spend more and more time on their cell phones and tablets rather than their computers. Drive traffic to your website through exciting posts (again with imagery), contests, and promotions on discounted tickets or sale items! If you’re not catching your customers on mobile, you might be missing them altogether. Do yourself a favor and start to really focus your efforts on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and even YouTube–let’s get that name recognition growing!

Have you noticed a drop in your customer’s engagement on social media over the past few months? Are fewer people seeing your event or venue’s posts than ever before? Whether you’ve realized it or not, the unfortunate reality is your business Facebook page is likely suffering from both of these issues. In December, many brands saw an average 44% decrease in organic reach to their content and engaged users dropped over 35% from 16% to 3%.

Regardless of how many fans have “Liked” your business page, Facebook has implemented an algorithm to determine how many of those fans will actually ever see an individual post from your event or venue in their news feed. They test whether it’s a “good” post by showing it in a small fraction of your fans’ news feeds and see what their engagement is.  If the post receives lots of likes, shares and comments, then they’ll increase the number of people who can see that post by continuing to place it in other fans’ news feeds. The more engagement it receives the larger the audience it will reach.

So what’s a business to do? Here are some tips for this new world:

• Mimic what your audience is already talking about. If your fans are talking about the Super Bowl, mention your favorite ad. If there’s a new development in your city or county, get involved in the conversation. Having a lot of content is good, but these days, context is king. Your fans will be more engaged if you’re talking about the same things they’re talking about.
• Share “jabs,” non-direct to what you sell. Aim to hit an emotion so hard that the customer wants to share it because it will say as much about them as your event. We think of jabs as continuous ongoing blurbs to stay relevant in your fans’ news feeds, so when you deliver the “punch” of an actual marketing message, they’re already used to seeing your event or venue’s brand, and are more open to hearing what you have to say.
• Be a real person, like a friend. Share things that will make them laugh as well as useful information they can utilize. Leverage pop-culture by sharing the music you’re listening to and the shows you’re watching. These can easily transition to the artists performing at your events.
• Advertise. In today’s new world of Facebook, it is becoming a necessity to pay to have your posts seen. There are lots of options for boosting your posts, be it individual posts or every post.  We strongly suggest you consider devoting a small budget a day to increase the number of people seeing your posts to increase the chances of engagement. Even $3/day to boost all posts could go a long way.  

So how does email fit in the picture?  Unlike social media, you own your email lists. Facebook will continue to regulate the type of interaction you can have with your fans in their environment, but via email, you’re able to control your own destiny. You determine how often your most loyal customers hear from you, and what message they will receive. Social media will continue to be a mainstay of your marketing plan, but we don’t want anyone to lose sight of this valuable tool.  Checking work and personal email remains the number 1 activity on mobile devices, so hit your customers where they are. Cross-promoting between social and email is also crucial. Include an email sign-up option on your Facebook page, and link your emails to your social sites. Increasing awareness between the two will continue to boost your fans engagement.

1. Be bigger than yourself: Show people that you care about more than just your own event. Community outreach, supporting good causes, and promoting other events in the area are a great way to get involved and keep your event’s name relevant to the community year-round. Not to mention, this gives you something interesting to add to your emails and social media posts!
2. Be active on social media: Don’t just be active, be engaging, because the best way to get your content to go viral is to make it highly interactive. For example, creative Facebook contests are a fun way to encourage followers to interact with your posts.
3. Use teasers to your advantage: Don’t announce all of your event’s entertainment at once. The performers you’ve booked are one of the most exciting aspects of your event, so keep your audience hooked by releasing entertainment announcements once or twice a week. This will encourage event-goers to frequently check their emails and visit your social media sites because they’re always left wanting to know more.
4. Keep your email marketing alive: With all the social media talk, it’s easy to forget that email marketing isn’t dead. The truth is, it’s inexpensive and can give you some of the fastest results and highest revenue (even above social media). Strategically plan when you send your emails and who you send them to, you may be surprised by the results!
5. Have promotional giveaways: Everyone loves feeling like they got a good deal, and that’s no different when it comes to your event’s tickets. Have a one-day sale, or give away tickets at some of your outreach efforts. Kids will always need to bring an adult, so you can almost guarantee that if you give away a kid’s ticket for free, it will be matched by one or two paying adults.