How to use email to market events

Events are a crucial part of most marketing strategies. They give your prospects and customers the chance to put a face to your brand and help you build more personal relationships and networks. Done right, an event can generate both short term and long term business and deliver significant return on investment. It is important to remember however that the success of any event is underpinned by thorough planning and requires marketing activity before, during and after the event itself takes place.

The three stages of an event

An event can be broken down into three stages as follows:

Pre-event

During the Event

Post-event.

Email marketing can be used at each stage to ensure you maximise your event’s success however the most important stage of any event is the pre-event stage and getting this part right will normally determine whether or not your event is a success. Whilst it is true that some businesses use live-emailing and social media in the ‘During the Event’ stage, the truth is that many businesses don’t bother with any marketing when the event is actually taking place. Of more importance from a marketing point of view is the ‘Post-event’ stage where follow-up campaigns are important in continuing the relationship building exercise.

This post will focus on the ‘Pre-event’ stage and how email marketing, along with an Events System, help to ensure your event is run as efficiently as possible.

Pre-event stage

If ever there was a time bring out your organised side (or that of your marketing department’s), it is during the ‘Pre-event’ stage. Every event that forms part of your marketing strategy must be given enough lead-in time for planning, promotion and management.

Traditionally, one of the biggest challenges of any event is getting people to pitch up, but it needn’t be. Email marketing is a great way to reach your delegates and drive registrations. Email allows you to schedule invites and track who has engaged with the invite but that is where most email providers fall short. How do you track RSVPs? The days of asking delegates to reply by email or post in order to RSVP have come to an end. This process is not only cumbersome for your delegates, it also creates more manual work for you when it comes time to collate and manage registrations.

If events form part of your marketing strategy, make sure your email platform includes access to an Events System. A good system will allow you to create a dedicated webpage promoting your event with full details including:

Description of your event

Event details such as date, time, venue, cost etc

Guest speakers

Maps and directions

Registration form

Being able to easily create dedicated webpages which do all the hard work of promoting the event and managing registrations for you is the crucial piece of the puzzle in the pre-event stage in eliminating errors and making your events a success.

The Forfront Events System allows you to manage your events efficiently, ensuring your pre-event stage is as straight-forward as possible. If you aren’t using an events system yet, get in touch.