1. Create A Continuous Cycle Of Engagement

When you’re actively trying to stabilize your brand presence through community-building activities, the curiosity induced amongst your potential audiences will have them flocking to your brand portals for more information. Keep your eyes and ears open across all your social media platforms through social listening tools for easy two-way engagement. 

2. Use Surveys & Feedbacks 

We can’t stress enough on this powerful yet simple tactic that has been doing wonders for many event organizers and hospitality entities all over. With the COVID pandemic changing the future of event gatherings, your event attendee’s needs will also shape your brand presence accordingly. Using surveys & feedbacks in a timely manner to gain insights, you too can mold your brand offering in the COVID era.

If you wish to understand your audience better and elevate your event standards, download our full infographic here – Audience Expectations In A Post-COVID Era.

3. Broadcast Your Safety & Sanitization Programs

No mask = no event will be the norm at any event gathering in the upcoming months. Unless we’re close to finding a vaccine sure, social distancing rules and mandatory masks will remain constant. Giving out free masks with each ticket? Or perhaps a branded PPE kit at your next conference? Maybe you sanitize your event venue before and after each event? Broadcast it to your audience so that they’re aware of your safety and sanitization programs. 

4. Create Loyalty & Retention Programs 

Depending on the economic health of your region, your event attendees might feel skeptical about shelling out money for your upcoming events. However, with a little bit of investment from your side, you can acquire and retain your audience by creating loyalty and retention programs in the form of discounts, offers, long-term benefits plans, and so on. Make them feel like you’re invested in them and they will flock to your brand. 

Looking for a quick turnaround on your marketing and branding strategy? Learn more about our marketing suite of services that have been meticulously designed to suit a diverse range of requirements unique to the hospitality & entertainment industry.

The post Event Marketing Tactics To Improve Brand Presence In The COVID Era appeared first on Yapsody.

Without further ado, here’s our 10 step guide to step up your event marketing strategy in 2020:

1. Seek Out New Venues

Although you can’t bid farewell to traditional venues, seek out new venues that cut out the boring factor of the same old conference rooms and auditoriums. Seek out non-traditional spaces such as gardens, warehouses, rooftops, museums, art galleries, and co-working spaces. Anything that gives your attendees more time to network with each other and elevate the bonding experience. This doesn’t mean that you cross off the regular venues on your list. You just need to drape it better in terms of styling and decor. You could pick up a few pointers from our piece on Designing The Ultimate Event Experience. 

2. Partnered Events 

Partnering with local businesses or sponsors that tie in with your event is a marketing match made in heaven. Maybe your music festival could amplify it’s brand awareness and impact by partnering up with that world-renowned brewery. Your event marketing campaigns gain more speed and weight when marketed through your sponsor’s channels. Maybe partner up with an event ticketing platform like Yapsody as well? Just saying…

3. Event Website Persona  

Your event attendees should get an instant feel and grasp of what your event will turn out to be. Don’t leave anything to their imagination except for a teaser that makes them grab your early bird tickets ASAP. This is where your event website persona plays a trump card in selling out the first phase of event tickets. 

With our Online Ticket Store, event marketers can brand and customize every element present of their ticket store. Apart from getting a personal subdomain, you get the option to customize your event ticket as well. Brand it with your logo and tease the upcoming events on the ticket itself to create a strong brand recall.  

4. Map Your Attendee Journey

Once you understand attendee personas, you need to map out their journey on your website and social media channels. There are multiple touchpoints for you to leverage – your event website, emailers, registration process, event check-in process, event perks and so on. What makes them click is the answer to win their hearts. Many of your events were mind-blowing but few fizzled out. You need to dig deep into insights and reports to check why that happened. With our Insightful Reporting, peak into your Event Sales report and Consolidated Inventory reports to plan better next time. 

5. Create Content Buckets 

Pillar your content based on different venues and types of attendees. Attendees for a seminar or conference might prefer podcasts and interviews from the keynote speaker. Similarly, for clubs and casino attendees, make them guess your next headliner act by putting up music playlists. Even if they don’t guess it right, you’ll understand which other artists they’d want to see live. We’d suggest you keep it topical and use hashtags to show up in trending searches. 

6. Event Marketing Frequency

Now that you’ve figured out your content, you need to actually schedule them in a manner that would garner maximum reach and shareability. Are your event attendees most likely to DM your Instagram post to their friends on a weekend or a weekday? Your event marketing frequency should match your audience’s browsing patterns. Stop posting randomly to avoid random results. You might want to look at our Event Marketing Services that have strategically increased revenue for many entertainment enterprises.

7. Live Streaming 

Your event attendees booked early bird tickets but unfortunately got stuck in a meeting on the D-Day. With live streaming, you’re giving them an opportunity to be a part of your event experience through different platforms. Instagram is a favorite among event marketers due to its innovative features and popularity. Divide your live streaming into pre-event, event, and post-event to keep them hooked. You can also save the stream on your camera roll which can be used in an after movie as well. 

8. Utilize the Power of Video

2019 was dominated by video content and shows no signs of stopping. Blogs and emailers are great for the initial pre-buzz marketing. Content in a video format seals that deal for many event presenters. A 30-second teaser is great for grabbing eyeballs and generating leads across multiple social media platforms. A video montage of your past events, if done well, refreshes memories of your attendees and works as a magnet for new audiences. Invest in a production crew that understands your vision.  

9. Turn Event Attendees Into Event Marketers 

Just how you’d turn your event partners into marketers, turn your event attendees into live event marketers. Maybe a contest or a giveaway to up the ante and create a competitive aura works well. Hook them with a catchy hashtag, design a great event, and let their Instagram stories do the marketing. User-generated content is organic traffic that is a true test for your event success. Your brand’s notification page blowing up with tagged pictures will be a worthy reward for any event presenter. 

10. Use Feedback and Survey Data 

After everything is done and dusted, you still need to gather post-event data. Give your audiences a tool to voice their opinions. Some might rant out their frustration of being held up at the queue for too long while some might give you a genuine piece of feedback that will change the game for you. Watch out for that tidbit that will elevate your attendee experience for future events. Maybe after a week or so, ask your attendees all the right questions through our Questionnaires and Surveys feature that will help you create easy to answer logic-based questionnaires. 

We hope this 10-step guide helps you step up your event marketing strategy in 2020. If you’re a new event organizer on the block, Sign Up with Yapsody to create, promote, and sell event tickets online. 

For more event industry insights in 2020, subscribe to our blog.

The post Step Up Your Event Marketing Strategy in 2020 appeared first on Yapsody.

As an event ticketing platform assisting presenters & hospitality enterprises all over the world, we have analyzed every possible dimension of successful and not so successful events. Here’s Yapsody’s 10 step guide on designing the ultimate event experience. 

1. Be Clear on your Event Objectives

The most successful events we witness in terms of selling out tickets and drawing more footfalls are those whose organizers have a clear picture of their event objectives. Your event goals are the purpose of your event – to party, to celebrate, to educate, or to persuade. Narrow down these event objectives and check if they are relevant, achievable, and measurable within the designated time-frame. Once you figure them out, every other process falls into place. 

2. Delegate Tasks Equally

Whether your event is big or small, your team members should be firing on all cylinders. They should be clearly aligned with your event marketing strategy and their role in achieving them. While creating an event on our ticketing platform, you can assign tasks to your members equally through our User Management System. So, if one member needs to manage the Ticket Pricing and the other needs to integrate Event Marketing Tools, they don’t need to depend on one single person handling the dashboard.  

3. Map Out Your Event Venue

An event venue can make or break your reputation. Imagine an outdoor event planned during the monsoons without having a contingency plan of moving indoors. Similarly, mapping out the event venue will help you arrange the entry, seating,  standing, dining, and exit points. Ask for a seating chart from the venue owner which will help you assign different price points for different seating sections. 

4. Make Your Sections Easily Navigable

Imagine a music festival with attendees from all over the world. Not only do you need to surpass the language barrier, but also make sure all the sections of your events are easily navigable through simple signs or instructions. Position the food, bar, and smoking sections easily accessible from the main stage.

Easy access to these counters + reasonable pricing = More revenue. 

At no point during the event should your attendee feel a disconnect from the event experience. Also, don’t make your attendees cross rivers and mountains to access a restroom.  

5. Streamline The Security & Check-In Process

This is where we see many event attendees lose their cool. Nobody wants to wait for hours just because you didn’t create multiple check-in points. Make sure security checks are handled before anything else. Once they’re in the clear, validate their tickets through a QR Code scanner.  

An attendee might turn up late but it’s your job to not make them wait any longer. Imagine being stuck in a queue while hearing your favorite band strumming their latest summer single. Our ticketing system supports 12 prominent languages & over 150 currencies to bridge any communication gap between event presenters and attendees. 

6. Don’t Make Your VIP’s Wait 

After all, they are VIP for a reason. Create a separate line for guests belonging to the Reserved Seating sections. A luxurious black-tie event in a casino is not synonymous with sweating it out in a line. Keep your VIP guest list updated before they start pouring in. They are paying top dollar for your tickets which should be reflected in your event experience. 

7. Make Your Main Stage Memorable 

The main event stages of any EDM festival or an expo delivers the “larger than life” experience. The stage design and audio-visual setup of your main stage create an atmosphere that energizes your guests. With the right budget, you can go for a holographic setup as well for that futuristic leap. Every year, thousands of events organized all over the globe blow up on news and social media just because of their main stage setup.  

8. Will They Do It For The Gram? 

Now, that you’ve taken care of all the essentials, you’re waiting for that euphoric audience reaction. You created a brilliant event marketing campaign, brought the best artists to perform at the hottest venue in town, and sold out the venue. As an organizer, it’s normal to expect an outpour of Instagram posts and stories #tagging your event. Your event success will be heavily reflected on social media through user-generated content. Even something as small as a signpost or a quirky art installation will have your event attendees pulling out their phones for a selfie. So, while you’re planning an event, always ponder “Will they do it for the Gram?”

9. Expect The Unexpected 

An event organizer hopes for the best and prepares for the worst. In the entertainment industry, we’ve seen things go haywire even with months of planning. Your artist might catch the flu or miss a flight. Or maybe the rain gods decided to generously flood your venue. As an event planner, you should always be ready with a contingency plan A, B, and  C. This is truly a testing ground for any event presenter to prove his mettle and not disappoint his audience. 

10. Go Above & Beyond

Event planning and organizing is a constant hustle. But the returns are tenfold – financially and emotionally. Treat every event as your first and last and you’ll surely go above and beyond for every minute detail. For you, it might be the 10th event in a month, but for an attendee, it might be his first. Create a memorable experience and you’ll have them coming back to you for more. 

We hope our 10 step guide resonated with you in planning your future events. Do share your personal experiences in creating the perfect event experience below in the comment section. 

Don’t forget to SIGN UP with us if you’re an event presenter looking for an end-to-end event ticketing platform.

The post Designing The Ultimate Event Experience appeared first on Yapsody.

Building Hype

You can have a killer line-up and a seamless ticketing page, but if your audience has no clue about your event, they won’t be landing on your page. Word of mouth used to work well but in this age of sold-out ticket phases, building the initial hype online that follows up to your event is absolutely crucial. Build momentum through highly visual yet shareable content like teasers, headliners, and early bird tickets. Divide your marketing campaign into pre-buzz, launch, and post-launch phases for content distribution. 

Give Your Event A Visual Personality 

No one trusts a shoddy flyer that is made with stock images. Invest in a graphic designer who can translate your brand ideas into simple yet eye-catching  GIFS and videos.

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Nothing deadly, nothing scary, just tricks, treats and a bag full of candy. Yapsody team wishes you a spooky fun Halloween! #Halloween #HappyHalloween #Events #trickortreat #Candy #Spooky #Scarynights #Yapsody

A post shared by Yapsody (@yapsody) on Oct 31, 2019 at 12:00pm PDT

Instagram is all about punchy aesthetics that makes someone forward your post or story to their DM list. Consider half of your marketing done when your followers start spreading the word. Keep an eye on the Insights tab to see which type of posts are doing well. 

Storytelling 

For certain events like an annual fundraiser cookout, people need content in the form of a story to refresh their memories. Testimonials of past attendees or short clips from the previous year will bring in both the old and new audiences to your event. This is a good time to refresh and repurpose your old content. Keep an event calendar in your “Highlights” section that helps your attendees plan better. Don’t forget a unique #hashtag that ties in with your upcoming event and makes it easier for people to discover your stories through it.  

Sell Tickets 

The ultimate goal for any event promoter is to sell out the venue. All the previous 3 strategies should eventually lead to a CTA that lands on a ticketing platform. You can add the booking link in your profile bio and also add it as a link in your stories where followers can swipe up and land on the ticketing page.  Some ways of accomplishing a sold-out venue quickly are:

• Giving out free tickets through “Tag 3 friends to Win” contest
• Early bird tickets which create a sense of urgency among the audience
• A flash sale with the messaging “Only 100 more tickets available”

Behind The Scenes 

People love being involved in the event through sneak peeks or behind the scenes. They love getting to know the brains behind the operations of an event. As an event marketer, you should post photos or videos of logistics crews, artist prep,  sponsors, and other participants. Use the Live Video feature by putting up a story informing your followers of the time slot that you plan on going LIVE. 

User-Generated Content 

Proof of a good hashtag turning into a great campaign is evident here. If your event turns out awesome, it’s guaranteed to leave a huge footprint on social media. Your audiences might go live during your event, or post a few stories, and eventually make a carousel post at the end of the night. Even after the completion of your event, you can repost their content on your feed. Everyone loves an awesome group photo, which is why user-generated content is a great way to wrap up your event into a memorable one. 

With the Yapsody’s ticketing platform,  you get features such as Reserved Seating, Ticket Customisation, QR Code Ticket Scanner and much more. Our digital marketing team handles your Instagram Event Marketing which is tailor-made for your brand. Reach out to us HERE if you want additional event marketing services which are an exclusive feature for presenters creating an event with us.  

The post How to Use Instagram For Your Event Marketing appeared first on Yapsody.

Create Blog Posts

If your company has an active official blog, use it to publish posts that will boost your event marketing. Make sure your content offers value to the reader before selling the event directly. Do a series of interviews with the event presenters that will deliver event context to prospective attendees.

Film a ‘behind-the-scenes’ video to showcase the amount of careful planning that goes into organizing an event and publish the video on the blog. Using visuals creates an engaging yet informative experience for viewers. Avoid content that is extremely promotional.

Find A Ticketing Platform

While expecting your audience to turn up on your platform to buy tickets is a fair expectation, think from their perspective. If they are unaware of your ticketing platform, they won’t be able to discover your events. 

Partner up with a third-party that has already invested in promoting its online event ticketing platform. This platform spends its time and resources in gauging your audience’s behavior and conversion patterns when it comes to selling event tickets online and coming up with cool promotional event ideas.

This significantly enhances potential ticket sales, while saving you the hassle of starting from scratch and entering the conversion funnel.

Leverage the Power of SEO

Simple as it may sound, a lot of event planners tend to overlook this basic traffic-generating activity. This works on two levels – introducing your upcoming event to audiences searching for relevant knowledge on the web and creating awareness among potential attendees.

Develop a consistent keyword strategy that is in context with your competition’s rankings as well as the relevance of your offerings. Ensure that your website is mobile responsive as that directly impacts the ranking and conversion process.

Reach Out to Past Attendees

In the quest to acquire and retain larger audiences, don’t forget to reach out to those who’ve already vouched for your effectiveness in the past.

If you have already held an event or if you have some registrations for parallel events, then these guests should be your first set of invitees. Encourage them to spread the word by offering them unique referral codes that can be easily shared in their social network. Earn your registrations by offering them a discount on new event registrations.

With this event marketing plan, you can not only explore the right audience but also influencers and evangelists on how to promote an event successfully.

The post Your 2019 Guide To The Most Effective Event Promotion Channels appeared first on Yapsody.

Kick starting your marketing well in advance ensures that activities such as resource allocation, promotion, and engagement is performed more effectively resulting in higher conversion. Marketing coupled with a proper strategy will further catapult you to higher engagement levels and even sold-out events! Here are 5 ways to use targeted event marketing strategy for your events! Here are 5 ways to use targeted event marketing strategy for your events and make maximum profit by selling event tickets online.

1. Make yourself easy to find

Not only should you post online content regularly, but you must also make it easy to find. You can share content by bundling with different content on your website or social media channels. For instance,  if you have 3 or 4 events lined up for the month of May, then you can promote it as “Upcoming events for May 2018” on a single page and promote it on social media as well as different channels, which will make it easy to find your events in a single location.

You can also create a hashtag for your event and while posting anything related to that event, you can post using that hashtag. Make sure to use a hashtag which is unique, so that recollection is easy and your attendees can then follow your event updates.

2. Promote events using paid ads

Social media platforms are making it difficult to reach your attendees organically. According to a recent update by Facebook, they have implemented changes in their algorithm. Priority is now given to content from the user’s friends and families over the content from businesses and news websites.

This is not only about Facebook, it is also about other platforms like Twitter and Pinterest. They are going to give more preference to paid ads over organic content generated by companies. Platforms like Facebook and Twitter costs less compared to other traditional ad platforms like TV or print ads. Additionally, they give you better options of targeting attendees based on user location and interest. So, in order to reach your attendees, create ads and promote using mechanisms like Facebook Pixel. Yapsody gives you the option to easily integrate your Facebook Pixel, which helps to promote your events to individuals who are more likely to purchase.

3. Be in touch with your event registrants via email

You need to keep engaging with your event registrants. The best medium to stay in touch with your audience is email marketing. According to a research, 73% of in-house marketers worldwide said that email marketing provided a strong ROI.

Therefore, you must leverage email marketing but keep in mind that you need to send personalized emails in order to improve effectiveness. To evaluate the effectiveness and success of your email campaigns, you need to keep track of the “open rate” and “click through rate” of emails and also check the conversion ratio – recipients who are reading your email and purchasing tickets. All these parameters can be tracked through Yapsody’s upcoming “Email Marketing” feature.

4. Improve SEO of your event landing page

SEO is the 2nd most effective medium for marketing after email marketing. Investing in SEO takes a lot of efforts, but the effects are long lasting. You need to work on both on-page and off-page SEO activities to get your event at the top of the page rankings by search engines.

Yapsody provides SEO customization for your events, which helps you to edit on-page SEO elements like title, meta description and meta keywords of your events thereby helping your events rank higher by search engines.

5. Create a buzz around your event

When it comes to your event, your performing artists and special guests are the primary stakeholders. If you want your event to be a success, make sure that your primary stakeholders leverage their popularity and power to influence by creating a buzz around your event on social media platforms. This is the most organic and effective way to promote your event, since it attracts potential attendees who pursue those performing artists and special guests on social media as well as keep your event registrants engaged.

Start early

To make your event a success, you need to start doing these promotional activities in advance. Email marketing and SEO are the primary channels you should use to target your attendees, as they have better ROI compared to all other medium. Implementing these tips will help you stay in touch with your attendees, and get the most out of your targeted event marketing strategy.

The post 5 Tips to Kickstart your Targeted Event Marketing Strategy appeared first on Yapsody.

Event marketing isn’t as easy as it seems – it is not just about using the resources at hand, like social media, to advertise your event, it is about having a marketing strategy that is driven by a solid timeline and clever tactics. Remember, no two events are the same; never make the mistake of generalizing your event strategies, that would be a grave error on your part. If you’re still confused about how to proceed with event campaign, these pointers could come in handy.

Pre-Event Planning

The pre-event stage is critical since this will make or break your event. Most people make the mistake of starting the marketing campaign when the event is ready to be launched. You need to get the word out even before the details of the event have been finalized. So what if the trivial details haven’t been decided yet? You can still start a page online, and keep updating the page as and when the details are finalized. For example, you could have your page SEO optimized, and that would definitely increase the traffic to your page. Blog posts to the official page also form an important part of the marketing campaign.

An important part of pre-event marketing is partner outreach. You must reach out to as many companies and collaborators for partnership; that would amp up your resources which would be helpful in the next stage of the planning.

The Main Event

Just before the launch of the event, you could start an email campaign, that would reach out to your target audience. When people visit the page you’ve created, they get the option of signing up. You could send out an email blast to all those who’ve signed up, including your potential clients.

If you have some idea about PR, you’ll know how important a press release is. When your event has been launched, you could send out an official press release to all the eminent media houses to ensure maximum publicity. For more press coverage, you could even opt for search engine optimization which would bring your event into the spotlight.

It’s A Continuous Process

Paid promotion is a continuous process; you need to take every day into account and plan your strategy beforehand. For instance, you could make use of social posts and blogging to give your marketing a boost.

You have your attendee referral, don’t you? Keep that in mind while devising your marketing plans. Google adverts and Google AdWords would be a great way to promote your event in this particular stage.  This is a trying time for you as an event manager, you need to pull your socks up and give it all you’ve got!

The above roadmap could come to your rescue if you’re totally lost about how to plan your event marketing strategy. Official pages, blogs, email marketing, social posts, SEO, attendee referrals, paid promotion – there’s so much to take into consideration! Only a well thought out plan could help you with your endeavor. So go ahead, chalk out the perfect marketing strategy for your upcoming event!

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