As a marketing professional, the key to success in promoting events online with limited bandwidth is to choose a few things and do them exceptionally well. Instead of focusing your efforts on using every single channel available, you’ll need to make some decisions about how much energy you can devote and where you want to invest it.

Stress-Free Event Marketing

If you have a great deal of dedicated followers or have built a huge demand for your services and events, then you can take your pick of marketing channels. Your followers will come to you wherever you are.

However, if you’re on the hunt to build your audience and event attendance, then the best way to take the stress out of promoting events online is to focus your energy on the strategies or channels that will give you the best returns.

Where Do Your Buyers Hang Out?

The first step in promoting events online is to take a look at where your target audience hangs out. If they are primarily consumers, then LinkedIn isn’t the best place to spend your efforts.

Whether they are consumers or professionals, Facebook events may be an excellent option for you. After all, once people indicate they are “Going” or “Interested,” the event appears in their friends’ newsfeeds, so it can be a great way to spread the word. Moreover, you can promote these events with low-cost advertising.

In terms of additional platforms, the most important thing to consider if your audience uses them frequently. So if your audience uses Snapchat, Instagram, Tiktok, or any other networks, then identify where you get the most traffic and decide if and how you want to use those channels.

Do not discount the power of email marketing. It offers potent opportunities to keep your audience in the loop about your event.

Make a Plan

If you’re not sure how to go about starting this, you can start by looking ahead to the actual date of your event. Then, work backward to decide which information and reminders you want to use to tease your attendees and prospective attendees, and when you want each piece to drop. The size of your event and how far in advance you are planning will drive this content. Moreover, this strategy also applies to sales, bonuses, and special pricing.

Spreadsheets remain a popular method of tracking online event promotion plans. Set up the first column with your outlets. For example, these might be Website, Facebook Event, Facebook Page, Facebook Ads, Email Marketing. The other columns should reflect the dates you want the information to drop. Then you can start filling in details about what information you want to share at each point. Of course, you can update this method so that it is the most meaningful for you, but this gives you a general idea.

Build Content

As you start to flesh out your plan, you’ll want to start creating content. The idea here is that you create one piece of content for each step and then make small tweaks depending on where it will be posted.

First, this makes sure that your messaging is consistent as you start to promote events online.

Second, this ensures that you don’t miss key details on any platform.

Third, this makes your job much easier because you’re not creating separate content from scratch. You’ll be making a concerted effort to ensure that everything is consistent!

Finally, although the exact content will vary slightly, you are ensuring that you’re using each of your key platforms to market your event.

Even if you hire a copywriter to help with the messaging, they will need to know the basics of what you’re trying to convey.

Create an Event-Specific Webpage

At a minimum, you’ll need to create a simple webpage with event details where you can direct traffic for more information.

This will ultimately make your job easier and more effective. A web page offers a single point to direct traffic for more information. Moreover, it also means that your prospective attendees will take you more seriously and be more likely to purchase tickets or show up if it’s a free event.

Be sure to enable Google Analytics so you can track which tactics are working best!

Add it to Your Email Signature

If you have lots of events going, you may want to link them all to a single events page on your site. However, if you focus on a single event at a time or on a few bigger events every year, then you can update your email signature accordingly.

You can easily create dynamic, eye-catching signatures using any number of apps, like CloudHQ. Although technically a Chrome extension instead of an app, it offers tons of features that include an email signature generator and a meeting scheduler, among others. 

The main goal with this is to give everyone you connect with an opportunity to learn more about your events without putting a whole lot more work into your marketing. 

Offer Incentives When Promoting Events Online

The best way to get people to your event is by giving them a bonus for showing up. The same goes for getting people to spread the word! Offer them an opportunity to win a free ticket or some other valuable item if they share your post.

Moreover, you can start to tease some event-exclusive specials to incentivize ticket purchases and attendance.

Promoting Events Online In a Nutshell

When you have a full marketing team at your disposal, you can definitely put more energy into spreading the word about your event across more channels. However, if everything related to the event falls on your plate, it’s important to spend your time more wisely in order to make it less stressful for you.

When it comes to learning how to promote events online, you can follow this process across the board and then adjust as you find out what’s working for you. Although your goal is to focus the most energy on the places that matter the most to your audience, you should also be giving a brief plug of the event everywhere you show up. This might include podcasts or webinars you appear on or social media platforms where you’re not promoting it full bore.

The bottom line is that you want to build a plan, focus your efforts, and be consistent. You’ll quickly get a feel for what works, what doesn’t, and what you’d like to do differently.

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