Event marketing is one of the types of marketing, in which specialists in this field are doing their best to attract consumers to a new product on the market or brand with the help of a city, regional or federal festive event. As a rule, this method of attracting new customers works very effectively and helps to achieve maximum attention from consumers. There are three areas of event marketing that differ from each other in the purpose of organizing a holiday and the number of people taking part in it.
Experience Sharing Events
This includes congresses, exhibitions on various topics and conferences for companies in the same or related industries. While waiting for the upcoming event, an active process of distribution of advertising booklets and announcements on behalf of the organizers among potential participants begins, targeted announcements are created on television, in the press and on the Internet.
Recently, special attention is paid to innovation - marketinggifts. Such gifts are made both on behalf of the event organizers and participants. This includes souvenirs, useful prizes and announcements.
Information marketing
Another type of event marketing is informational. This form of it is aimed at unobtrusively attracting the attention of future customers to a certain premiere. This includes the premiere of a new movie, the introduction to the market of a new product from a brand that is already popular at the moment (the sale of a new gadget or car). Or, for example, a festive action is planned soon in honor of the company's birthday - an invitation is sent to the company's employees, famous people, business partners, investors and customers who have been using the organization's services for many years or buying a large number of products.
Gift marketing is widely used in this direction of event-driven customer acquisition. To do this, they use souvenirs with company symbols or practical gifts - organizers, pens with a fashionable design, notepads for recording the necessary information. A holiday sale during the day or week, held in honor of the opening of a new shopping or entertainment center, also applies to the information direction of marketing.
Entertaining form
Entertainment (leisure) event marketing is the most famous and figurative example of this type of marketing. It can be seen on the example of the Winter Olympic Games in Sochi. To attract an increasing audience, large industrial and commercialconcerns, international companies, famous personalities who could promote not only the event, but also themselves and their products (banking and other services, manufactured products).
Various music (Avtoradio, NRG) or cinema (Moscow International) festivals, major sporting events - leisure marketing is important to attract more attention and increase the number of people present at the moment of the event itself.
The social component is an important part of event marketing in any direction. For example, the same Olympic Games held in Sochi - during their organization, patriotism, love for the country, and a call to support their representatives in the sports arena were actively promoted.
Regardless of the partner (a Czech automobile concern or a German commercial bank), the slogan "Cheering for Russia" was heard in almost every second video.
What tools are used?
Event marketing is a complex of methods and tools. All of them are used for one purpose - to win more attention, attract a new audience, potential buyers, and later turn them into regular customers.
An event held for a specific purpose is always a celebration. That is what the invitees should consider. For the organizers of the event, this becomes the main means of increasing the competitiveness of the enterprise, its development and increase in profits, so any event must be taken seriously.
Festive marketing can, without a doubt, be called a component of event marketing. Gift marketing cannot be separated from the holiday in any way. Small offerings to the audience, memorable souvenirs, magazines and booklets - a festive event should evoke emotions in the visitor and remain in his memory at least for a while.
Components of event marketing
Publication in newspapers, flyers, media, announcements on television - these are all other components of holiday marketing. We should not ignore such a phenomenon as post-production - as many people as possible should learn about the upcoming event and its purpose.
Of course, when planning a large-scale holiday, and when organizing an event of urban or regional significance, special attention should be paid to the budget. It is most competent and effective to analyze the work of the market in advance. The organizer must understand that his event will require the expenditure of a certain amount of money. But the holiday organization should remain an event that will bring profit in the future, and not cause damage to the entrepreneur.
Prospects for development
The goals of event marketing are pretty simple and straightforward. Like any advertising campaign, this type of marketing and its components should be studied in detail from the very beginning. The organizer must always strive to achieve the set goal.
Only the professional approach and competence of a marketing managerhelp you prepare for the upcoming event. A thorough analysis of market relations, a competent choice of the target audience, the choice of design and an interesting description of the upcoming holiday in booklets - all this must be taken into account if you want to achieve the maximum return. PR in event marketing is the help of other companies, which is often necessary.
Most often, with seemingly win-win prospects, event marketing only leads to losses for the enterprise. Many hosts looking to maximize revenue and audience returns end up with something completely different.
It is poor preparation, lack of analytical skills, unprofessional work of a marketer that lead not only to a poorly arranged event, but also incur significant monetary losses.
Event Marketing Technologies
Too strong obsession and aggressive presentation of the material sometimes works well and plays into the hands of the organizer. But there is no place for aggression in event marketing. Its tools should interest customers, change their attitude towards the consumer. The main slogans of this form of advertising are not “buy because it is the best”, but “buy because you are the best, and the best are already with us.”
Organization of event marketing is a promising direction in modern advertising. It has gained particular popularity in our country, as a huge number of holidays are held here in order to get more potentialcustomers in any consumer area.
Examples of successful campaigns
All the big brands of today can be a good example of event marketing. The Coca-Cola company in the 90s released an advertisement on TV with New Year's trucks that deliver drink products to cities. The slogan of the created video is "The holiday is coming to us." It was he who became an important part of the New Year for residents of many countries. In 2016, real caravans of trucks from the manufacturer, which were decorated with beautiful iridescent light bulbs, drove through Russia for the first time.
Thousands of people decided to go outside and look at the event. The event was able to introduce potential buyers to the real atmosphere of a fairy tale and helped to strengthen the associative manifestations of two phenomena: the New Year and the manufacturer's products.
Red Bull
One of the initiators of event marketing campaigns held in Russia every year is Red Bull Flugtag. The manufacturer of Red Bull (a non-alcoholic energy drink) is trying to attract with commercials and events mainly young people who want to experience freedom and get as many emotions and impressions as possible. This is exactly what the participants of the championship get.
The event is a competition of homemade flying devices. Of particular interest to the show is the fact that each team with members strives to create a more ridiculous and unusual aircraft in order to surpass their competitors.and delight the audience. In 2016, such an event in Krylatskoye brought together teams of 39 participants, as well as several thousand spectators, who, after the end of the event, remembered it for a long time with positive emotions on their faces.
All these examples of event marketing show that when organizing a specific event, it is important to follow the rule: the more the marketer seeks to match the specifics of the brand with the entertainment theme of the upcoming holiday, the greater the return on the audience as a result will be received by the manufacturer.
Sony Event Marketing
Event marketing from Sony was aimed at holding the brightest and most unusual promotion, the purpose of which was to advertise all the pluses of the work and functionality of the new camera, drawing attention to the nuances of color.
Sony, together with volunteers from a small town in Costa Rica, was able to collect more than 3% tons of flower petals of various colors, and then poured them from a height onto the city. The event was advertised in advance, it was announced in advance, which helped to attract the attention of other citizens and tourists in the city. Camera photos of the event quickly spread to other countries.
Through this event, Sony was able to provide broad information about its product to consumers and evoke lasting associations when seeing their camera with an explosion of vibrant colors. According to estimates, after the completion of the advertising process, the demand for cameras from this manufacturer from tourists increased several times. There are many other trends inevent marketing. More than enough examples.
When should you use Event Marketing?
Event marketing is an event organized to promote a company through advertising. Their marketers are advised to include in each production promotion plan. They will help to increase or show people's attention to the products being created. The main distinguishing features will be only event marketing tools. They will depend on what effect the manufacturer of the product wants to get and what return he expects.
Using this type of advertising is recommended for those who want to introduce customers to their company or recently introduced products to the market. A good effect can be achieved from a holiday in the form of an opening or presentation. Promotions of this nature are held quite often, but do not differ much from each other.
Opening in most cases is a small concert, drawing of souvenirs, prizes among participants and providing information about a new brand or store.
Organizing the presentation
Presentations are carried out according to the standard scenario. Most of the time, a professional marketer talks about the positive features of a new product, tries to interest the audience and cause some shock in them. The largest and most popular at present are Apple's presentations, giving detailed information about the release of new gadgets.