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Are these events still in your marketing plan? They should be!

At AVPartners, we live and breathe events. We know events offer an exciting opportunity to engage your customers or clients in a truly unique way. There are a number of reasons for your business or brand to hold events,  and keep them in your marketing budget.

However, it is also a good idea to consider the types of events you have in your marketing plan. Are they worthwhile from a business point of view, or do they need a little refreshing?  

Here are the some of the types of events you should consider including in your marketing plan for your business to get the most out of the year ahead:

Launch parties

If you’re launching a new product or service, a launch event is a great way to showcase your new or upgraded offering to a captive audience.

While the product or service is the reason for the event, a launch party is also a great time to meet and greet your stakeholders and customers, and answer their questions in person. There’s so much scope with launch events to really make an impact and have fun, such as styling the event, offering demonstrations and running competitions.

Client or customer focused events

Sometimes simple things like thanking your clients or customers for their patronage goes a long way to strengthening those relationships; maintaining loyalty and encouraging excitement in your business or brand. You can also use the event as an opportunity to introduce guests to your other products or services, further build your business’ profile or add value by facilitating networking opportunities. If your business is a not-for-profit, you could also use events like these for fundraising.

Employee focused events

Your employees are your gold – without them you have no business. So it makes sense to treat them right and keep them happy, yes? When people feel appreciated, it helps to motivate them and increases their loyalty to your business. Employee events give everyone in your business a chance to mingle and bond in a more casual setting than the workplace which fosters positive relationships between colleagues and builds a great company culture. Popular employee events include team building events, cocktail and dancing events, or even weekend trips away! At AVPartners we organise regular team events and believe we are stronger and more in tune because of it.

Events are a powerful tool for your business’ marketing strategy, so make sure you consider how each event type fits into your marketing plan. Then, give us a call so we can help you organise the event and impress your guests!

5 Reasons Why You Should Keep Parties in the Marketing Plan

The last few years have seen many marketers take events, conferences and seminars off the marketing plan and instead focus more of their resources on digital according to Ryan Taylor, Partner at Perth Convention and Exhibition Centre, AVPartners.

The main reason for this is cost. Events are seen as more costly than seemly inexpensive, and sometimes free, digital channels. However, digital activities cannot replace the powerful human element that events can deliver.

In fact, it shouldn’t be one or the other. Marketers should be using a combination of both offline and online marketing tactics to achieve cut through.

While digital marketing can reach tech savvy audiences with bite size information to elicit an action, it requires a large effort and volume of content to get a response; hence the conversion rate can be quite low. But with events, you hold an audience’s attention much more effectively and are able to use the human element combined with great AV and staging techniques to create a lasting positive impression that results in a much higher conversion rate.

Before marketers make the decision to strike events off the marketing plan, they should consider that events have the ability to:

Directly and physically influence an audience

In an increasingly digital world where many interactions occur online, events provide a human and physical element which can be powerful and influential, leading to higher conversion rates and hence an increased ROI

Share content in a truly immersive and engaging manner

With increasing focus on the impact of effective content on customer behaviour, events remain one of the best ways to deliver content in a way that is immersive, erasing ambiguity and creating engagement because of person-to-person interaction.

Convert customers while they are in a state of interest and excitement

In a world where marketers are fighting to gain attention from increasingly distracted audiences, events provide the opportunity to focus the attention on a single proposition, person or idea. They can also create excitement and leave audiences in a state of anticipation, the perfect opportunity where you are more likely to be effective in achieving sales conversions.

Create a meaningful and memorable experience for your customers that correlates to a positive brand experience

The importance of positive branding and consumer sentiment cannot be underestimated. Events can allow you to leave a positive imprint on your audience by creating an in-the-flesh, in-the-moment wow factor that has a lasting effect and can stimulate positive word of mouth.

Engage your audience to become your marketers to amplify your message beyond your event via social media

The combination of physical and digital can be powerful. People attending and posting to social media about an event can quickly amplify to become trending topics. Savvy event organisers that use social media hashtags, handles and pages can take the brand beyond the physical event.

This article originally appeared at B&T.