The Ultimate Guide to Successful Digital Marketing for Events

Instant gratification is the name of the online game these days.

We’re all so used to being able to get what we want at the click of a button that our patience can wear thin if we have to wait too long.

Whether that be more than two seconds for a web page to load, an extra day for product deliveries, or an unspecified amount of minutes or hours while we search for answers on Google.

We want everything—and we want it now!

But despite all this (or maybe even because of all this), we still love an event.

The anticipation and the build-up is actually exciting.

Interacting with real people rather than avatars, faceless companies, or social media profiles and bots is actually refreshing.

Being able to take part in something real and then have memories to look back on is actually quite pleasing.

It’s reasons like these that event marketing is still one of the most effective ways to generate high-quality leads.

But success in event marketing doesn’t just happen by accident. You need a plan and you need to be able to implement and execute that plan.

When you do it right, a well-planned event can raise brand awareness, attract targeted prospects, nurture relationships, and convert attendees into loyal customers.

That’s what we’re here to help you with.

In this ultimate guide, we’ll take you through the core principles, strategies, and tools (such as ScoreApp) for making your next event a sell-out.

It doesn’t matter whether you’re planning a virtual webinar or an in-person conference, these insights will help you maximize your ROI and make your events unforgettable.

Now let’s open those doors and give you VIP access, with some ridiculously effective event marketing tips.

Why event marketing is essential for lead generation

What’s so special about event marketing then?

Putting your personal brand or your business in front of people online is all well and good, but events take the connection you have with your audience to another level. Events provide:

• Unique interaction opportunities: Events are a way to interact with people face to face (whether that be virtual or in real life)—which fosters trust and rapport. Your leads will get a chance to learn more about you and your brand in a way that simply reading your website or seeing your ads won’t do.
• Lead generation potential: Instead of just pushing your content and information out there for anyone to stumble across, you can use your event as a way to attract more qualified leads by targeting people with specific interests and pain points.
• Engagement benefits: Most interactions will be fleeting at best, but events can keep audiences engaged with your brand for much longer through meaningful experiences that are more likely to turn into lasting relationships or partnerships.
• Hybrid marketing abilities: With all the technology that’s readily available to the world, you have a lot of flexibility in how you run your events. There’s a really exciting and effective rising trend of hybrid events opening and expanding potential reach for businesses. (More on this below.)

Key types of event marketing for lead generation

“Events” is quite a broad term that covers a lot of possibilities.

Your niece’s birthday party is an event. So is an international music festival.

A Zoom meeting with a client could be classed as an event, in the same way an exhibition with hundreds of brands and dozens of guest speakers could. As could everything in between.

So, while events can incorporate a variety of functions, they tend to be narrowed down to three core categories—each of which has their own benefits for lead generation.

Let’s take each one in turn.

Live events

By live events, we mean in person or physically on site. Face-to-face meetings with real-life human beings.

• Examples: These could be networking meet-ups, product launches, conferences, branding expos, or anything else that requires you and your audience to be in the same place at the same time.
• Benefits: Live events are great for building personal connections, showcasing your expertise, and generating immediate interest. You can make them really fun and interactive by engaging people up close and giving them an experience to remember.
• How to use ScoreApp for live events: Easily collect attendee data during the registration process or put together on-site scorecards for live feedback.

Virtual events

Virtual events are exactly as they sound—hosted online. But this doesn’t mean they have to be impersonal or any less engaging than live events.

• Examples: Webinars, online workshops, and virtual expos—if your video software can handle it, you can host it.
• Benefits: Since you aren’t having to rent a physical space (and throw together everything else that’s involved with in-person events), virtual alternatives are cost-effective, massively scalable, and accessible to global audiences.
• How to use ScoreApp for virtual events: Integrate ScoreApp with your webinar-hosting platform of choice to streamline the registration process, as well as automate your follow-ups.

Hybrid events

Hybrid events are becoming more and more popular, and for good reason… They’re an effective blend of live and virtual events, with combined benefits for unique experiences.

• Examples: In-person events with virtual components for remote attendees to get involved in.
• Benefits: Hybrid events let you blend the personal touch of live events with the accessibility of virtual ones, so there’s something for everyone—whether they’re local to the live event or on the other side of the world.
• How to use ScoreApp for hybrid events: Effectively manage attendee data from both your live and your virtual audiences, then create unified reports for better insights.

Planning your event marketing strategy

No matter what sort of event you’re planning, there are a few key things to bear in mind if you want to make it a success.

Set clear goals

The first thing to do is define what success looks like to you.

Are you looking to increase your lead volume? Are you more interested in engagement metrics? Or are you mainly concerned with sales conversions?

You can’t really tell if your event was successful if you don’t know what your aims are.

For example, a goal like “I want to generate 100 qualified leads from a webinar on X topic” is a clear goal to work towards. You’ll clearly be able to see if you surpassed your target or how far away from it you were if you didn’t.

Similarly, your goals will likely affect your strategy and what you do pre-, mid-, and post-event. So, have a real think about what you want to achieve from your event.

Know your audience

As well as knowing yourself and what you want from an event, you also need to know your audience and what they want to get out of it.

An effective way to do this is to create detailed marketing personas for your ideal attendees.

These will also come in handy when it comes to segmenting your audience for post-event communications. (We’ll cover this in more detail further on.)

This doesn’t have to be a complicated or drawn-out process either. ScoreApp can automatically collect the data for you to create those effective personas.

Choose the right event type

Something else to bear in mind is what event format best matches your goals.

Don’t just consider whether a live, virtual, or hybrid event would work best, but what type of event is most aligned with your aims.

For example, if you’re looking to educate an audience spread across the country or the globe, then a webinar could be the way forward. Whereas if you want to network with like-minded professionals and make business connections, then an in-person conference might work best.

Create a compelling event offer

This might sound obvious, but you need to give people a genuine reason for wanting to go to your event.

Think about what value you’re offering and how you can position your event as a must-attend, can’t-miss opportunity.

For example, you could mention any guest or expert speakers who will be there and what they bring to the table. Or highlight any exclusive insights or new developments you’ll be sharing with attendees—and what they’ll gain from this knowledge.

Promoting your event for maximum lead generation

If you’ve been following the points above, then you should by now have a better idea of what you want your event to be.

The next step on your event marketing checklist is to promote the hell out of it and get people signing up to attend. Here’s how to do that.

Leverage social media

Make use of your social media platforms—like LinkedIn, Instagram, and Facebook—to create buzz and drive registrations.

You probably already have a bit of a following on one or more of these social networks, so get connecting and promoting your event to your fans and followers.

You can also use ScoreApp’s social sharing features to get your event-related scorecards or quizzes out there.

Retargeting ads

You should also create some intriguing and informative digital ads to re-engage with website visitors who didn’t sign up for your event initially.

The targeting abilities of social media sites and search engines are ridiculously powerful. Make the most of them by finding and engaging with new audiences based on your ideal attendees’ demographic information and interests.

Email marketing campaigns

Along with your current social media followers, you’ve likely got a healthy email list at your disposal that you can reach out to.

These are people who have already shown enough interest in you to sign up for your newsletters or services, so give them something exciting to look forward to by sending personalized invites and follow-up reminders about what to expect at your event.

You can make this easier on yourself by integrating ScoreApp with your current email platforms to segment audiences and send out targeted messages.

Collaborate with influencers

As well as reaching out to your own clients or customers and targeted audiences, how about getting your event on the radar of other ready-made groups who are likely to be interested in what you’re offering.

If you can partner up with other industry leaders or influencers, you’ll be able to extend your reach and add extra credibility to your event.

Engaging attendees during the event

Getting people to your event is one thing, but keeping them happy and engaged on the day is another thing entirely.

It’s important you get this right if you want to develop your relationships beyond the event and gain loyal customers who will eventually convert and spend money with you.

Don’t worry, though, because we’ve got a few next-level event marketing techniques you can use…

Make it interactive

If you can get your attendees involved, they’ll feel like they’re an active part of things, instead of just a casual observer. They’ll feel closer to your brand and be more likely to interact with you in the future.

Where you can naturally do so, include Q&A sessions, live polls, and breakout rooms. These are all fun and useful ways for people to take part in your event.

You can also use ScoreApp here to collect real-time feedback and keep your participants engaged and invested.

Deliver actionable value

Interactive fun and games are all well and good, but excitement isn’t the only thing your audience wants to get from your event—you also need to give them value they can use in their lives or businesses.

Alongside the activities we’ve mentioned, make sure you provide plenty of insights, tools, or resources attendees can apply immediately.

For example, you could share a link to a free ScoreApp quiz during your event that helps people assess their own challenges. And you should also have some quality follow-up content or offers you can push them to based on their results. (We’ll cover how to do this shortly.)

Use branded content

Ensure any event materials you produce are not just visually appealing (this should be a no-brainer), they’re also clearly aligned with your brand.

Don’t do all the hard work to leave your attendees with good memories and a smile on their face just for them to forget who made them feel that way in the first place.

They should instantly be able to associate you with your event offerings.

Following up after the event

So, your event’s over and it was a roaring success. Time for you to put your feet up and forget all about it, right?

Wrong. What you do after the event can cement those new relationships with attendees and keep them coming back for more.

Don’t let people forget about you.

Send personalized thank you emails

Show your appreciation to people who attended your event with a personalized email.

This is a great chance to give extra value too, by including a recap of key event takeaways, links to session recordings, or exclusive offers.

Nurture leads with ScoreApp

We touched on this above, but we’ll repeat it here. You can use ScoreApp to segment your attendees based on event interactions to send tailored follow-ups that give the people what they want and need.

This makes the whole nurture process much more effective, as you won’t be sending the same content and offers to everybody. They’ll get what’s necessary or useful for them.

Collect and analyze feedback

Want to know what went well and what didn’t at your event? What people enjoyed most and what they weren’t keen on?

Ask!

ScoreApp makes it easy to create post-event surveys that will help you understand what worked and what can be improved on.

Share content highlights

You may have already included some snippets in your thank you emails to your attendees, but how about those people who didn’t make your event?

Show them what they missed out on and get them eager to sign up for the next one.

Repurpose your event recordings, expert quotes, or interesting insights into blog posts, videos, or social media content to reach a wider audience.

Real-life success stories

No matter what sort of event you’re looking to throw, ScoreApp has got you covered every step of the way.

We’ve already helped thousands of brands and professionals boost their lead generation through interactive lead magnet templates and our in-built event marketing tools.

Fancy an amazing example? By using ScoreApp, Brian from Clarity Up Consulting sold out his webinar in less than half an hour and was able to generate more than $7,000 in additional revenue!

And he’s not the only one.

Dozens of businesses and brands have their own success stories and achieved incredible results after taking advantage of ScoreApp’s event marketing features.

And you can be the next in line to throw an event that smashes it out of the park, because ScoreApp can do exactly the same for you too.

Make every event a lead generation success with ScoreApp

Event marketing is a powerful process that requires careful planning, execution, and follow-up.

This is where ScoreApp comes into play to make sure you’re throwing the best event possible and getting bang for your buck through increased conversions and ROI.

When you pair the strategies outlined above with the innovative features of ScoreApp, you can attract, engage, and convert high-quality leads like never before.

Try ScoreApp for free today to step up your marketing game and make your next event a success and a sell-out.