Do you know how to promote an event successfully?
Several steps are necessary, from finding an idea for an event to making it sold out. It can be time-consuming and challenging. However, when done right, events can create a lasting impression amongst your guests, which is priceless. When you promote an event with Interactive Content, you increase attendee engagement in advance.
When you promote an event with Interactive Content, you offer people to join you on the entire journey, from planning to executing the event. With Interactive Content, people are no longer just receiving information; now, they have a say and can interact with your brand. On top of that, you gain information and feedback from your clients and generate more leads.
In this blog post, we have gathered the most creative ways to promote an event with Interactive Content.
How to promote an event with Interactive Content? Before, during, and after!
You should consider every little detail of your content for events. We have gathered the most innovative suggestions to make your promotion successful during all stages to make it easier for you.
Before: Build Anticipation
Anticipation is the feeling of waiting for something with eagerness. Start simple. You can create anticipation for an event by creating a hashtag for it, sparking a conversation, and discussing the topics your event promotes on social media.
Twitter is especially suitable for this purpose. Here, you can use interactive polls to spark a debate and engage with your customers. Questions like “Who do you look forward to listening to?” or “What topic would you like to learn more about?” will encourage your followers to engage in an active conversation.
Basically, you want to give people a say when planning the event. You can also reveal speakers in exciting ways through different Interactive Experiences like countdowns and Interactive Videos.
Remember to promote milestones such as the release of early bird tickets and ask people to tag a friend to spread the word further. Using urgency will push the ticket sale further and motivate people to get their tickets before it’s too late. You can do so by posting whenever early bird ticket sales or registration are about to end.
You can also create anticipation by sharing pictures from behind the scenes when setting up the event. Use every opportunity to invite people to join in on the conversation through interactive polls asking questions like “ what do you think of this, should we go for the yellow or blue color for this? “. It’s a great way to boost conversation and engagement.
Pro tip: Explore the event planning industry trends to create the best experiences for your audience.
Before: play into FOMO
FOMO is the fear of missing out. Most people in the digital age experience anxiety that an exciting thing will happen elsewhere. Let’s talk about what that means to you. Posting pictures from last year’s glamorous event can spark a desire not to miss this one. It’s a way to reel in people who are unsure if they want to attend.
To further attract the indecisive ones, you can offer people a new window of opportunity to get tickets. Give out VIP tickets or release discount codes with an Interactive Quiz. Don’t forget to include a signup form to get their email addresses. It provides you with the information needed to market your event with a follow-up email later. Here are some more FOMO marketing examples to inspire you.
Pro tip: In the quiz, ask questions about people’s interests and preferences, and tailor the follow-up email based on their interests. There are many ways to do that; for example, you can showcase the speakers they are the most interested in.
Dot.vu has recently launched a new template for event marketing – A Conference Microsite. You can use the microsite to promote your next event and engage with potential attendees.
The Conference Microsite contains all necessary fields for quick edit, such as agenda, speakers list, and registration form. You can quickly modify the template to match your brand guidelines.
During: interact, interact!
Interacting with your guests makes them feel special. Using interactive polls and quizzes during and after talks is a great way to interact and gather the information that will help you keep the conversation going afterward.
You can ask which talks people enjoyed most or which ones they learned most from. You can use the results to keep the conversation going after the event, showcasing the results: “The most loved speaker”.
For most events, you can utilize the gathering of many professionals by doing polls and asking questions about their working habits to interest your guests. For a marketing event, you can ask how marketers split their day: brainstorming, researching, writing, drinking coffee, daydreaming, or staring at the wall. Don’t be afraid to use humor as well!
It goes without saying, you need to assign one of your staff members to follow your hashtag to share, like, and repost it. It makes people feel special. You can also hold exclusive interviews with guests and speakers and take behind-the-scenes photos during the event. Don’t hesitate to utilize Instagram Stories, Snapchat, TikTok, and Facebook live for this.
Another great way to entertain your audience during the event is event gamification. Applying game elements to your events will enhance the overall experience. The newest technology allows you to create online games for your physical, virtual, and hybrid events easier than ever before.
After: share your results
Even though your event is over, the digital conversation is not. You can keep the interaction alive with diverse content for events and maintain the buzz through pictures, videos, and Interactive Content.
You can start by taking the pulse of the event using interactive polls or surveys to ask about attendees’ experiences. It provides you with ideas for improvement. Both positive and negative feedback is valuable when planning your next event. You can make it better next time. This also transfers into fantastic content and multiple social media updates. Ask people to participate in your polls, thank people for sharing their opinion, announce some of the most useful feedback, and explain that you will take it into consideration for next year’s event. Show that you care about your customers’ opinions.
You can easily create a Post-event Survey by using the template below. You can quickly modify the design and text to match your brand guidelines and objectives.
This stage is also the time to post interactive graphs showcasing the results from the polls you took during the event and announce the most loved speaker. This reveals exclusive information that can be important or fun for your audience to review. Digital marketers can see how their time management compares to their peers, doctors can see what new medicine their peers like the most, and coders can see what programs their peers use the most. You had the chance to dig into the industry’s working habits in your event, and now it’s time to use the content you have gathered.
Pro tip: Don’t forget to tag the speaker afterward when you announce ‘the most loved one.’ They might have many followers and are likely to share the good news with them.
How to promote an event with Interactive Content: the different types of events
Now that you are familiar with different event promotion ideas to encourage interaction before, during, and after. Let’s move on to how you can promote an event with Interactive Content.
Promoting Seminars
When promoting a seminar, a quiz contest template can help you learn more about your audience before they attend. It enables you to plan your activities and make sure you meet the expectations of those attending.
You start by setting up a quiz that tests how people stack up in their profession; it can be ‘what kind of a marketer are you?’ Curiosity motivates people to take the test and reveal their interests and areas of knowledge to you. At the end of the quiz, you can invite them to your seminar to expand their knowledge in the corresponding field.
You tailor the results based on their replies. For someone who scores low on SEO, you can have text appearing in results that promotes your SEO talk at the seminar. The information you gain also gives you a good start for writing a personalized follow-up email.
Check out ‘the quiz What is your marketing superpower here?’
Promoting Conferences and Festivals
While promoting large conferences and festivals, it can be difficult for attendees to understand the complex schedule and find out which activities they would be the most interested in.
Asking people’s interests in an interactive quiz can help them find their way. Say you are planning a festival; you create a quiz asking about the categories of music they like. List a couple of the artists and ask which one they would like the most. In the end, give them suggestions about which concerts they should attend based on their preferences.
For a conference, you can apply the same mechanics, ask what topics interest people the most, and what areas they want to improve, and in the end, show them a result page with events or a schedule tailored to their responses. See below how Internet week 2017 did this nicely and helped their guests pick the right seminars and talks.
This method is particularly useful for larger conferences or festivals with a wide selection of events or talks.
Promoting exclusive events
When promoting a special event online, an Interactive Quiz can help you gain information about your guests, create a sense of exclusiveness, and inform people about your company, all at the same time.
You can offer potential attendees the opportunity to participate in your quiz to win a ticket, and in return, you grow your email list and get signups for your event.
Promoting hybrid events
Hybrid events are becoming the new normal in 2022. They are particularly nice in the fashion industry. So, if you are looking to promote an hybrid event for your next Fashion Marketing campaign, then check this section out. The biggest challenge here is providing an equally enjoyable experience for both audiences. However, with the event running on two different channels, you have room for implementing exceptional event promotion ideas. You can use interactive social media posts to reach more people and encourage active interaction with your brand. As with any other type of event, building up anticipation is crucial.
Interactive Videos can help you generate awareness and engage prospects for your next hybrid event. Let your attendees answer questions and share their opinions while interacting with your teaser videos. As a result, your audience will be engaged before the event starts.
Check out our list of hybrid events examples to get further inspiration from successful organizations.
Boosting ticket sales
If you want to boost ticket sales, you can give tickets for free with an Interactive Quiz. As mentioned above, when people sign up for the quiz, you get their email addresses and information about special interests. If you tailor the questions right, you will find out what they want to improve.
This gives you a second chance to compose a personalized follow-up email promoting your ticket sale. Personalized marketing is becoming more popular, especially when crafting messages for millennials.
You promote your event, boost ticket sales, and grow your email list – all at once.
We created a checklist to promote an event with Interactive Content. Check it out below:
Ready to implement these marketing event ideas and boost attendance like never before?
As you can see, there are many different ways to promote an event with Interactive Content. Quizzes and assessments are a must. People want to be part of the experience nowadays; it’s almost like you want participants to co-create the event with you. That’s how you’ll make sure they are satisfied.
Are you planning an event and want to give Interactive Content a try? Dot.vu is an Interactive Content platform that offers a large variety of interactive elements. Create a free account and go through the best Interactive Experiences to make your event promotion marketing a big success!
