Successful Event Marketing

Annabel BradfordMarketing & Events Manager, Redgate

Today’s session

• Redgate’s events summary

• Overview of key areas for successful event marketing

• My take on the first key area to master

• Ice breaker

• Interactive group discussion

• Share themes and key learnings from group discussions

SQL in the City – est. 2011

Redgate & events

638,735Users rely on Redgate’s software

91% Fortune 100 companies that use our tools

Redgate supporting the community – est. 2000

• Redgate’s annual conference - welcomes hundreds of Database professionals– our customers & prospects

• Educates our audience about Redgate products and provides a memorable and insightful event experience

• 18 events in 5 years: including US roadshows, US & UK annual events

• Sponsorship program for events, meetings, and groups.• Conference schedule full of industry and community events we

exhibit at with a crew• Friends of Redgate Program & Speaker Program

Key areas for successful event marketing

Successful event

Marketing

Market research

Planning

Marketing channels

Risks

Key areas for successful event marketing

Successful Event Marketing is…Understanding your audience• Personalisation

Objectives & schedules• Project management

Choosing the right marketing channels• Reach

Recognising the challenges• Mitigation strategies

Market research

Planning

Marketing channels

Risks

- Understanding your audience (event attendees/customers/users)- The end-user is #1, so personalise to appeal to them

- Know where they hang out- Know what interests them- Know what motivates them- Know what they dislike

Market research

Knowing your audience

• Helps you personalise the experience

• You’ll be better equipped to meet/exceed their needs

• Helps you plan perfect event for them

• You’ll be able to schedule activities in order to suit their habits

• Helps you decide on appropriate marketing channels• You’ll be better informed about how to reach them in order to spread the word

• Helps you understand the risks• You’ll understand reasons why attendees might not attend

Knowing your audience

I know a bit about you

But this isn’t enough…

Digging deeper – Desert Island Ice Breaker

Each choose 1 object that represents you that you’d take with you (30 seconds)

Share which object you picked with your team

Together decide on just one object your team would take(3 mins)

Each team to present their chosen object to the group

Key areas for successful event marketing

Other areas?

Successful Event Marketing is…Understanding your audience• Personalisation

Objectives & schedules• Project management

Choosing the right marketing channels• Reach

Recognising the challenges• Mitigation strategies

Market research

Planning

Marketing channels

Risks

Let’s get interactive

• Each team to focus on one of the areas• Market Research

• Planning

• Marketing Channels

• Risks

• Something else…

• Everyone to share their experiences of

undertaking activities related to this

area of event marketing

• Discuss “success” and “horror” stories

Share insights Activities

• What processes did you follow?• What technology did you use?• What innovations did you make?

Successes• What went perfectly?• How did you measure success?• What were the successful outcomes?

Horrors• What went wrong?

Themes• Were there any underlining themes? • What learnings did you take away?

Marketing Research • Identifying the audience through previous events, looked at competitors, geographical locations, looked at industry trends, survey attendees and

non attendees, focus groups, trying small first, continuous improvement, audience research & evaluation continually. Recording info in CRM, online surveys backup data. Digital and social connections. Scheduling.

• > non attendees, increased attendee rate? Will find out this year. • > deciding content based on job role is really key. Planning• Follows on from market research, plan target audience and aim of the event, new/existing attendees, topics to suit the audience, aims to suit the

company strategy, focus for the event, ROE, annual scheduling, clashes with other events, budget, forecasting, negotiations, dates, location, event size, scheduling of tasks and activities, promotional tasks, constantly review marketing impacts, google sheets helps keeping on track and allows for multiple users to see key deadlines, Eventbrite, cvent allow you to keep track of event attendees.

• >You can plan but you need to change/adapt as you go (event aps can show no insights).Marketing channels• Pre event promotional tactics – social media plans and scheduling. Email marketing is the most useful channel of communication. Event websites,

mobile app to help attendees interact, paid-for media (hard to track), print media/flyers, blogs, influencers/customers who may have already attended, exhibiting at similar events to reach likeminded attendees, forums/event listing sites, partnerships and speakers. Videos of previous event highlights, WOM (naturally), sales push, location-based marketing (GPS/mobile notifications).

• Communication is key to ensure success, timing of promotion, ensuring you set expectations, multiple channels used by different partners.• Can’t always prove which channel is key, as people sign up and might remember the most recent marketing, but it could have been the first

marketing that lead to them registering. Understanding your audience is really key. Risks• Risks touch on all the areas - Risk assessments, mitigations, likihood, impacts.• Scheduling events, ensure that it’s not clashing with other similar events. Speaker drop out, free events v paid-for, pricing

positioning, changes in circumstances/situations in external environment, staffing plans and contingencies, revisit objectives to ensure you meet needs of attendees, put yourself in the end users shoes, technology issues, backup plans, not being reliant on technology, deadlines and working with suppliers, weather and travel issues.

• >Retrospective on risks, check that the mitigations worked, and whether you had to do it, and planning for stopping it happening. Event insurance.

Key learnings

Thank you

Get in touch via twitterOr email annabel.bradford@red-gate.com

Slides:http://www.slideshare.net/annabelredgate/