Attract, Entice, Allure... Bore, Disgust, Repel. Words are a powerful thing. A word can draw someone in, push someone away or even change the meaning of something all on its own. How does this relate to event marketing you ask?
The power of attraction is a vital part of event marketing. Intriguing people and drawing them to your trade show or event space is the first step to high conversion event marketing. But, drawing people to your space will not drive trade show ROI if they are not the right kind of people (i.e. potential customers).
Creating an event space that attracts a huge crowd, generally costs a lot. Unfortunately, if that crowd is filled with a bunch of unqualified leads who are draining the time and resources of your event staff, you’re likely not going to see the return you’re looking for.
With the ultimate goal for our series being high conversion event marketing, we want to show you how to create event spaces that attract qualified leads to your event and then kick it up a notch by making them absolutely irresistible.
To get you started on the right track to high conversion event marketing, let’s discuss the first key element: the event attractor.
An event attractor is an offering or experience that draws attendees to visit your event space, promotes word-of-mouth or social sharing, and creates a positive brand experience.
Examples may include contests, giveaways, games or demonstrations.
Just like choosing the appropriate keywords and headlines to attract someone to your content, you need to keep in mind who your target market is when creating your event attractor. Use experiences that will appeal specifically to your target buyers and will generate social sharing within your market.
*Put yourself in the shoes of your buyer persona and ask yourself: What would make me want to attend this event?*
There are two sign your event attractor could use some work:
So how do I plan an attractor that will increase qualified leads and drive traffic to my event?
Focus, focus, focus! (and target)
To ensure the core of your attractor is designed to draw in qualified leads, always keep in mind buyer persona. Think about your target market’s interests and incorporate those into the incentives and experiences you’re offering at your event. This will help persuade people to attend. (Our next blog will provide you with some specific tips about doing so.)
Enhance and appeal
Once you have a sound, focused attractor at your core, there is a lot of room to get creative and look for ways to add additional appeal with experiential marketing for improved consumer engagement and interest. (Stay tuned for some inspiring ideas on in a later blog.)
We’ve focused this series on event marketing tactics that improve conversions and trade show ROI, not drawing a huge crowd and improving brand awareness. But that doesn’t mean there can’t be a combination of both tactics in your event marketing strategy.
Many brands support events with the intentions of both building brand awareness and generating leads. In these cases, continue to follow this formula and place additional focus on the enhance and appeal stage of your event attractor, where you’ll likely want to broaden your appeal with high-engagement, unique attractors.
In today’s post, we hope that we’ve emphasized the importance of focusing & targeting and enhancing & appealing your event attractor. Getting the right people to your space is the first step to higher ROI!
Up Next: Three Ways to Attract Quality Event or Trade Show Leads. Plus, inspiration that will help you generate ideas to increase the amount of quality leads attending your next trade show or event.