Event engagement is literally the be-all-and-end-all for event professionals. Did you know that marketers agree that attending live events allows them to network in person and start meaningful, real-life connections within their industry? In fact, 95% of marketers say this!
Which begs the question, what use is it to have an event if there’s no engagement?
Event marketing is absolutely vital to the success of an event! It increases attendance and up the value given to people who are involved, from exhibitors to attendees and others.
So keep reading to find out how you can maximize visitor engagement with your event marketing.
What Is Event Marketing Engagement?
The term “event engagement,” sometimes known as “audience engagement,” describes an event’s capacity to capture and keep the interest of its target demographic. It encourages their active involvement. Events that are interesting and captivating grab their audience’s attention and don’t let go.
Event marketing is the tactics and strategies that you employ to improve and promote event engagement.
Monitoring Event Engagement
Planning parameters for measuring participation vary widely depending on the nature of the event. Participants that are truly invested in a live lecture or conference will ask questions, strike up conversations with other attendees, and pay close attention throughout.
Members of an interested audience are more likely to ask questions and offer suggestions. Monitoring app and chat activity, as well as live polling and social media updates, can provide further insight into audience participation and engagement.
How To Increase Visitor Engagement
The most effective way to increase event engagement is to separate your event into three active stages:
- Pre-event stage
- Event stage
- Post-event stage
Each stage provides its own opportunities for you to actively engage with your event’s audience in different ways.
Pre-Event Engagement
At this point, organizers are trying to get people talking about the event. Planners will want to boost attendance and revenue by actively engaging with potential attendees on a regular basis to generate interest in their events, start dialogues, and sell more tickets.
This can be done with pre-event buildup, ticket promotions, and sneak previews on social media and your website. You can also facilitate a countdown to event day to get the excitement up.
During Event Engagement
This is how you keep your attendees alert and interested for the duration of your event. One way to measure this is by how many stay until the very end. How many questions are asked during talks? How successful were your exhibitors?
Ask attendees to post on social media with a unique hashtag so that you can measure live engagement. Consider giving them swag packs with super cool items inside to increase their interest.
Post-Event Engagement
An event doesn’t end when the lights go out! There is ample opportunity here to keep people talking about the event and already start generating buzz for the incoming event planner conferences.
Also, remember that letting attendees know about other events you’re hosting after they’ve thoroughly enjoyed one is an opportunity that you don’t want to miss.
Keep people engaged with a showreel after the event of event highlights, send out a survey to ask for feedback, and don’t forget that a simple “thank you for coming” goes a long way.
Event Engagement Success!
The success of your event marketing efforts is directly related to the level of your event engagement. Is your event marketing a success at all, if your engagement rates remain low?
At the end of the day, your event is a success if you can fill all the seats and drum interest up for your next event too!
If you’re an event planning professional, then you should absolutely be joining us for The Event Planner Expo 2023 in New York, get your tickets here.
