Quality written content does make a lot of difference in marketing. And if “content is King” then “events are jewels” of the crown which offers invaluable open doors for brands to produce a high volume content in a short period.
There is a misconception among many people that an event is a one-time experience and is only relevant for that specific time. Its value solely confined to its starting and finishing dates. This kind of perception that events have a limited scope does not let people understand their impact and potential of being an outstanding source for content.
Instead of assessing events as an independent activity, it is better to comprehend them as advantageous supplements for bigger marketing picture. Because there are endless ways in which content can inspire by events. So, it makes sense if we consider events as one of the most powerful tools for content marketing.
Nowadays, both event and content marketing goes hand in hand. These techniques have become the preferred choice of marketers for advertising their company’s products and services.
Throwing some light over event marketing, there are two ways in which businesses can benefit from it. The first one refers to conducting an event to promote your company through in-person interactions.
And the second one is, attending an event as an exhibitor to tell your prospects what your company is offering. Both these methods have equal potential to elevate your business across different channels, and content plays a vital role in that.
So, before proceeding further, let’s understand what exactly content marketing is and why is it crucial for your business.
What is content marketing?
It is one of the best marketing approaches in which companies create and share relevant, valuable, and quality content on different social media platforms. And all these to attract their targeted audience. As a result, they get more profitable actions from their customers, which ultimately helps in the growth of the company.
As per our latest study, we have observed that most of the marketers have made content marketing as their foremost strategy. In fact, there are so many prominent companies like Cisco, Toshiba, American Express, etc. which are consistently following this method and are seeing much success.
Why content marketing is important for your business?
There is a reason why content marketing is known as the heart of digital marketing campaigns, and that is, its ability to influence more conversions. You can enhance the relationship with your audience by creating interactive content that has the solution for all their needs.
Apart from that, with the help of content, you can convey messages to your audience, whether it is regarding the usage of your products or the importance of your services. People like to read stuff that can educate them.
If you look at brands like Nike, their powerful and empowering content has made it more than a company for their customers. They know very well how to create engaging content that can be liked by their fans. Likewise, there are so many examples of big companies from where you can take reference and motivation to begin.
Since now you got some idea about content marketing and its benefits, let’s concentrate on how to take help from live events for impactful content marketing.
To provide you a better understanding of this, we are breaking down the process into three parts: pre-event, live event and post-event. Each section holds some importance and will help you in building up great content for marketing.
1. Pre-event preparations:
Through events, you can bridge your online content marketing strategies to offline face to face interactions. So, as soon as you get the schedule of an event, whether hosted by your company or others, start working on the content creation.
Make yourself aware of the excitement and anticipation surrounding the event and plan content strategies accordingly. Here are a few tips that can help you steer your work in the right direction.
Create a roadmap
For building up the momentum of your event, it is very crucial to create a weekly overview. It should focus on the subjects which are going to be discussed in the event along with a piece of advice for each day to make sure that people have a great experience.
Your weekly series can be anything, podcasts, videos, and even blog posts. You can also create interview sessions of old participants to share their experience of attending your previous event marketing campaign. If you start to think of the ideas, then the options are unlimited.
As a result of following this method consistently week after week, the participants and the potential participants will get a clear understanding of what they should expect from the event and how it can benefit them.
However, to make your weekly arrangements more captivating, you can also give an attractive name to it that resembles the main idea of the event just like Salesforce. They had created a video series and titled it “The Road To Dreamforce” which ended up building a lot of anticipation.
Use past event videos
If you have organized at least one event in the past, then you can make its video and use it as promotional material for your current event. Because with the help of it you can pique curiosity among people.
Moreover, nothing can light up the desire of registering for an event better than the feeling of FOMO (Fear Of Missing Out). So, utilize every resource you are having and share it on social media, no matter what kind of content it is.
You can also take help from various automation tools like Socinator to schedule your posts on multiple social networking platforms in advance. By doing this, you will not only save your time and efforts but also able to promote your events on as many networks as you want, that too at the same time.
Moreover, you can also check the engagement on your posts and then create further plans accordingly.
Pen down the benefits
Content is considered as engaging when it serves people’s interests and helpful to them in particular ways. So, if you want to build up such piece of content, then instead of waiting for the event to start, create hype through your articles, infographics or any other form of content. Mention the benefits of attending the event and how it is different from others.
2. Live event preparations:
Capture the moments on the day of the event and execute your months of meticulous planning. It is the perfect time when you can harness all the enthusiasm and energy that is throbbing throughout the event and create awesome content. Remember, the pieces of content you will gather will not only help you in the current events but for the future also.
Collect feedback
The most valuable data is not what you have produced during the event, but it’s the one which has been obtained by the participants. So make sure to not leave any opportunity of collecting data, or feedback from the attendees of each day through onsite forms, online polling or post-session surveys.
Every piece of information is crucial for the success of future events. There are also so many events integrated software available on the Internet, so you can also make use of them to get such kind of data.
Make shareable moments
In this digital world, where people love to share their special moments on social media platforms. It is very beneficial to set up different photo booths in several areas so that it encourages participants to take pictures and share them on their social media profiles. The more photos and videos will get uploaded on social media, the more popular and successful, your event will become.
Live streaming
Apart from this, live video streaming is also the most trending thing on social media. It is a useful feature that most of the platform offers these days. So utilize this opportunity and make specific sessions of your event live-streamed, but make sure that it is accessible to everyone.
You can also tell your audience to go live so that other people can also feel the energy of the event virtually whenever they tune in.
3. Post-event preparations:
Post-event content is equally valuable as pre-event content and live-event content. So, make a final note of all the relevant points discussed in the event and share it with the people through different mediums.
If you have a dedicated group or page on social media for your event, then it is much better to share all the content there. In this way, people who by chance missed attending any of the sessions can update themselves.
Generally, the initial 2 weeks after the event is the ideal time to push all the gathered contents into different platforms.
Event highlights
Writing blog posts to mention the highlights of the event is the best takeaway you can provide to your attendees as well as to the people who have not participated. It may happen that after reading your blogs, they might think of attending your future events.
So do not miss out on any stage if you want to grow with your every event. Remember, participants play a vital role in any event, and keeping them happy should be your priority.
Partnered content
The relationships formed during marketing and events are very precious and can bring you lots of perks. Therefore, think of the ideas to take those relationships further.
Launch marketing initiatives with the speakers, exhibitors, and sponsors from the event. As you all probably have a common goal of increasing your brand’s visibility, so grab this opportunity and ask them to spread the word about your event.
Inspire the speakers to share their images and sessions from the event on social media because generally, professional speakers have vast networking and followers. So make the most out of every possibility and become proactive.
Host social media contest
After the event, the best way to not let the fun stop and keep your participants remain engaged is by organizing the contests in different social media channels.
Keep it easy and simple. You can ask your audience to describe the event with a unique hashtag or through a particular picture taken during the event.
Provide small gifts to the winners so that more people will participate in it. Marketing your brand through this kind of post-event content will positively impact your ROI.
Over to you
Although the possibility of creating a power pact content from live events are boundless. But it is also very essential to be creative on the content part and extraordinary with its execution.
Remember, a successful content extraction from the events very much rely on the carefully laid plans, and the above tips will help you in making better strategies for creating quality content from an event.
