Introduction
Effective event marketing includes ongoing engagement. In the fast-paced world of entertainment and events, entertainment marketers often concentrate on the upcoming show, event, festival, or launch. The energy that is put into promoting annual events and festivals to foster their success often ends at the conclusion of the event.
However, cultivating ongoing attendee engagement that continues year-round builds loyalty and creates a community centered around events. Fostering continuing engagement after the event will help grow future events and create a thriving fan base that keeps them excited and advocating for future events.
Effective Event Marketing Means Knowing Your Audience
When creating year-round engagement, it is important to consider the nuances of your event and what ways will be the most effective in connecting with your audience of potential attendees. Each event is different and may need tactics that are specific to the event or the attendees. Being knowledgeable about the key demographics, event engagement, and interests of those that attend the event, as well as the cyclical nature of festivals and live entertainment events, will be beneficial when tailoring engagement strategies and effective event marketing.
Event Attendee Characteristics
Looking beyond the basic demographics of age, gender, and location, event marketers need to understand the psychographics of their audience segments, including such things as interests, lifestyles, and behaviors. Knowing how the attendees find their music and their most frequent online platforms can provide more insight into more meaningful ways to connect with attendees in a year-round setting.
Certain attendees who may be frequent ticket purchasers or frequent visitors to an event’s website or social media pages may need less attention to keep them engaged than other attendees.
Effective event marketing requires segmenting the target audience of the event to allow for personalizing content. Personalization increases engagement likelihood by targeting motivations, values, interests, and attitudes to help draw people to future events.
The audience could be segmented into different categories, such as:
- Die-hard fan: The die-hard fans are most likely passionate about the artists, venue, music genre, and/or loyal to the event or venue. This passion keeps them coming back each year. They typically buy their tickets early and may be inclined to purchase a VIP package or event-exclusive merch.
- Social butterfly: The social butterfly goes to the event to connect with others and be seen. They document their time at the event through photos and videos on their social media. They may be attracted to events because a group is coming or encourage others to come.
- Experience collector: The experienced collector prioritizes having unique and new experiences. They may attend a lot of events, festivals, and concerts. They may be more likely to travel around for a festival or show and to purchase a VIP pass or special experience at the event.
- First-timer: The first timer may be looking to try something new; this could be driven by curiosity about the experience, fear of mission out (FOMO) from friends or family, and being open to a new environment. They will be less familiar with the event, so they will look for simplicity in the schedules, maps, and logistics of the event. Additionally, it may take more time for them to engage with content, but they bring the opportunity to become a recurring attendee.
Creating stronger connections with each of the different segments defined by psychographics and demographics that attend the event will help establish touchpoints specifically tailored to them. Such efforts at fostering stronger long-term relationships is a part of effective event marketing and keeps attendees coming back to events. Certain segments will take less effort to keep engaged, while others may require more connection and consistent engagement.
Understanding the Rhythm of Entertainment Events
Throughout the year, there are on-and-off seasons for festivals and live music events, as well as touring cycles and album release time windows. Understanding the different timings will allow for the best strategic engagement efforts.
Festival seasons often peak around the summer in northern states while spring and fall are more common in southern states. During this time, people are constantly engaged and have their attention drawn to lineups and festival content.
When artists go on tour, it generates higher engagement through announcements, ticket sales, and during the tour with content from the concerts. The length of the touring cycle varies depending on the artist and may be adjusted during the tour.
Similarly, when artists release new music, it creates the opportunity for increased engagement and promotional content. This could feature new tracks, albums, exclusive content, or interviews.
During each of these active periods, the activity and engagement are at their peak. This is when it is easiest to engage with consumers. During the latent periods between such events there seems to be less need for content.
However, it is important to shift the strategy of what content is being posted rather than just stopping content. The more inactive time periods present the opportunity to share information that may be less time sensitive. It’s an opportunity to collect data and attendee feedback to improve the overall experience for future events. Content such as interviews with artists, deep dives into the event, or throwbacks from prior events can also be shared to keep people interested.
Be sure to create a calendar to keep track of the content posted and to keep consistently posting. Following such an approach is part of an effective event marketing strategy and is a proactive way to keep the event buzz going year-round and help when looking into the future to plan events.
Keeping the Entertainment Event Off-Season Alive
Creating meaningful online experiences and moments for people throughout the year, either leading up to the event or after, can engage people to build anticipation and foster a connection that goes beyond just attending the event. Offering communication and curated content can keep an event relevant and growing.
Undertake consistent communication with attendees using newsletters, spotlights, interactive posts, special content, or artist collaborations. When event organizers communicate with their audience year-round, it keeps their events relevant in people’s minds. Potential attendees will engage and share content about the event more and make their plans further in advance.
Inviting feedback and spotlighting people who attended the festival or concert not only gets people excited but also leaves them feeling like they contributed to the event. Such efforts help build long-term relationships with their more loyal attendees to make them feel like a part of a community instead of just customers.
Another effective event marketing tactic that event organizers can utilize during their “off-season” to maximize their reach is through pop-ups or small activations. Event marketers could curate monthly playlists from previous lineups, staff picks, or ones that feature easter eggs of artists that may be performing in the upcoming year.
Partnering with local businesses to offer pop-ups with discounted tickets or branded happenings that feature artists from a similar genre to the concert or festival is another way a one-time event can connect with people year-round.
Surveys, contests, and gamification tactics scattered throughout the year gives fans a tangible experience that they will be able to correlate back to the event. These strategies build their excitement and encourage them to share their experiences through word-of-mouth and social media with friends and family.
Remember that keeping the conversations going with consistent communication and creative interactions builds fans’ connections to the event itself. This will help to sell more tickets when it comes time for the upcoming event because the fans haven’t stopped connecting with the event since the previous one.
Online Platform Specifics
While maintaining fan engagement through online modalities, it is important to use each social media platform in a strategic way. Different platforms function with different content, tones, and behaviors among communities; thus, tailoring content keeps relevance across platforms.
Instagram’s highly visual nature plays into aesthetic short-form content with photos and videos. Curating stories, reels, and posts offer a variety of opportunities for different types of content. This could range from polls, countdowns, short video recaps, highlights from the events, and throwbacks.
TikTok
TikTok is a playful and authentic platform that is excellent for gaining viral moments. Participating in trends, creating challenges, and partnering with creators offer an opportunity to build the culture for an event. Videos are often short snippets around 30 seconds to one minute. Sharing outfit inspirations, what to bring to the event, and recreating trends with audio and hashtags are ways to reach a vast audience.
Facebook is more common among older audiences and is used for more local marketing. An event page and groups can be created through Facebook to share information about the event, post updates, lineups, and other information. Facebook is also a platform that can feature longer-form posts for an event.
YouTube
YouTube can be utilized to post long-form videos for an event, such as livestreams, recaps, interviews, or documentaries, and offer fans a way to reconnect and relive the experience of the event. YouTube is also beneficial for short-form videos, and curated event playlists could be another potential way to maintain off-season momentum through the platform.
Each platform’s content should fit the tone and format of that media channel. Content can be repurposed from one platform to another, if the tone and format are maintained.
Conclusion:
Year-round engagement is an important part of effective event marketing and can change a once-a-year event into a year-long experience. Understanding the event’s audience, the seasonal rhythms, and how to best utilize social platforms can further connect fans and attendees throughout the whole year.
Sustained communication throughout the year not only helps to build a community around an event but also keeps people excited and buzzing about the next event. Building a loyal community will enhance the potential growth of an event, as the loyal attendees will continue to spread the word and advocate for the event in the years to come.
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