Entertainment Event Marketing: Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs) Part 2

Why Create an Entertainment Event Marketing Plan?

The adage is true for event marketing; Fail to Plan; Plan to Fail. Failing in this case means not reaching the attendance you need for successful events. A good plan keeps you focused on what’s important to drive people to attend your event. Without one your marketing efforts will lack guidance. With one, you will know who, how, and when to connect with people and get them to attend your event.  Just as important, everyone on the event promotion team will have the information they need to create consistent and cohesive messaging and branding.

What Is Included in an Event Marketing Plan?

• Event Overview: Include all the details of the event, including name, date, time, location, performers, etc.
• Goals: Make sure you understand the outcomes you want to achieve from your marketing efforts. Different goals or objectives might change how you approach your marketing for an event.
• Target Audience: Understanding the people you will target with your event marketing efforts is essential at both determining how to reach them but also the value proposition and messaging that will have the greatest potential to get them to attend your event.
• Marketing Strategy: One you know your goals and target audience; you can define how best to reach them along with the branding and messaging involved. You will most likely use a mix of owned, earned, and paid marketing channels to engage your target audience. The strategy should also identify key themes, branding elements, and messaging for the marketing campaign, along with a calendar for employing specific marketing tactics and content. Ideas for compelling content designed for each channel should be addressed as well. Remember you want your marketing to be as engaging as the event itself.
• Budget: Your total marketing budget broken down by all the cost categories involved with the campaign. They include costs for planning and executing efforts to implement the event marketing plan, along with the other costs involved, e.g., PPC ads, social media ads, email marketing, graphic design, influencer partnerships, traditional media, etc.
• Evaluation and Follow-up: You should have objective measures of how well you did in achieving the goals and objectives you set out to achieve. Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) should be defined and used to measure progress and the campaign unfolds. The campaign can be modified based on the analysis of the data about how each channel is performing. It’s also important to stay engaged with attendees and collect feedback to improve future events.

What Is An Event Page and How Do I Create One?

You event page is the site where you will entice people to attend your event.  It’s the landing page for all your advertising. It should contain all of the event details and should be optimized for search engines with the relevant keywords to increase visibility in search engine results. Search engines use your event information to determine your relevance to search queries.

You should also create a Facebook event page with all of the pertinent information for your attendees. Please be sure to include the official pages of your performing artists or other unique elements of your event. In the event discussion area, you can make announcements or respond to questions. Presale codes or show times for a concert could be useful information to spread around the area

The event pages (website landing page or Facebook event page) should have a strong value proposition and engage visitors with great content and persuasive content to get them to take action and purchase a ticket to your event. You want to create a sense of excitement and engage potential attendees with your online presence.

What Paid Media Channels Are Available to Market My Event?

With more platforms and content channels than ever before, audiences are scattered across streaming services, social media, mobile apps, and traditional media. This makes it more difficult for marketers to reach targeted people at once, requiring a more multi-channel approach. Your channel selection traces back to defining your target audience(s) and what channels they are using. Each channel has advantages and disadvantages.

What Digital Advertising Channels Should I investigate for Entertainment Event Marketing?

According to Statista, users spend 2.5 hours on social media daily and about 3.2 hours watching movies and shows on video streaming networks.

• Audio Streaming Apps: Music streaming sites like Spotify, Pandora and iHeart allow audio ads as you might expect for those that do not have premium memberships. Spotify also serves display, and video adds when people open the Spotify app based on how a user is interacting with the app.
• TV Streaming Networks: Streaming TV advertising, also called OTT ads (over-the-top) runs within TV content watched through an Internet-connected device. The ads are delivered to consumers through streaming platforms such as Amazon, Netflix, Hulu, YouTube, Roku, and many others.
• Social Media Platforms: Social media advertising is important in reaching your target audience(s). It’s a huge part of the media and entertainment industry. Examples of social media used for event marketing include Meta’s Facebook and Instagram; X, LinkedIn, TikTok, YouTube, and other social media sites. They offer targeted ads that let you reach specific demographics at just the right time.
• PPC Advertising: These are pay-per-click ads that you run on search engines in response to certain search terms used by the searcher.
• Display Advertising: Display ads combine text, images, videos and more with a call to action (CTA ) URL link to the event page/website where people can learn about the event and purchase tickets. Advertisers pay either through how many people get an impression of the ad (CPM) or by the number of clicks on the ad. Display advertising is served based on the characteristics of your target audience, including demographics, interests, etc. to define where your ads will populate. It’s important that you understand your target audience(s) to ensure that you are showing your ads to the most relevant audience for your event.
• Remarketing Advertising: Remarketing or Retargeting ads are like display ads when it comes to design or placement. The difference is who they target. While display ads are used to reach new people, remarketing ads target users who have already visited or taken action on your website or event page. They are designed to reengage potential customers who have shown interest in your event. When someone visits your site a pixel is embedded in their browser. As they continue their online experience, the pixel signals ad networks to serve tailored ads based on their site activity.
• Email Marketing: Email marketing is still a great tool for marketing entertainment events. It’s a tried-and-true method not only for promoting events, but also keeping those planning to attend with resources and access to the latest news about the event. Keep them up to date with travel guidance, performance times, hotel listings, and using an event. To turn recipients into attendees, you’ll need catchy headings, personalized and engaging content, and simple calls to action.
• Event Listing Sites: When marketing events, don’t forget the obvious. You should list your entertainment event on free event listing sites such as Bandsintown and Songkick that are sites that specifically list entertainment events by geographic area. There are also local sites that list various kinds of events in their area. Here’s a listing of 40 free sites you should consider. Most cities have sites that list events taking place in them.

What is Influencer Marketing?

Influencers are those that have a following or a “fan” base. People follow influencers because they relate to them or have come to trust their opinions. They can include social media influencers, YouTube stars, athletes, performers, etc. Do not overlook local celebrities, whether they are local social media influencers or a radio DJ to promote your event. In the world of event marketing, the utilization of influencers to promote an entertainment event has emerged as a powerful strategy to get people to events.

How Do You Use an Influencer to Promote an Event?

You can either encourage them or pay them to promote an event once it’s announced. You can invite them to the event or have them participate in the event so they will have an extra incentive to promote before and in real-time throughout the event as well as publishing content after the event has taken place.

The artists performing at your event are critical influencers. It’s important that they post the event and invite people to attend on their social media platforms. Ask them to create a “shout out” video where they mention the event details and ask their fans and others to come out to it. The video and the audio can be utilized on marketing channels to promote the event.

What Traditional Marketing Channels Should I Consider to Advertise Events?

In this digital age, people forget to investigate some of the traditional marketing channels available to promote entertainment events. The problem with many of these channels is that they are mass media and it’s difficult to target your specific audience and track the results of using them.

Some channels such as television and direct mail can be very costly. The traditional channels include:

Print

• Posters: Putting posters up in high traffic areas is still a reliable means of creating interest in an entertainment event. Be sure to include a QR code that people can scan to access the event page. If you have partners who will hang your poster, it makes this channel easier to use. Otherwise, you will need the help of a street team to go around to businesses to ask them to hang your event poster.
• Newspapers: In addition to placing ads in local newspapers, consider sending articles to them about your event.
• Magazines: Magazines are typically too costly for event marketing. However there are magazines that are about events in their reach areas that might work for your event.
• Direct Mail: Direct mail is not used for event marketing because of the costs involved for printing and mailing such campaigns.

Radio

• Broadcast Radio: Radio is still used for marketing concerts and festivals. Using both advertising and ticket giveaways on a radio station of the same music genre as your event may make sense. Often radio DJs are celebrities and can be an influencer to help market the event. Consider using the radio DJ to emcee your event as well to get them to promote the event to their fans and listeners.
• Internet Radio: Internet radio can have a wider reach than broadcast radio and advertising rates are typically lower than broadcast radio

Television

Television is often too expensive and untargeted as an effective channel to market entertainment events. You might consider cable television as an alternative to broadcast television. Television streaming services have better targeting capabilities.

Billboards

Billboards can be very useful at the local level for creating awareness of an event. Digital billboards allow for marketers to share a billboard to bring the costs down. They also allow more dramatic content, such as video to engage passer byers.

While I’m sure you still have other questions about promoting or marketing an entertainment event, I hope that these frequently asked questions will provide guidance to you. If you have additional questions on how to market your event, feel free to reach out to TSE Entertainment: info@tseentertainment.com

Related Posts:

Entertainment Event Marketing: Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ)

Promoting Live Music Events Using Influencer Marketing

Using Mass Media for Event Promotion