One of the most important milestones of event marketing or promotion is the event marketing announcement. Whether it’s a concert or festival, how, where, and when you announce the event is a big deal. Many venues and event promoters don’t understand how important the announcement is and getting it right can make a big difference in making the event financially successful.
An entertainment event marketing announcement is the sharing the details of an upcoming concert or festival to the public. It typically contains the event date, time, place, description, and other key information about it.
It needs to be done right as part of the event promotion strategy for any event. A general rule in event promotion or marketing is that approximately 40% of an event’s marketing budget is spent during the event marketing announcement time period, i.e. immediately before, during, and after the announcement.
Poor application of the event announcement process can waste a major marketing opportunity and a portion of that spending. To get the most bang for your buck requires venues and event promoters to understand the importance of event announcements and to do their homework before any announcement.
Too often TSE sees venues rolling our concerts or festival announcements in the same way no matter who is headlining the event and what kind of experiences await attendees. The announcements often have the same look with only the graphic along with the event details changed. Each event announcement is distributed to the same promotional channels as well no matter who is performing.
We often see the same tired approach on the artists’ side as well when they announce an event to their fans. Unless prompted and given additional content to use, artists don’t communicate their concerts or performances in a way that reaches most of their fans. Their announcements only connect with a small number of their followers who are focused on any news announced by the artist or band through their social networks.
Those venues or promoters that operate this way think that they need to announce the event before they start doing the actual marketing to get people to buy tickets. Their only objective is to create some level of awareness among the public and those that have attended a previous event at the venue. They don’t seem to understand that the event announcement is the first major opportunity to market their event.
The Importance of the Event Announcement in Marketing Events
The event announcement is more than announcing event details. It’s a marketing tactic to generate attention, build interest, and get people engaged. Done right, it helps your event stand out from others and gives your audience a reason to, at the very least, learn more or decide that it’s an event they want to attend. It can also help you gauge interest early on about the show. Well trite, it still holds true: you only get one chance to make a first impression.
Creating and distributing an effective event announcement requires two things up front:
- Knowing your target audience
- Having clear objectives for the announcement.
These answer the “who” and “why” questions. Once we understand them, they will lead us to get at the answers to “how,” and “when.”
Target Audience for Event Marketing Announcements
I don’t remember how many times I’ve said the words; “It all begins with the Target Audience.” Before you announce your event, you should have a clear understanding of the various people and audience segments that you will target to get people to come to your event. Those groups that are most likely to buy tickets to enjoy the performers and activities associated with your event.
That requires that you spend some time researching them, so you understand them well enough to effectively market your event to them. You should understand not only their demographics but use psychographic marketing information as well.
Start with those who have attended similar events in the past. Look for common characteristics and their preferences. Complement what you already know by surveying them as well. It’s important to know their preferences as to what promotion channels they favor whether online or offline. You should already know the digital marketing channels that were most effective in reaching certain groups if you have been using analytics to track engagement and ticket sales for previous events.
Another approach that you should also consider is the fan base of your headliner(s) or performers. Their fans that live within your drawing area as well as their characteristics will be critical to understanding your target audience for marketing, including the event announcement.
Once you have a clear understanding of those that have attended similar events as well as adding the headliners’ fan traits, you should have a good understanding of your target audience. Armed with this information, you can create “look alike audiences” within your geographic drawing area for your events to expand your reach for the event announcement and other marketing strategies.
Use what you have learned about potential attendees to group them into smaller segments based on shared traits or behaviors. Doing so allows you to create more personalized event announcements and marketing messages that resonate with that group.
Understanding the Objectives of Event Announcements
Let’s look at what you are trying to accomplish when you announce an event.
- Awareness: I think we all can agree that making potential attendees aware of our event is a critical objective of an event announcement. For many venues, that’s the only objective they are focused on when announcing their events.
- Buzz: Call it buzz, engagement, or attention, your announcement should stand out and get people talking about it. A good announcement creates anticipation and sets the tone for the event.
- Reach: A good announcement will reach the largest number of people in the target audience segments on the promotion channels they frequent and at a time when they are most likely to engage with it.
- Drive Actions: A good announcement will drive people to take actions. That could include purchasing tickets, sharing on social media, seeking more information, or engaging with contests, polls, etc.
- Assessment of Marketing Effectiveness: Event announcements can also give you a better understanding of how different segments of your target audience react. By analyzing how people respond to your event announcement you may find that there are differences in the level of interest among the segments that can help you better target future marketing messages and help assess and improve your initial marketing plan.
The How and When of Event Announcements
Knowing the other objectives of an event marketing announcement should lead you to craft a careful, well though out approach to such announcements. There are many potential channels to announce your event. You should take advantage of as many of them as possible, which may resonate with segments of your target audience. Examples include emails to those who have attended past events; social media posts and ads; press releases; radio and print ads; posters; event-listing websites; and even direct mail.
For venues with a subscriber list, an email campaign will be an important component of announcing events. These days, social media must also be a part of any event announcement marketing strategy.
A word about social media. Social media is a big part of event marketing and event announcements. You need to be targeting those social media channels where your audience segments hang out so to speak. You also need to use engaging content that matches the content type of choice by each channel. Using social media effectively should result in your announcement getting in front of more people as people share your announcement posts.
Whatever channels you use, be sure that they are ones where your target audience will likely see it and be sure to use the best practices for utilizing each particular promotional channel. That gets us to the “how” of event announcements.
Let’s start with the basics. Any event announcement should include the basic details about the event, such as:
- The title of the event
- Location
- Date and time
- Headliner(s) and performers
- Where to go for tickets or more information
- A call-to-action (CTA)
Of course, that information is of little value unless people see and engage with the announcement. That brings us to go deeper into the “how” and the “when” of event announcements. Other elements that are critical to get your announcements to stand out include:
- Compelling Headline that speaks to your target audience and is attention-grabbing while conveying the crux of your event.
- Clear and Concise Language using strong verbs and active tense.
- Value Proposition that gives people a reason to want to attend, i.e., sell the event.
- Visual Appeal is exceedingly important so consider this. It’s the visual appeal that will first catch the eye of those exposed to your announcement. Without high quality graphics, images or videos, the chances that someone will take note and engage with your announcement is near nil. Use visuals that reflect the upcoming event. Create anticipation by using images, graphics and videos from past events so people can get a taste of what will happen. On social media use videos to grab attention and get people engaged and make your announcements more memorable.
- Social Proof is important as a marketing tactic. Depending on the announcement channel, include testimonials from past events, major sponsors, influencer partnerships, etc. to reassure potential attendees that your event is a can’t miss one.
Conclusion
As you can see. There’s a lot involved in creating and distributing an event marketing announcement. It begins with a thorough understanding of your target audience. It’s about crafting an announcement that speaks to them with compelling headlines, clear details, appealing and fun visuals and videos, and a straightforward call to action that you announce through the various channels that you target audience frequents.
Done right, it will attract eyeballs, cause people to take action, and inform your future marketing efforts. It can mean the difference between financial success or failure of your event.
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