9 Actionable Ways To Promote an Event Online In 2024
Planning, promoting, and hosting online events requires time and persistence as an in-person event. In 2024, holding events without online promotion will attract too few participants.
According to Exploding Topics, 75% of business marketers increase their budget to promote events online.
A well-defined event marketing plan is a key factor to the success of your event and standing out from the crowd in the competitive online event market.
To avoid getting lost in the digital shuffle, keep reading for nine must-haves for promoting your event and reaching a wider audience.
Creating an event landing page
The primary step is to create a separate event page where people can get all the necessary information about your upcoming event.
Include details like:
- Event date and time;
- Event speakers bios;
- Event agenda;
- Sponsor and partner information;
- Emphasize the unique advantages of participating in the event;
- CTA (call to action) button to register for the event;
- Payment options;
- FAQ section
Try to craft an event page that sells using an independent color scheme that fits logos, brand books, professional photos, videos, and blocks with reviews and visual effects.
When you create a page for your event on the website, you will have to utilize the design of your site.
If you want to make a unique design, consider a landing page. Plus, you can introduce a countdown on the homepage and offer pre-registration at a discount. It will help advertise this page, get more leads, and gather more participants.
Early Bird Registration
This approach acts as a bearer discount flyer. You place the condition of early bird registration on the site and offer instead unique terms that no one else will receive. It is a more attractive way to encourage your audience than simple discounts.
Here are some options you can offer your customers for early bird registration:
- An obscene big discount;
- Expensive and valuable merch;
- Other gifts and coupons to participate in the raffle.
On-page Optimization
Any event you have is related to your field of activity, or why would you hold it, right?! Therefore, after creating an event landing page, you need to optimize it for SEO. Some of the best SEO certifications can provide you with insightful tips on how you can do so.
Make a checklist:
- Images load quickly;
- Place relevant keywords and phrases;
- Check links;
- Web page scannability;
- Optimize for mobile;
- Get backlinks to your event page;
- Block or banner on the home page;
- Write the event announcement in the blog.
Social Media
Social media influence is widely grown, and 91% of companies and marketers use Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, and more. It’s an excellent and actionable way to promote an event online before, during, and after.
Start announcing your event in two weeks because it is necessary to begin heating the public interest. Post announcements about your online event on social media, and ask your partners to do the same. Remember to provide them with all information, pictures, and affiliate links to track results.
Try to find free groups and post announcements to invite everyone to join in.
Next, you should introduce an element of encouragement: you must be encouraging when registering. It can be a referral program or participation in a lottery with unique gifts. These terms must be announced in advance.
Take advantage of social media ads and engage more participants.
Email Marketing
Email marketing is one of the popular and effective ways to implement that will help you attract more participants to your online event.
Let your subscribers know about upcoming events. Use registration follow-ups, confirmation emails, reminders to join, and post-event emails to express gratitude to attendees and share recordings, presentations, or gifts.
Take care about engaging email in a fun and easy-to-implement manner. However, you must make a chain letter rather than a trained text message. With Stripo or MailChimp, you can use the template and recycle it yourself, using automation for a more convenient implementation of email strategy.
Video Marketing
Video marketing is still growing in popularity and makes people more likely to buy, helping to achieve better results for marketers. Using video psychology, you can hit the jackpot.
If you have a great video maker who can make cool videos, you should use it in your strategy.
Place your video on YouTube, Instagram, Facebook, and partner sites, and more users will know about the event.
In your videos, you should engage users like and comment on them. This way, you will increase online registrations to your event. Also, you need to optimize the videos for different platforms by adapting the format and length, such as creating shorter teaser videos for social media platforms.
Press Releases
Creating press releases for collaboration has been and remains one of the most necessary marketing strategies to attract more participants for the event.
To make this technique successful, you need to learn how to:
- Write an effective press release for your online event.
- Distribute it to special press release distribution services like EIN Presswire, Collaborator, etc., or try a useful list of free press release submission sites.
This way, you will get a helpful backlink and attract more users who can visit your event.
Influencer Partnerships
Influencer partnerships can significantly enhance your event promotion efforts by leveraging the existing audience and credibility of influential individuals in your industry.
For example, Brand24 will help you to identify the influencers within your niche and collaborate with them, reaching out to your target audience.
Another way to find influencers using LinkedIn with keywords relevant to your business. You can define influencers who you might want to collaborate with, check their profiles, posts, and followers, and connect them for your influencer marketing campaign.
What matters is that you’re using influencer partnerships to maximize your potential for exposure.
Giveaways
Gifts have always been an excellent way for any marketing activity, not only for the event.
You can promise to give out gifts from partners and valuable prizes, and more people will visit your conference.
However, you must realize that many people who want to participate only because of the gift will leave as soon as they receive it.
So, if you are planning expensive gifts for participation, holding a raffle at the end of the event is better.
Conclusion
If you want to succeed with your event idea, choose the promoting event techniques we discussed above to make your work easier.
Although it’s not an exhaustive list, it should help you get started brainstorming about the effective ways to promote your event online and include them in your marketing plan.
It is guaranteed to bring you more attendees.
About the Author / Ana Almeida
