Event Marketing + Digital PR: Amplifying Live Experiences Online

Despite the increase of digital marketing, there are some traditional marketing strategies that remain effective. 

One of the most effective forms of marketing is having face-to-face interactions and creating genuine connections with customers. Enter event marketing.

Here, brands can make themselves available in a situation where like-minded people (a brand’s target audience) are most likely to attend for a mutual interest. 

A good example would be a runner’s event. The brand booths that an attendee will most likely see at such an event are those that relate to running. The event will have runner apparel, sports, nutrition, and gym brands (to name a few) that all correlate to that specific lifestyle. These brands are, essentially, competing for a chance to be right where their target audiences are gathering, for a purpose that highlights their brand’s practical use, too!

Brands and Events

Brands mostly stage events with the following results in mind:

• Create or bolster brand awareness
• Promote a new product/product launch
• Strengthen brand loyalty
• Other marketing goals based on a brand’s promotional campaign at the time. 

In the current Philippine landscape, more and more brands are turning to intimate brand or product launches versus larger-scale public events. Similar to how nano-, micro-, and macro-influencers find success with their own niche audiences, these PR-driven launches and media/influencer engagements are able to reach a more focused market, thus producing more focused results.

Of course, in the same vein, the success of traditionally executed events still stands. Concerts, small-to-large-scale workshops, multi-day conferences, festivals, trade fairs, and activations are just a few of the types of events that brands can host or participate in. 

There is a perfect event for every brand and strategy. In some events, the target is not even to reach out to customers but to other businesses (B2B), to expand networks or create mutually beneficial campaigns and (future) events.

Key Points for Event Marketing Success

Once you have the perfect event, how do you now generate buy-in from your audience? How do the results stated above come to life?

First, ensure the success of the event execution.

There are several tactics employed by brands to better reach their audience and allow the event to succeed depending on their goals: 

• Free sampling
• Door gifts and freebies
• Interactive displays with comprehensive product/service information
• Product testing
• Event-exclusive promotions and discounts
• Raffles
• Social media-worthy installations
• Event hashtags
• Pre-event and post-event PR seeding
• And other creative ways designed to engage and immerse consumers even when they aren’t in attendance!

Remember: your event creates the opportunity for your brand to communicate directly with the consumer, creating an ideal dialogue to see what works or what doesn’t. This provides an opportunity for the target audience to be heard, and for the brands to develop their image or products to better cater to their target market. 

Being face to face with a consumer also provides a different perspective. It allows them to view your brand more personally, and creates a deeper connection especially when your communication is genuine. Scenarios like these create brand loyalty and a deeper willingness to purchase products.

The Role of Digital PR

To increase the effectiveness of marketing events, digital marketing and PR comes into play. 

Traditional news media outlets now exist in the digital landscape. Media amplification through pre-event seeding on online channels, broadcast engagements with online radio and video shows, and social media mentions on mainstream media accounts, are just some examples of how you can utilize digital media to market your event and your brand. These platforms bring with them the credibility that many audiences look for, too. 

On the day itself, live feeds of activities within the event expands the reach from those within the area to a much larger digital audience. These social media activations for your online audience trigger a “want” amongst the online audience to try out what they are seeing for themselves.

A very real trigger for active social media users is “FOMO” or the Feeling Of Missing Out. It is a powerful example of having two motivators to both push and pull an audience. The “pull” comes from the want to try a product or activity that online users are watching the live audience experience, to feel the same way they are. The “push” comes from not wanting to be doing whatever they are doing now, the rejection of the audiences’ normal daily lifestyle.

The opposite can also be true. A brand can emphasize the hassles of going out, the heat, the traffic, the overcrowded areas, the bad smells, and so forth. The content then creates a feeling in the audience of something they want to avoid, then the brand provides a kicker of their choosing to emphasize on the feelings they stirred up in their audience. 

Using social media influencers is also a great way to expand a brands audience, in terms of event marketing, a brand can tap into the influencers fanbase and based on the way the brand and influencer position themselves different goals can then be reached whether it may be to simply spread awareness or increase product sales.

RELATED: 

• The Power of Influence: Influencer Marketing Campaigns We Love
• Top TikTok Influencers in the Philippines: Make Your Campaign Shine

Whatever the goal may be digital PR can amplify live experiences. It’s all about the content and how a brand chooses to position itself to achieve their current goal.

How a PR agency can help

These are only a few examples of how digital PR can work together with event marketing to achieve the best results. 

To make the best of these strategies many brands turn to public relations agencies, who evaluate every situation and turn every step of a brand into an advantage in the future. 

Let’s face it: image is everything when it comes to brands. Hiring PR agencies ensures a brand connection that appeals to its target market and stays that way no matter what scenarios might occur. 

Take our PR-driven launch for Ming Sing Philippines: The Self-care PR Blueprint: Ming Sing’s #SheCanDoItAll Campaign to Empower Women

NGP IMC provided end-to-end PR and IMC services, ensuring that all communications – from pre-event to post-event and even during brand sales promotions – the key messages stayed consistent. The agency also ensured that the product launch event itself was reflective of the empowering vibe Ming Sing touts. The result? Thousands of online views, multiple PR pick-ups worth millions, and sold-out status on day one.

Let’s amplify your event through personalized, purposeful, and effective PR today. Contact NGP IMC.