Event Marketing Automation – 10 Tips To Get Started

There is no doubt that event marketing is one of the most challenging jobs out there. The constant need to meet the needs of every stakeholder and to communicate with presenters about last-minute whims and fancies can cause you to fall into a routine. 

The use of event marketing automation can be a beneficial tool for event planners because it allows you to eliminate tedious marketing chores and accomplish more in less time than you could have imagined.

Automated marketing can help with various tasks, from driving traffic to your campaigns to converting visitors into leads to following up on leads. With marketing automation, you can focus on the big picture of your marketing strategy instead of worrying about the small things.

What is Event Marketing Automation?

An event marketing automation platform or tool automates the communication process for events. You can schedule invites, registration reminders, and attendance reminders; thanks for coming, and sorry we missed your emails in advance and set them to go out at the right time. 

The advent of modern technology has led to the availability of more and more automation tools and capabilities online. Marketers can rely on this to automate plenty of their campaigns and strategies.

An event automation platform like 10times includes:

• Event registration tools.
• A website
• A mobile event app
• Analytics for event-specific marketing

Automating your event marketing communications can free up your event marketers and managers to do more important things, like ensuring the event is well-planned.

The 21st century is here, and it’s time to switch up your event marketing.

Tips for getting started with event marketing automation

Once you learn how much work event marketing automation tools take off your hands, you may be tempted to start using them immediately. However, you should consider some essential points, so your automated event marketing efforts are successful.

1. Choose the right event management solution 

You need a robust event management solution to achieve complete marketing automation for event management. Thus, choosing an event management software that is powerful is crucial.

Furthermore, a successful event marketer must launch a successful event (event registration, landing pages, mobile app, analytics).

By using event marketing automation platform, you can: 

• Sync and manage multiple marketing channels from one location. 
• Increase footfall conversion by generating and tracking leads.
• Analyze web and social media analytics for actionable business insights.
• Meetings can also be arranged between your leads. It enhances their experience and makes them feel connected to your event.
• Engage attendees during the gap between online registration and event attendance by sending automated reminders.

Thus, it is vital to select a tool that has all the relevant features as well as open-ended integration possibilities.

2. Develop a marketing automation strategy

Marketing automation platforms are essential if you want to launch an event marketing campaign that leverages event data. Marketing automation is essential for event management to automate repetitive tasks and maintain campaign momentum. Additionally, you’ll need a framework to guide your event marketing automation efforts.

• How often should you contact your audience?
• In what ways will you communicate about your workflow with other teams? 
• Will you combine email outreach with remarketing announcements and personalization?

3. Select a marketing automation admin

Creating workflows, maintaining smart segmented lists, and integrating platforms are critical components of marketing automation for event management. 

It requires a dedicated marketing operations specialist on your team who can handle all technical work, from automating marketing to managing event marketing. 

You can minimize the likelihood of encountering problems related to irregularities and disorganization in the platform by assigning a specific person to track the implementation of various systems, reports, and workflows.

4. Easily accessible personalized information

Access to personalized information is one of the most significant benefits of event marketing automation. 

This is an excellent help for event planners in terms of personalization factors and filtering the guest list and attendees for marketing campaigns and reminders.

5. Keep your guest data up-to-date

To better understand the attendees, collect and maintain their data. The data can be collected from event registration, check-ins, virtual badge scans, and educational seminars, among other methods. 

When you analyze this data, you can better understand user behavior, eliminate outdated data, and figure out what events they would like to attend in the future.

6. Implement Chatbots

Make sure you implement AI-infused chatbots so attendees can reach you quickly. Chatbots may also significantly improve the effectiveness of your event marketing automation plan. 

A chatbot can deliver chat support services, interpret customer queries, quickly resolve problems, automate user check-ins, and gather user information.

7. Segment Event Invitations

There may be various reasons and goals for your audience to attend your virtual event. Therefore, segmenting your audiences based on their demographics when creating event invitations is advisable. 

To accomplish this, generate match patterns for event attendees and create content that meets their needs for each audience segment. Also, create strategic invitation lists based on the segmentation rule to analyze how specific speakers affect the different types of virtual event participants.

8. Track your Event Promotion Tactics

To determine what has worked and what hasn’t, you must track and measure the results of your event promotion efforts. As a result, you will be able to analyze what tactics are working for you and compare them for a better strategy in the future. 

9. Get listed on the right platform

Integrating event management or marketing software with a robust event listing platform reveals its potential. Nowadays, most visitors, exhibitors, vendors, speakers, etc., rely on event listing/discovery platforms to find suitable events. As a result, the listing platform and event management/marketing software are integrated.

You can keep track of people listed remotely in your event as an event planner. In this way, you enrich your marketing funnel with the right people from relevant industries.

10. Review available integrations

Capturing relevant data and delivering it to the right stakeholders is essential to event marketing automation. Consider the different tools you currently use when assessing event marketing automation software and how they can be integrated with your event software to increase productivity and visibility.

Conclusion

Creating email and SMS campaigns for a single event would take over 20 hours, not to mention the time spent manually creating a registration form and segmenting contact lists based on their engagement (whether they opened an email, whether they registered or attended). 

Adding marketing automation to your event-hosting repertoire could give you a competitive edge over your competitors. Choosing the right event automation software can drastically increase your ticket sales and alleviate the administrative and marketing burden.