The success of an event planner business is measured in terms of the number of orders it gets for organizing events. However, there are many players (event planners) in the market nowadays and the quest to get more orders for events is way high. This creates a challenge to grow your event planning business. But the good news is that any business that adopts the right marketing strategies can always remain ahead in the game. This is why we have made this list of event planner marketing ideas that will help you to fetch more clients for organizing events. The marketing strategies are listed below:
1) Start With Optimizing Website for More Sales
Making a website for showcasing your event planning business online is not a big deal. The real test of your website’s level of success is the proportion of qualified leads it generates in comparison to the total number of visitors it gets. Let’s say that during a month, your site got 300 visitors and only 12 out of them called or contacted your business, then this means that your site was able to convert only 4 percent of the monthly visitors which is not a good indication. In order to use your website to its full potential, you need to work toward increasing the conversion rates. This makes it necessary that your website has the following things:
a) A client who wants to quickly book an appointment with you should be able to do so directly through your website itself.
b) An almost immediate loading time of your website must be ascertained to prevent visitors from abandoning your site.
c) A phone number with a clear call to action button must be present on your homepage.
d) A potential consumer may never call or contact your business if they are unable to see your website content properly when browsing through their mobile device, which is why it is essential for your website to be optimized for mobile display.
e) By displaying past accomplishments and customer testimonials, you can get more people to believe in your business and to take event planning services from you.
2) Good SEO Equals More Online Visibility and Sales
Unless your event planning website appears on Google’s top 10 results for search queries, it will not receive any huge organic traffic from Google. As a result, you must look for strategies to position your website in Google’s top ten search results. That being said, some factors come into play in order to determine the ranking of a website on the search results, which are referred to as SEO (Search Engine Optimization). There are some free resources available online that can help you to better understand using and implementing SEO. Hiring an SEO agency is another safe and reliable option for improving SEO performance and generating more sales as well as brand awareness.
3) Have and Optimize the “Google Business Profile” of Your Business
Google Business Profile, popularly known as Google My Business (GMB) listings usually appear on the top of the search results for most local searches made on Google. Because they possess the ability to generate high-quality local leads, you should create a Google Business Profile page for your business with as many facts filled out as possible, including the name of your business, your opening hours, your address, your phone number, any photographs, etc. These outcomes also appear on Google Maps in addition to being included in Google search results. Since they show many things about a business, people searching on Google are more inclined to click on them thereby capturing a big portion of local leads. So prepare your GMB page today as it is one of the must-have marketing avenues for any business.
4) Make Your Content Fetch You More Clients
Your website’s visibility in search engines for different keywords and phrases will significantly increase as you add more content to your website. This will boost relevant traffic to the website and, as a result, leads and sales will also increase. This highlights the value of content marketing for your business. You can start researching different topics related to event planning and start writing blog content on them. After a few months of consistently writing on these topics, you should notice an increase in organic traffic/visitors to your site.
5) Use Pay Per Click Ads (PPC)
When compared to more conventional forms of advertising such as television and radio ads, online advertising mediums such as Google Ads and Bing Ads allow you to target your audience with a greater degree of precision through various parameters like location, keywords, etc. Because you are charged only when a prospective client clicks on your online ads, the cost is way cheaper than what would cost you for advertisements on television/radio. These ads are also one of the fastest methods to bring in customers because the ad campaigns on Google and Bing often get approved to run within a few days after which you may start receiving traffic and leads soon. If you aren’t familiar with the fundamentals of managing digital advertisements on your own, you have two options: hire a digital advertising business to manage your business advertising on your behalf, or study a few of the numerous ad managing guidelines accessible online.
6) Adopt Social Media Marketing For Your Business
It is no longer possible to ignore the all-pervasive nature of social media. Social media marketing has been adopted by a diverse range of businesses and service providers across a variety of sectors due to the enormous benefits associated with them. If you put some effort and time into growing the number of people who follow your business on social media, you will see the long-term benefits of it for your business. In order to Increase the number of people who follow your business on social media, you need to consistently provide content that is interesting and valuable to your audience. You can also promote your social media accounts via other avenues of marketing so as to grow your audience rapidly. Another thing that you can do for social media marketing of your event planning business is to ask your customers to share your social media profiles on their personal profiles for which you can reward them with some or the other offer/discounts, etc.
7) Gain Referrals To Your Business
Your business should make efforts to advertise itself through favorable word-of-mouth publicity. It is a simple way to bring in new customers while retaining the loyalty of your existing customers. The quickest and easiest approach to do this is to provide incentives to your existing customers so that they can recommend your company to members of their social network and to their friends and family. This promotional strategy has the potential to significantly increase sales if it is carried out correctly.
8) Use Email Marketing To Getting More Attempts of Making Sales
Customers who have visited your website and other digital marketing assets (like social media) may be interested in the services offered by you. Email marketing is the right means to establish a communication line with people coming across your digital assets online. Make it simple for people to join your email list. By displaying sign-up forms prominently on your website, you can make the process of signing up easy for your site visitors. To get new subscribers continuously, offer discounts or freebies in exchange for their email addresses. If you have your customers’ email addresses, you can be confident that you can convince them a few times again to try out your services. This, in turn, carries a large potential for your event planning business to expand its sales.
9) Press Release Distribution for Multiple Benefits
The true potential of a press release is still unknown to the majority of businesses out there in the world. And it is completely understandable because they might not have heard about it in the first place, but those who utilize it regularly know that press releases are more than just mere instruments for publicizing announcements. A business can quickly get its content published on popular news portals like Yahoo News, Associated Press, Fox news affiliates, etc. by employing premium press release syndication websites. These press releases also help to generate valuable backlinks which contribute to raising your official website’s Google rankings. Press releases are also an excellent brand-building tool that helps businesses to get all the necessary traction and visibility on big news websites.
10) Use Influencers to Spread Trust in Your Business
“Influencers” are those people who command a sizable online following on social media platforms. A good percentage of these influencers are open to connecting with other businesses for monetary rewards. You can network with these people to get the word out about your event planning services to the followers of these influencers. The result will be more people knowing about your business. The only thing to remember is that the influencer must have at least a moderate following of people within your area of business.
11) Use Linkedin To Get Big Orders
LinkedIn is the best online community for interacting with high-level decision-makers of various companies. If you take the time to make connections with decision-makers of companies operating in your region, you can easily make deals with them to provide your event organizing services. Achieving even a modest monthly success rate in closing these agreements can be pivotal to the growth of your event planning business. This is because large organizations usually tend to issue bigger orders.
12) Catch More Leads With Directories
Put your event planning business-related keywords on Google and start noting down the names of directories and sites (like Yelp, Crunchbase) that appear on the first page of results. After compiling the list, visit each of these sites and provide your business details. By doing so, you’ll open a new marketing channel for your business. However, you should check these sites often to see the ratings and reviews that customers have given followed by replying to questions and reviews. This is a very inexpensive and easy approach to get clients using the ranking authority of big sites.
13) Don’t Ignore the Power of Video Marketing
Once you start posting videos about your business on YouTube, you will also see these videos appearing on Google search results which will add more views and consequently leads to your event planning business. If you want your videos to have better chances of getting a good ranking, you need to focus on long-tail queries (5, 6 words long search terms). The more videos of your business that are uploaded to Youtube, the better will be your prospects of generating leads and sales. Also, it will help, indirectly, to raise awareness of your company’s brand.
14) Have Low-Cost Merchandise Get More Customers
Balloons, hankies, key chains, pens, pocket diaries, and other low-cost goods that can be printed with the name of your business on them can become good tools for promoting your event planning business. It is a simple and effective approach to leave a good impression of your business on your customers. Everyone who comes into contact, whether directly or indirectly, with the individualized printed products of your company will take notice of your business name.
15) Watch out for Reviews
Now that more people have access to information due to the internet, the inclination towards validating a company’s legitimacy online is on rise. Therefore, if a prospective client searches for your business name on Google and finds favorable reviews, then that client is more likely to use your event planning services. The reverse is also true: if someone searches for your company’s name and gets blank results, or negative reviews, that person will not be inclined in taking your services. For this reason, you should encourage more of your customers to leave reviews of your business online. This process of getting reviews can be ramped up if you come up with some discounts or incentives for customers who leave reviews online.
16) Be Seen on Related Publications
Find out all the top circulating magazines and publications closely relevant to your industry and find a way to contribute posts/articles on them (by reaching out to their editorial desk). Alternatively, you can also enquire about paid advertising opportunities on such publications in order to be seen by more potential customers. By securing ads/posts on magazines that are mostly circulated among top-level management executives, you will not only build the reputation of your event planning business but will also open the possibility to attract high-end clients.
Additionally, when your event organizing business gets seen in such magazines and publications, you can proudly showcase, on your website and other marketing materials, that your business has been covered in leading publications which will definitely increase the brand impression of your business.
17) Build Relationships and Offer Addons
As an event planner, you might require the services of many other professionals like florists, caterers, bands, DJs, musicians, etc. Since such group of people often receive requests for event planners too, so your business must make relations with as many businesses and services linked with your event industry in order to get more leads.
You can also harness the power of relationships with these associated businesses in order to grow your business revenue by offering addon services related to your events. You can offer extra services by partnering with the above-mentioned businesses and can offer more customized choices. This will give more options to your clients and more profits for your business.
18) Involve in Relevant Trade Shows
You can easily discover many sites online that list upcoming trade shows and events in various regions. By actively participating in relevant trade shows where the targeted segment of your potential customers is likely to participate, you can easily promote your event planning business. To gain more exposure at such shows and events, you can also explore the opportunity of becoming a sponsor or co-sponsor of such events and shows. To let more participating people and businesses remember your business, you can also distribute some inexpensive custom-printed merchandise of your business at such trade shows.
19) Host Free Events for Special Segments and Occasions
In order to attract a big crowd that can be made familiar with your business, you can hold free events that are targeted to special segments or occasions. A good example will be hosting a free event for new startups from your region. This way you can design many segments for which you can host different types of events along with making them aware of your business. In terms of hosting events for occasions, a good example with be hosting events for engineers day. To reduce the cost of these events, you can associate with other businesses that will become sponsors/partners of these events.
20) Share “Behind The Scene” Videos and Interviews
Building trust is a crucial factor in making more sales and one of the good ways to build trust is by sharing videos of your past events. A good move in this direction would be to share “behind the scene” videos where you can share key moments from your previous events along with sharing interviews and bytes from your previous customers who are happy with the events held by you. These videos and interviews can be shared on multiple platforms like your social media profiles and website in order to increase the conversion rates of incoming traffic into sales.
21) Grow Your Business With Charity
Many charities and NGOs receive funds from big businesses and by donating to charities, you can establish good relations with such charities. Once you establish a line of communication with charity organizations and NGOs, you can use them as sources to get introduced to big businesses. Further, donating to such organizations will also create a good perception of your business.
22) Build Loyalty and Referrals with Special Cards
Make a record of all the dates on which you have held events along with noting down the reasons as to why those dates were special for your customers. This way you can find that you will have a list of many anniversaries and special occasions that are relevant to your clients. By sending out cards for these special days to your previous clients, you can not only establish a good line of communication with them but will also open the possibilities for getting more orders and references from these customers. Make sure that your cards should reach them at least one or two weeks before these special days so that if they would like to hold the same event again, they can avail of your services.
23) Make Use of Your Competitors
Sometimes, you or your competitors might face a shortage of some requirements that are vital to holding events successfully. In such instances, having a good alliance with competing businesses can be very useful. It can also happen that due to conflicting dates or other unforeseen reasons, your competitors might not take up a new project and you can take such opportunities from them if you have sorted out any prior deal (referrals or commissions) with them.
24) Stay Tuned With New Developments
The competition in every sector is growing and if your business doesn’t evolve with time, it is bound to witness a downfall. To remain relevant with the changing times, keep a close watch on what new things and processes are evolving in the event industry. Your business must be the first to adopt new technologies and processes to remain one step ahead of your competitors.
25) Offline Marketing is Also Important
In spite of the fact that the majority of marketing strategies are increasingly focusing on online marketing, offline marketing is still relevant to bring in leads and revenues for businesses around the world. Offline marketing has some limitations compared to online marketing namely higher cost and few targeting possibilities. Advertisements in newspapers, on billboards, posters, banners, are some of the most commonly used offline marketing methods to bring in visibility and sales.
These event planner marketing strategies are effective in ensuring the growth of your business. Questions, and suggestions related to this post are welcome and you can leave your feedback below.
