As a modern event strategist, your days are likely a blur of attempting to determine the balance you need between digital and in-person engagement while maintaining marketing goals across the organization. When you aren't working on the budget, you're seeking the perfect candidate for a keynote session or thought-leadership breakout to keep your attendees engaged.
The COVID-19 pandemic turned your job as an event strategist into an entirely new direction as you transitioned to digital events. Now, you're melding in-person and digital events into a cohesive strategy — but there’s still one thing that’s changing. You need to meld your company's marketing strategy into everything you touch.
In essence, you need to add ‘holistic event marketer’ to your resume.
"While you probably already know the value of experiential and content marketing, event marketing is a comprehensive game plan that mixes the best of both worlds."
Here are some things to convince you to put your event strategist skills to work and become an event marketer as well.
The Cohesion of Event Strategy and Event Marketing
Event strategy and event marketing are two sides of the same coin. Once the event strategist shifts their thinking and makes a few adjustments, they'll see how these two roles blend seamlessly together to make every one of the in-person and digital events a rousing success.
The evolution from a simple event strategist to one who is also skilled at event marketing will be crucial in the immediate future of event strategy. These changes have benefited the company and helped the business maintain brand awareness and continued growth during a trying time for most industries.
It's become essential to see how digital elements become part of the bigger marketing picture. This includes elements such as webinars that are released as supplemental pieces of content that appeal to customers throughout the year, ultimately keeping you top-of-mind and encouraging them to attend your biggest conference of the year.
These digital events can and must align with the marketing philosophy of the current and future campaigns. With the new digital events, event strategists have had to strive for new ways to engage the customers and generate new leads. Combining marketing and event strategy is the way to become successful now and in the future.
Revenue and Demand Generation
The change of incorporating digital events into the roster has been swift, but it's shown how successful the combination of two types of events can be for a company. Here's what Forbes had to say about it:
"Covid-19 was a variable that none of us planned for. It changed every assumption about demand generation and rearranged it in entirely unpredictable ways."
Event strategists have worked hard to evolve their skill sets and see new possibilities in the unknown of digital events. This opportunity has allowed them to highlight their versatility. As they pivot again to include event marketing into their skill set, they add value to their position and to the company.
Demand Generation
Demand generation is an essential role in both event strategy and marketing as it drives the company's customer base to adopt new products and services. The event strategist needs to find new leads, both in digital and in-person formats. When they begin to create a more cohesive policy of strategy and marketing during events, they'll find the formula they need for successful demand generation.
New digital elements have allowed the event strategist to more easily generate new demand and leads without the in-person event. The most successful digital elements include:
- Webinars
- Digital Keynotes
- Thought-Leadership Sessions
These elements encourage engagement and also help to close the disparity between guest registration and attendance. As an event strategist creates their strategy for these elements, they need to make sure they align with the company's marketing plan. Once they center their strategy around the marketing plan, it becomes easier to incorporate the marketing strategy into everything they do for an event.
If they're able to successfully integrate these new digital elements, they'll find that the demand generation increases as a result. It also has the ability to increase brand recognition, which is a key skillset for both event strategists and marketers. These two positions hold many of the same goals and morphing into an event marketer increases overall value.
Revenue Generation
An event strategist knows that the measure of their success is the ability to generate revenue for the company through skillfully planned events. An event strategist works hard to create a strategy that engages attendees and ultimately results in new streams of revenue.
All of a sudden, digital events began to show their worth by generating revenues in ways that event strategists haven't been able to at in-person events. This new format for events has managed to generate brand awareness and gain net-new contact, ultimately resulting in future revenue growth.
Event strategists are eagerly awaiting the return to high-ticket in-person events. They need to make sure that they're taking advantage of all the opportunities and generating as much revenue as possible. There are two ways they can capitalize on revenue growth:
- Immediate Revenue: Ticket sales for the event are a great way to generate immediate revenue. Also, if they put together the perks that appeal the most to the company's customer base, they increase the immediate revenue by upgrading a regular ticket sale to a VIP package, knowing their customers are essential for a tempting VIP package.
- Future/Pipeline Revenue: The revenue from an event should continue after it. By incorporating new digital elements and acting as a holistic event marketer, they can improve brand reach and expand their potential customer base even post-event.
With a new holistic marketing mindset, event strategists can achieve all of their event goals, both digital and in-person.
Conclusion
Moving from the mindset of an event strategist to an event marketer helps to improve an event strategist's value in a changing world. By utilizing digital elements in all their events, they can improve brand awareness and generate new leads. Demand and revenue generation improves as they focus on a holistic marketing approach.
At Impact Point Group, we understand the challenges you are facing. We can help pivot to new strategies and develop new skill sets in this quickly changing landscape. Contact us now to learn more or to schedule a meeting.