5 Event Marketing Tools You Need to Use Now

5 Event Marketing Tools You Need to Use Now

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You can put plenty of effort and strategies into planning your next event but it won't be a success unless you have strong attendance. Marketing is important for helping the right people discover your event. Within your promotional plan, make sure you try these five event marketing tools. 

An Event Management Tool

Consider using a platform designed for event management to help you with your marketing. These platforms can help you market through email and other online means. They often support registration, tracking of attendees, surveys and other aspects of marketing and managing the event planning process. You have many options to choose from, such as Bizzabo, Attendease, Eventbrite and etouches. Choose the one that fits your company size and event marketing needs.

An Event App

This tool allows you to keep definite and potential attendees up-to-date about your event before it happens. Current audiences expect this capability, plus it will keep people informed and interested. They can learn new details about the event, such as added speakers or accommodations, as they become available, which keeps the event in your audience’s mind, builds excitement and helps attendees with their planning. And you can continue to use the app to share information during the event. Some event management tools provide the ability to create an app or you could use a service like DoubleDutch that is dedicated to event apps.

Communities

Try starting an event community dedicated to your specific event on Facebook or another platform that supports this approach. This type of tool helps to engage your audience and keep them in-the-know about event details. Within the community, you can share new information and give teaser information on what will be included, from meals to activities. You can also share practical information that helps with planning. Plus, this is a great space to engage potential attendees with conversation and to help them connect with one another. When you capture people’s interest and help them feel included through an event community, you’ll encourage them to register and potentially spread the word about the event.

An Event Directory

Make sure your event is listed where people are looking for events. You may have an untapped market of people who would attend your event but simply don’t know about it, and getting it listed on directories can help it get seen by the right crowd. You could put it on Meetup, which is particularly effective for events that want to draw a local crowd. This option also lets you continue to reach out to the same group of people over time. Another option is Lanyrd, which is a social conference directory. A great feature of this directory is that it helps you figure out the target audience that went to similar events around the world so you can better tailor your own marketing. Also, many of the event management platforms provide directories included in the service.  

Analytics Tools

While marketing events might sometimes feel like guesswork, you can also find strategies and formulas backed by data. Using an analytics tool can help you weed through data and use it to get better at event promotion. For example, Brandscopic is an event marketing analytics tool that helps you figure out demographics, target your audience better and collect media about the event. 

Using these tools along with your tried-and-true event promotion methods can help you streamline your marketing process and make it more effective. With these tools, you'll become an event marketing pro -- or elevate your professional game to the next level.

Emerging Trends in Experiential Marketing Events

Emerging Trends in Experiential Marketing Events

Trends are everything in advertising and marketing. Campaigns across several industries often share certain themes at any specific time. This is true not just for things like logos and packaging, but also for big meeting events and experiential marketing extravaganzas.

Despite this, it's important to do more than just copy what the other marketers are doing. In order to make your brand stand out from theirs, you need to put your own twist on any trend. With that in mind, here are some of the emerging trends and some tips on how to personalize your versions:

Allowing the Audience to Partake in Making the Event Happen

This is becoming more popular thanks to improvements in technological capabilities. If you hop on this trend, your event should be done in a way that ties into your guests' interests and skills. One good example is an event that used the Slido audience participation app. It let the audience write a third of the code needed for the event's computerized features – in real time. Participants got to see exactly how the code developed and how Slido works, all in a way that drew their full attention.

Most companies don't have audiences that can jump into something as complex as coding right on the spot, but all can find something that their expected guests can do. Choose an activity that fits both your company and your audience for great results.

Make Your Event Emotionally Driven

Studies show that human decision-making is influenced far more by emotion than hard reasoning. Keep this in mind when designing the experience and atmosphere of your event. Avoid dry, facts-only presentations and go for the gusto. Otherwise, people will find them boring and tune out.

The Elimination of Psychological Barriers in Learning Environments

Typical conference tables – or even worse, school-style desks – put psychological barriers between attendees, presenters, and the audience. The new trend is to get rid of all of those things and replace them with interactive displays or pods. This puts your audience right into the midst of the learning and makes your messages much more memorable. It's an especially good replacement for traditional seminars, which are normally boring precisely because of their school-like formats.

Is Silence Golden?

For some presenters, it most certainly is. More and more often, events are being broken up with quiet or even silent activities like yoga, meditation, and similar things. These breaks give participants a chance to unwind, and more importantly, regain their ability to concentrate on your messages.

Despite the benefits, silence breaks aren't fitting for all events. If your company's image is that of excitement and endless vigor, you'll be better off finding another way to recharge your audience. On the other hand, if you focus on subjects like how to become a more effective businessperson, this type of diversion should go over great.

Choose the Right Venue for Your Event

One thing that will never become obsolete is the need to choose the right venue. This will be the scene of your show and can make or break the event.

For a versatile venue in Miami that can be customized to meet the needs of nearly any event, come to Soho Studios. We have up to 70,000 square feet of indoor space available as well as two outdoor pavilions.

How to Use Haptic Technology to Engage your Event Goers

How to Use Haptic Technology to Engage your Event Goers

First of all, if you're not into gaming, you might not be too familiar with haptic technology. This technology uses touch as a means of interacting with computer or video game applications. With this technology, a person can feel and change items within a virtual world. It's like something from the future, and we have access to it today. How does this technology relate to you? You can use it to create an amazing experience for your event goers. 

Trending Ideas for Using Haptic Technology

Here are some ideas of how you could use haptic technology for an event:

Create Excitement Before an Event: Even before event goers reach your event, you can use haptic technology to create excitement about the event. Take some inspiration from how brands are using this technology for ads. For instance, Arby's created an ad that allowed the audience to feel a golfer's footsteps through an Android phone, and Showtime gave watchers the experience of sensing a bomb explosion during the Homeland Season 4 teaser. You could do something similar by creating an ad with haptic technology that simulates some experience of your event, such as the beat of music or the feel of catching a baseball. 

Help an Audience Feel the Music: If you're having an event with music, your audience could feel the rhythm of the music as they listen to it with the help of haptic technology. A wearable device gives the user's body the sensation of the music's timing and beat. 

Bring Interaction to Tradeshows and Event Stations: If your company is going to a tradeshow or creating an interactive station at an event, you could use this technology to interest your audience. It allows you to give your audience a sensory experience through touch screens. You could use it as a way to draw attention to your brand or to share an experience that provides a feel for your brand, such as the feel of your tires moving over gravel. 

Create a Calming Experience: If your event is focused on health or relaxation, such as a yoga event, or if you simply want to get everyone to take a deep breath before starting a talk, you could use haptic technology. The Apple Watch has an app called "Breathe" that helps the user take a break and focus on breathing as a form of meditation or mindfulness. The watch taps the wrist to guide the breathing. 

Provide a Virtual Experience: At your event, you can give your audience an amazing virtual 3D experience that involves the sense of touch in addition to auditory and visual stimulation. Haptic technology makes this possible so people can explore a virtual environment, play a game, make something or learn with a three-dimensional sense of touch as part of the equation. 

This list gives you some ideas of how you could use haptic technology to create an experience for your audience. Yet the sky's becoming the limit with this technology, so don't put your company in a box -- think of innovative ways you could adapt haptic technology to your brand. 

How to Immerse Your Guests With the Ultimate Interactive Experience

Who doesn’t like being immersed? Successful event marketers understand the importance of attendee engagement. That said, too few impact consumers the way they want to be impacted. If you can immerse your audience, you can captivate them. In 2017, interactive technology is king.

The Future of Interactive Visuals

Technology has come a long way. Now, intuitive interfaces are being used alongside touch screen technology. Developers like MultiTaction have strategized the process, making touch display a king-of-the-hill tech avenue. Modern surfaces are using infrared cameras, “seeing” what device users are touching. When sensors can capture dynamic touch range, anything is possible.

So, where does this leave you? It’s a good idea to invest in tech which recognizes a limitless marker input range. Get big with coded event items—like Glenfiddich’s coded glasses. Interactive bars, tables and games, too, can spice up your event. Much can be said for information composition. By creating interactive displays, you can create enthralling technology.

The Modern Brand Experience Studio

If you’re gunning for a highly immersive experience, why settle for a single display? Companies like Ford are creating entire experience studios. Its FordHub, launched back in January, outfitted the Westfield World Trade Center with countless digital experiences. Ford’s innovations addressed today’s city-wide mobility challenges, creating memorable pop-ups worthy of continuous exposure.

Interactive LED displays, illuminated water patterns and innovation challenges are fantastic inclusions. By building alongside other tech providers, you can create an environment which encourages exploration. Provoke curiosity, and help your guests linger.

Downloadable Demos

Where out-of-event immersion is considered, downloadable demos go a long way. Ford’s digital record presentations are a great example, as they’ve let users download configured models in online spaces. Provoke the imagination, and create dialogue between your brand and the consumer. Anyone can install an Oculus Rift booth, and anyone can utilize the iPhone 7’s VR capabilities. In 2017, quality VR needs to be more than immersive. It needs to be memorable.

Pinpointing the Quality Consumer Experience

The goal of any event activation is to garner attention. If you can make your consumer’s feel, you can make them think. If you can make them think, you’ll make them talk. Build lasting impressions, and engage attendees at the ground level. A little immersion goes a long way, and you needn’t resort to straight-up VR displays to invoke excitement. Loyal audiences stick around, but they’re paying attention to brands maintaining a competitive edge.

What's the Method Behind Google's Madness?

While coast-to-coast marketing efforts frequently work, using a coast-and-coast mentality is unheard of. Google has rewritten this unspoken truth, and it has hosted block parties in both New York and Los Angeles to make a point to consumers.

Google Home and Google Play Music

Google’s latest product, Google Home, is the brand’s voice-activated smart speaker system. It’s voice-controlled, answers questions, plays music on command and can manage a variety of tasks. Google has received in-depth support from fans before. Now, it’s highlighting Google Home’s latest features by giving back. In promotion of Google Play Music, the tech company created a double feature, two-block-party extravaganza. It meshed Google Play Music and Google Home, creating an awesome experience for Los Angeles and New York partiers alike.

Grow Marketing and the Magic Touch

Grow Marketing is an experiential marketing company, and it’s responsible for the activation of both events. Present in New York’s Chelsea Market between February 24 to 26, Grow Marketing created a block-to-block experience to help consumers connect their Google Play services. As if this wasn’t enough, it also presented its options in Abbot Kinney, Los Angeles, earlier that month between February 11 and 12.

Google’s high-powered tech options aren’t new, but their awesome capabilities were deserving of a “magic touch,” states Google Home’s product marketer, Dee Dee Paeseler. To demonstrate Google Home’s power, Google represented its awesome tech portfolio by creating a cross-coast experience. Both hardware and services were interconnected, and both Google Play Music and Google Home were presented within the lens of music.  

Three Homes to Show the Magic

To demonstrate how both products were capable of interacting with one another, Grow Marketing created three separate homes inspired by three distinct YouTube personalities. Filmmakers Ted Fu, Philip Wang and Wesley Chan, first, stood in for Wong Fu Productions. MyCupcakeAddiction’s Elise Strachan, too, was present. Us and the Duo’s channel representatives, Carissa and Michael Alvardo, heightened the event’s musical touch.

By grounding these musical experiences between coasts, Google successfully represented its dedication to real-life people while successfully launching its product’s incredibly potential. Google targeted a large audience—an audience which was guaranteed full attention at every turn. Within each of the three homes, Google’s placed product specialists helped users understand how each product incorporated its technology with the other. Google has always been a brand of personal touch, and its inclusion of YouTube personalities certainly let it connect its products together.

It’s rare to see block party events succeed with such a great distance between them. That said, Google’s interested consumers are a lively bunch. Google might appear mad to some, but it’s certainly sane in connecting the dots between its users.

SXSW 2017: Experiential Marketing of the Future

If there’s any marketing extravaganza industry leaders get hyped for, it’s South by Southwest. This year, SXSW rolled out a slew of hot experiential trends. The world’s leading conference in high-tech business, digital innovation and—of course—business promotion is back. Now, we’re here to bring you the highlights.

Neuroscience in Marketing

Yeah, it sounds ambitious. It’s surprisingly capable, however, and it was showcased as a live marketing art display. The brain-friendly experiential displays highlighted SXSW’s collection of high-tech displays, showcasing AI-powered neuroscience bots. Dubbed ‘pre-suasion,’ the event mashed up digital complexity and the average consumer’s daily wants and needs.

Sony’s Wow Factory

Above all brands, Sony’s tech display probably won. Its knock-out collection of ‘techsperiments’ revealed its global Wow brand campaign. Packed with sonic motion music entertainment, projection-mapped VR experiences and an encompassing ‘Wow Factory,’ Sony thrived in SXSW.

Amazon’s Delivery Drones

While Amazon’s high-tech delivery drone program might be old news, its live demos have been heavily anticipated. SXSW became Amazon’s platform for presentation, proving the delivery program’s existence. Until now, many have rightfully scoffed at the feasibility of such a program. Tested across the UK and Germany, Amazon’s drone fleet hasn’t seen many audiences—until now.

Xperia Touch

Consumers are knowledgeable about touchscreens, but Sony—again—surpassed all expectations. It presented the Android projector, the Xperia Touch, and let visitors test out its flat-surface projections. Useable on the wall, the floor or even on a table, the Xperia Touch promises to be one of today’s leading augmented display technologies.

Levi’s Commuter Trucker Jacket

The clothing brand, Levi’s, got its presentation as well. The brand has partnered with Google to make ‘smart clothes’ capable of integrating SMS, Google maps and more. Levi’s presented a live tech demo, letting users try out its Commuter Trucker Jacket. Capable of reading swipes, taps and a slew of other inputs, the Trucker Jacket was one of SXSW’s most hands-on displays.

The Fortis Exoskeleton

It’s about to get weird. While the rest of SXSW went crazy over self-driving cars, projectors and jackets, Lockheed Martin presented its Fortis exoskeleton. Strapped to the body, the exoskeleton adds skeletal support. It helps the frail walk, helps construction workers lift heavy objects and—well—exists as one of the event’s coolest pieces of technology.