Marketing Funnel Basics for Events
Every event planner knows that you need to plan events in advance and with specific steps. One of those steps is promotion. Like the event planning process, event promotion requires planning, too.
Before you begin marketing your event, you should review the marketing funnel. The marketing funnel models your customer’s journey. Using it will help you understand what stages attendees go through before making a ticket purchase or registering for an event. With this information, you can better optimize each funnel stage, guide attendees to purchase, and increase your bottom line.
Let’s take a closer look at the marketing funnel and how it relates to events.
What is a marketing funnel?
The marketing funnel is a concept widely used by marketers and other professionals. At its core, it represents the customer’s buying journey. The marketing funnel can vary slightly depending on the organization and industry, but it usually follows the same main steps.
The marketing funnel begins at the widest stage, awareness, and moves down to the smallest stage, purchase. It’s referred to as a funnel because it shrinks. Not everyone who is aware of your event or business is going to purchase from you, which is where the funnel illustration comes from.
Applying the marketing funnel to events
Before diving into the marketing funnel and event marketing, be sure you have foundational event planning steps complete, including your goals and budget. Having this information handy will help you build a stronger event marketing plan.
Let’s walk through what the marketing funnel looks like specifically for events, and how you can apply it to your overall event marketing strategy.
Awareness
So, you’re ready to put your event out in the world and invite attendees. The first stage in the marketing funnel is all about getting people to hear about your event. This is where attendees will first learn of your event and likely your brand, so it’s important to make a lasting impression.
Here’s what you can do during the awareness stage:
- Create an event listing
- Add your event on your website or in your events calendar
- Make an event website
- Run ads on social media, email newsletters, and search engines
- Partner up with influencers, community organizations, sponsors, and vendors
- Send out emails
- Create a press release
- Host a contest
It can also be a good idea to do some research. If you’re unfamiliar with your audience, learn about them. Reach out to your past attendees, review feedback, and view data from your social media accounts and websites. This data can help you figure out what copy will resonate with attendees, plus the mediums they prefer.
You should also think about where potential attendees are. What publications are they reading? What email newsletters do they subscribe to? What events are they already attending? This will help you understand what actions you should take first as attendees enter the marketing funnel.
Interest
After folks are aware of your event, they may want to learn more. They may have seen your event listing or a social post, and now they’re curious—what’s this event all about?
The goal of the interest stage in the marketing funnel is to educate potential attendees about the event. This way, they can move down the funnel. Here’s what you can do:
- Write a blog post
- Segment prospective attendees into their own email list for targeted messaging
- Share posts on social media about the benefits of the event and previous event successes
- Optimize your event landing page
- Invest in video content
- Create case studies or share testimonials from past attendees
Overall, focus on creating content that will entice potential attendees. Encourage your partners to do the same to further engage people. You may see some increased engagement during this stage, like new email newsletter signups or social media followers.
Evaluation
After folks learn about your event, now they will evaluate to see if they want to make the final call. They may take a bit longer in this phase or make their decision quickly. Either way, the goal here is to make people take the final step and register or purchase a ticket.
To help them get there, you can:
- Implement an abandoned cart recovery strategy
- Set up remarketing ads on social media
- Send a special offer or discount
- Use language that promotes urgency – think “only 18 tickets remaining” or “only five days left to register!”
It can also be a great idea to review your previous marketing funnel activities. Are there any things you missed? Could there be a reason people are not making it through the funnel, such as a broken ticket checkout process or a confusing landing page?
For those who have made it through the funnel, check to see where they made the purchase from. Was it an ad, Google search, or email? Figuring out the final touchpoint could help you understand what sealed the deal. You can then use this information to optimize your funnel further.
Purchase and loyalty
The final stage in the marketing funnel for events is when attendees register or purchase your event ticket. At this point, they are officially attendees!
Sometimes, the marketing funnel doesn’t quite end here, though. You may further use these attendees to encourage more folks to engage. For example, have them take their own pictures and share on social media, write a testimonial, or tell their friends about the event.
Plus, it’s important to stay in touch for post-event activities, such as a post-event survey. This additional data and feedback can further improve your events and marketing strategy and understanding of the marketing funnel.
Optimize your marketing funnel with The Events Calendar and WordPress
When crafting your event marketing strategy, it helps to have a roadmap, and the marketing funnel is just that. Use this funnel to help guide your actions to increase event registrations, ticket sales, and, ultimately, your revenue.
If you need some tools to optimize the funnel, The Events Calendar product suite and WordPress are here to help. You can create an effective event website, level up email marketing with Promoter, and easily sell tickets on your site with Event Tickets.
Try it out for free in the demo today!