Can we forget about digital marketing for just a moment and think solely on how to increase visibility.
Did you know that we were born with the natural ability to “increase visibility” for ourselves?
As babies when we needed some sort of attention, we cried to grab the attention of the closest adult.
It’s not rocket science, but it worked. And if we examine the act of crying, we find that it’s really just a short-term event, launched by a baby to increase visibility to get attention.
Another example of increasing visibility is by looking at popular entertainers. They have literally made themselves famous due to their ability to demand attention.
But if you take notice, entertainers aren’t always pushing to get visibility. They seem to have a lot of idle time in between the release of a new album, movie or show.
It’s only during launches that you’ll find entertainers getting interviews, going on tour, making guest appearances and doing whatever is necessary to push their latest project.
So here we see that professional entertainers also launch short-term events to increase visibility to sell their art.
In fact, as you think through the many trends, holidays, and special moments you’ve had in life, you’ll probably find it was a short-term event that made it memorable.
I said all that so you might be more aware of the power short-term events have in increasing visibility.
You’ll have much more success attracting visibility with digital marketing if you focus on the creation and launch of short-term events.
Take a gander at this post on event marketing statistics published by bizzabo.
Although the statistics highlight LIVE events, you can see that smart business owners are allocating much of their budgets towards hosting or participating in events.
The one statistic that fascinated me most was that, “41% of marketers believe that events are the single-most effective marketing channel over digital advertising, email marketing and content marketing.”
Again, I know they are referencing live events, but a great event, whether live or digital, can make your business stand out and dramatically increase its visibility.
And if you’re a small business owner operating in a local community, who’s to say you can’t create a digital event online that will eventually develop into a LIVE event?
“To increase visibility with digital marketing, you must blend it with event marketing.”
Afterwards, you need to launch a campaign so entertaining that any person fitting the demographic of your ideal customer will beg to participate.
Events will help to leverage all of those random digital marketing tasks that we normally do to “add fresh content”, into a laser-focused arsenal of content specifically designed to promote something exciting and worthwhile.
6 Steps To Using Digital Event Marketing To Increase Visibility
1) Learn What Entertains Your Audience –
Do you know what gets your audience fired up? What makes them laugh, interact and engage?
You’ll need to have a good understanding of who your ideal customer is before you can create a mind-blowing digital event.
Drill down the age, sex, race, interests, hobbies, income, etc. of who it is your event will target.
Do a little market research on this niche demographic and gather the necessary data in order for you to develop an entertaining digital event marketing campaign.
Consider what prizes, gifts or giveaways would make your audience go wild. And then think of how to put everything you’ve learned into a short-term production that people would enjoy following.
2) Create An Exciting Short-Term Digital Event –
It’s the short-term events that get people to take immediate action. When there’s a deadline or end date to an event, people have to $#@! or get off the pot.
You don’t want to launch a long campaign where a person can take forever to make a decision.
To increase visibility in digital marketing there needs to be buzz, excitement and urgency to act NOW!
Use that urgency mindset when you’re creating your digital event.
If you’d like some inspiration and ideas to create your event, I suggest you read my post about creating events online.
3) Launch Your Digital Event Campaign –
From steps 1 & 2 you should know enough about your audience and the digital event you’ve created to finally package your campaign.
To package your digital marketing campaign you’re going to need an event landing page with email marketing tools.
I personally use GetResponse for my digital campaigns. They have a huge variety of easy to use landing page templates that make designing a piece of cake.
Plus their marketing software is extremely affordable and offers the best solutions for follow up email marketing.
With GetResponse you can have your digital event campaign ready for launch in less than an hour.
Now as you get traffic to your landing page, you’ll be able to collect visitor email addresses for follow up.
Building your email list is a primary objective for your campaign.
The visibility you get from your digital event should convert into hundreds of new subscribers that can be directed to your special offers or to drive traffic to your main website.
4) Promote With A Purpose!
Promoting your online event is where digital marketing gets fun!
Foundational digital marketing activities like writing quality content, optimizing your website and engaging with social media are all “house-keeping” chores completed by all responsible marketers.
But when you do these things to blast off a special digital event campaign, these tasks take on a whole new energy.
You’re no longer walking the “slow and steady” path hoping to grab a visitor here and there.
You now have a purpose for your process. And most of your time, work and finances will be used to launch your digital event successfully.
Any marketing you do, online or offline will be fully directed towards getting visitors to your event landing page.
The theme of your event can be communicated in videos, articles, press releases, infographics, images, courses, webinars and more.
Use social media to get input from your audience about activities they’d like to experience or other important components of the event.
The more people you make apart of the creative process the more people who will continue following your event till the end.
Collaborate with other businesses who have the same audience and ask them to share your event with their followers.
Invest in some money into boosting posts on Facebook, buying Google AdWords ads, YouTube advertising, whatever will work to send targeted traffic to your landing page.
Your goal is to get as many subscribers to your digital event as possible before the end date.
5) Close The Doors –
When the day comes to shut the doors on your digital event, do it.
There’s been times where the response to an event was going so great that my clients were hesitant to close it down.
Although you might want to get in those extra subscribers or sales, you have to do what you said you’ll do and close the event.
Standing by your word will show the people who didn’t join in the event that you mean business; and those who did join will respect you.
Not to mention, the next time you launch an event people will run to join.
6) Post Event Follow Up Promotion –
Just because the doors are closed doesn’t mean your event is done.
Reaching out to your audience directly after an event is the best time to get valuable feedback for future events.
Post event marketing is also a great time to showcase the successes of your event and get people excited about becoming a loyal follower.
With your digital event over and done you can analyze what worked, what didn’t work and what would make your next event even better.
Be sure to continue following up with your new subscribers by sending them additional content and offers.
Want to use online events to increase visibility in digital marketing? Contact us at support@ulivewv.com and we’ll help you come up with some ideas.
