Guide to business growth: make events part of your marketing strategy

The business landscape has shifted drastically over the past few decades, but the most significant operational and strategic changes have occurred in marketing. 

Growth marketing particularly has shifted course quite dramatically. The term growth marketing refers to the process of using data and feedback gained through marketing campaigns and experimentation to drive business growth via its customers.

Growth marketers are consistently analysing data and feedback on various channels to determine what is working and what isn’t. In the digital world, this is constantly shifting – what works one week may not work the next, and new tools, applications, and audiences are always entering the market. 

Staying ahead of this ever-changing landscape can appear difficult, yet it is a critical part of building sustainable business growth. While certain techniques and strategies continue to change, one such marketing method that has stood the test of time and retained its effectiveness is event marketing.

In this guide, we will dive into more detail on what exactly growth marketing is, how events fit into this strategy, and how you can ensure a smooth-running and successful event from choosing the venue right down to sourcing silicone wristbands from Australia. 

What is growth marketing – a deeper dive

Growth marketing can be defined as a type of marketing optimisation that goes beyond promoting a simple product. It helps businesses grow through customer loyalty and maximises marketing efforts by using methods like A/B testing, email marketing, search engine optimisation (SEO), and data analysis to ensure more effective strategies are executed to promote growth. 

While traditional marketing may focus on brand awareness and customer acquisition, growth marketing reviews the entire customer journey and marketing funnel, rather than just the very top. It helps convert people into customers through engagement and good customer experiences that then turn those customers into loyal brand advocates. 

Growth marketing often starts with smaller, shorter campaigns to help determine what is effective. They can also help generate targeted responses to simple questions such as what your key customer demographics are, what are your customer's pain points, and how often are people interacting with your product. Once data and insights have been gathered, larger marketing efforts can then be focused on the most effective channels, and any insights can be used to inform other key growth strategies – like events. 

Events and growth marketing

Part of an effective growth marketing strategy includes a plan that utilises multiple channels to market – and in some instances, event marketing is the way to go. 

Events offer the opportunity to connect with an audience in a unique and meaningful way that often leaves a more lasting impression than other marketing strategies. From a product launch to an event celebrating the customer – the possibilities are endless.

When it comes to event marketing, there are three important things to cover: understanding the role of events in growth marketing; how to plan and execute a successful event; and how to collect data and measure the return on investment (ROI) on an event. 

Events allow you to connect with an audience in a unique, meaningful way. Photo by MD Duran on Unsplash.

The role of events in growth marketing

Connecting with customers or potential customers in person is uniquely attributable to events. As such, events are likely to generate a more memorable experience than other more traditional marketing methods. 

Events offer a platform for businesses to showcase their brand or products, build and foster relationships, and generate new leads for the company. Once you determine the role of an event in your growth marketing strategy, it will become easier to determine the type of events that will be most effective for your business and align it with the overall business strategy and goals. It will also help determine the best measures of success to ensure you can accurately measure the ROI. 

Planning and executing an event

Planning is the key to creating a successful business event. Top tips for planning and executing an event include:

• Determine the purpose of your event – is it to generate new customers? Or celebrate existing ones? Whatever the goal of the event, be sure to define it early and ensure everything you plan moving forward is in service of that goal. 
• Identify your target audience based on insights gained from other growth marketing activities.
• Turn attendees into advocates and have them invite their networks to the event.
• Ensure big-ticket items such as the venue, catering, and guest speakers are booked well in advance. 
• Don’t forget the little things like wristbands, lanyards, gift bags, or branded attire which will need to be ordered in advance. 
• Create a run sheet to stay on track and on time.
• Be sure you can track ROI for the event. 
• Follow up with attendees post-event to continue the conversation and continue the networking opportunity. 

Collecting data and measuring ROI 

Events provide a valuable opportunity to collect data and insights directly from attendees' mouths. By leveraging event analytics and feedback, you can gain a deeper understanding of their preferences, behaviours, pain points, and current sentiment toward the business, to help grow more effectively.

There are several ways you can gather important insights during an event:

• During the registration process, include requests for attendee demographic information including current job, contact details, age, or anything else that may be relevant to your business. 
• Include interactive elements to the event such as feedback forms, polls, or surveys, and consider offering prizes to those who respond. 
• Physical survey stations throughout the event that offer freebies to respondents are a fun way to collect information while offering an incentive to participate. 

Measuring ROI can be a little more complex, and methods will vary depending on the event’s purpose and goals. Some ways may include:

Business goal: build brand awareness

• Event goal: increase event registrations
• ROI measurement: Number of registrations

Business goal: drive sales revenue

• Event goal: generate leads
• ROI measurement: number of leads added to a database

Business goal: educate and delight customers

• Event goal: increase customer retention
• ROI measurement: number of meetings booked with business

Despite a daunting upfront cost, the power of events should not be discounted. Events are an impactful marketing tool that can provide tangible benefits including brand visibility, lead generation, customer engagement, and data collection, and including it in your growth marketing strategy can lead to greater success for a business. 

Main photo by Tierra Mallorca on Unsplash.