Events are an amazing way to showcase your brand and products, so event and experiential marketing are very valuable tools for your company to use to benefit your organization’s overall marketing efforts.
In this article, we’ll supply you with a huge list of 44 successful and inspiring examples you can consider and test out to capture the attention of prospective attendees, generate buzz about your brand, and make your next event a success.
- Creative event marketing ideas (9)
- In-person event marketing ideas (12)
- Virtual event marketing ideas (8)
- Social media event marketing strategies (10)
- Best event marketing ideas that are educational (5)
Let’s dive into our list of 44 of the best event marketing strategies.
44 event marketing examples & ideas
This list will provide you with tons of great ideas, examples, and strategies to employ in your event marketing plan. We’ve split them up into 5 categories, so whether you’re looking for creative and unique marketing ideas, in-person or virtual event marketing tips, social media marketing strategies, or ideas for educational event marketing examples, you’ll easily be able to find what you’re looking for.
Creative event marketing ideas
If you’re looking for unique event marketing ideas, this first category is for you. Check out these nine common event marketing tactics for inspiration to help you create a marketing strategy with that “cool factor.”
1. Auction or raffle
Host an auction or raffle to give away samples of your product/service, or auction off an experience such as a private meeting or tour. This could be in the form of a simple social media raffle or auction, or a grand in-person auction event. This type of event can be tailored to fit your company’s budget which is a huge bonus!
How This Helps You Market Your Brand: After getting a first preview of your products or services, participants will want to come back for more, helping to increase your sales and brand loyalty. You can also ask the winners to leave a positive review about their experience with your product to help attract future potential customers.
2. Special guest events
Does your company work with someone who is well-known in your industry or local area? Invite them to be a special guest of honor at your event! This can be combined with any other type of event, but advertising that a popular or famous guest will be making an appearance or giving a talk will draw in more potential attendees.
How This Helps You Market Your Brand: Guest speakers and attendees can be a great way to attract people to your event and act as advocates for your brand. Hearing from an industry leader or even an influencer who works with your brand can be an exciting opportunity for your potential attendees and in turn help you increase ticket sales.
3. Guerrilla marketing
If your company wants to grab people’s attention in an unexpected and non-traditional way, this creative and somewhat unconventional marketing strategy is for you. With little limitation to where your campaign and brand makes an appearance, guerrilla marketing can take the form of sculptural installations, street art and murals, strategically placed stickers and posters, or even more jaw-dropping displays like flash mobs and massive graphics. When executed well, these tactics can be very effective at generating a buzz. Just don’t forget to tie it back to your brand or campaign so that people can follow up through a call-to-action.
How This Helps You Market Your Brand: Guerrilla marketing is a great way to catch the attention of potential customers in your area, and can provide a wow factor, create buzz in local news, or even help your business go viral on social media if you or your spectators post about it.
4. Product launch events
When working on an exciting new product you’re preparing to launch soon, a product launch event is a great way to build hype around this upcoming new release. Schedule an event focused solely on your newest innovations and developments, which could include demos and workshops to allow people a chance to get a hands-on demo with your new product. A great example of this is Apple’s annual Worldwide Developers Conference (WWDC). Lovers of their products and developers alike get excited each year for this event where Apple unveils their newest innovations and upcoming launches.
How This Helps You Market Your Brand: Your existing customers will be excited for your brand’s newest launches, so build excitement around the launch event and the actual product release by hosting one of these events.
5. Donate tickets
While ticket sales are a big way to recoup costs of hosting an event, giving away tickets for free is a great way to make your event more accessible and reach a wider audience. You might choose to donate tickets to another organization or influencer you want to build a relationship with, provide tickets for a radio station to give away for additional publicity, etc.
How This Helps You Market Your Brand: Having more people attending your event provides greater opportunities for organic promotion and social media sharing. The people who receive the free/donated tickets are also more likely to feel a sense of loyalty to your company.
6. Recruiting events
Recruiting events are a great way to present your company as an amazing brand to work for, and offer the opportunity to find potential future employees who are interested in working for you. Invite candidates to a learning session about your brand such as a lunch-and-learn, or create an interactive experience where attendees can ask questions and your company can scout out desirable candidates.
How This Helps You Market Your Brand: This helps your brand connect with talented individuals who might be good potential new hires. Take this opportunity to teach these candidates about your company, why they should want to work for you, why you want them to join your organization, and perks of the job.
7. Team building events
Bring together your internal team for an opportunity to collaborate, build upon valuable skills, and form connections with one another. These events can include team-wide parties, networking events, retreats, and more.
How This Helps You Market Your Brand: These events help educate and motivate your own team of employees. This is an opportunity to present new ideas to members of your organization, brainstorm, strengthen connections, and up-skill.
8. Partner with another organization
If your company isn’t as experienced with hosting events or doesn’t have a very widespread reach yet to host a successful event alone, consider teaming up with another organization that has a more established audience.
How This Helps You Market Your Brand: Working alongside a larger company that knows what they’re doing when it comes to event marketing strategy can help your brand get started in the event space, and provide opportunities for more potential attendees to hear about and buy tickets to your event. Partnerships with well-established and leading companies in your industry help to build credibility for your own brand through association.
9. Create events within your event
Plan smaller, mini events within a larger event to keep your attendees engaged and entertained throughout the duration of your event. For example, you could run a workshop, a talk from a guest speaker, or a networking happy hour. Having a schedule of mini-events also gives the attendees a variety of moments and experiences within your event to look forward to.
How This Helps You Market Your Brand: A series of mini events can help keep your attendees entertained while providing opportunity for your company to market different aspects of your brand at each session without it becoming redundant or boring.
In-person event marketing examples
In-person events are one of the best opportunities to market your brand. This category features examples of event marketing that are specifically catered to in-person events.
10. User conferences
A user conference is a specific type of conference geared towards those who may already be using your brand’s products or services. Particularly common in the technology and software industries, these events can provide learning opportunities to help your customers get the most out of your products, and show them how to properly use them. A great example of this is tech giant Oracle’s CloudWorld Conference, which invites Oracle’s partners and users to come network and learn about their solutions, including hands-on training sessions.
How This Helps You Market Your Brand: Put your brand in the spotlight by bringing together a group of people who are already interested in your products, brand, or industry. Showcase ways that customers can maximize the benefits of using your products! Consider offering on-demand content as a post-event resource for attendees and remote followers to extend the value and life of your training sessions.
11. Pop-up shops
Hosting a pop-up shop at a market or in another location with lots of foot traffic gives an opportunity for potential customers to get a sneak peek of your products, see them in-person, and try them out to see how they like them. These events are a great way to reach new audiences! A popular NYC restaurant, Rainbow Room, ran a pop-up event featuring a tiki bar to allow people to try out their cocktails and snacks. Since their restaurant is typically only accessible by reservation to upper class guests, the pop-up allowed them to reach a different demographic of potential customers and evaluate the need for a separate restaurant.
How This Helps You Market Your Brand: Gives potential customers an easier access to see what your brand is all about, making it more accessible and attracting them without them having to visit your company’s usual location.
12. Mixers and networking events
Networking events are designed to bring together like-minded people in your industry to meet each other face-to-face. Your company could be the host or sponsor of an event like this, and use it as an opportunity to connect with potential customers or other brands you could form mutually beneficial connections with.
How This Helps You Market Your Brand: By bringing together people in your industry, you’ll have a fun opportunity to add a personal aspect to your marketing while attracting potential clients.
13. Community events
Community events could be any event that appeals to your local target demographic and is open to the public to buy tickets or attend. For example, you could host a movie night, a block party, a fireworks show, or an outdoor concert. Find something that aligns with your brand and would also attract your ideal local customer.
How This Helps You Market Your Brand: Appeal to your local target demographic by hosting a fun event at your business or run by/showcasing your business. This presents your company as supportive and involved in the community which can help express brand values and build brand loyalty for those in attendance.
14. Race, swim, walk, ride, 5k
Spread the message of your organization by running a “race for the cause” such as a 5k, swimming race, walk, or bicycle race! In doing so, you can crowdfund donations to your organization. If your brand is not a non-profit, you can partner with a non-profit organization to promote the event and help support a worthy cause.
How This Helps You Market Your Brand: Supporting a charitable cause can help build a connection with your community, create social awareness and value, while also providing an opportunity for visibility for your organization as the host or sponsor of the event.
15. Experiential activations
Showcase what your brand represents by creating an installation that potential customers can visit, interact with, take photos with, share with friends with experiential brand activations. This can be a mural, art installation, interactive game, etc. Making it something people want to share, or need to share, on social media also helps get the word out about your business!
How This Helps You Market Your Brand: Creating an attention-grabbing installation allows people to connect with your company through this experience you’ve crafted to represent your brand.
16. Internal company meetings
Host an event for employees of your company to easily share important information, updates, and discuss your brand’s projects. This is a great opportunity to bounce ideas off of your internal team members, provide training, and get to know each other better.
How This Helps You Market Your Brand: In order to help you market your brand, your employees need to know your brand. Who better to start educating about new updates to your company than those within it? This is also a great way for your company members to have a chance to network internally, brainstorm, align, and learn.
17. Trade shows
Does the industry your company is part of have an annual trade show? Get involved and become an exhibitor! Trade shows will typically have a specific theme or industry that they are focused on, and give brands like yours a platform to show off their products and services.
How This Helps You Market Your Brand: Trade shows are a great way to get your company’s name out there in your industry in front of a group of people who are involved or interested in your industry.
18. Fundraising galas
Fundraising galas are the fanciest form of charitable events. If philanthropy is part of your brand identity or something you’d like to support, you can host or sponsor a gala to fundraise for a charitable cause that aligns with your brand and/or would matter to your organization’s customer base.
How This Helps You Market Your Brand: Raise money for your non-profit or partner with a non-profit in support of a cause you believe in. This showcases your business as a brand that cares about this cause, while also allowing you to connect with potential customers in-person at the event.
19. Holiday parties
Host or sponsor a holiday celebration for any traditional holiday or yearly event that suits your company. You could host a party for the winter holiday season, a specific religious holiday, or even a national day of _____. Holiday parties can be community events that market your brand to locals, be a networking opportunity for those in your industry, celebrate your internal team, and more.
How This Helps You Market Your Brand: Attract potential customers by putting on a fun event in celebration of a holiday or other tradition, while showing off your brand at the same time with signage, merchandise, etc.
20. Limited-time offers
Offer a deal on tickets, or a sale on products purchased at the event and make it very clear that this offer only stands until a specific date or time. Having a limited-time-only offer on tickets, or your company’s products/services can create a sense of urgency either for or at your event.
How This Helps You Market Your Brand: By generating a sense of urgency in your potential attendees, you can generate more sales of tickets and products because they won’t want to miss out on the great deal you’re offering.
21. Festivals
Festivals have become increasingly popular as a fun, typically outdoor event. You can put together and host your very own festival event, or sponsor or participate in a festival in your local area. One iconic festival example is the annual music festival, Coachella. This festival has been running annually for over 20 years, and brings in hundreds or thousands of excited music fans annually! A festival is another great opportunity to connect with your local community and target demographics as many brand will set up their own pop-up experience to promote their products or services to festivalgoers.
How This Helps You Market Your Brand: People get excited for festivals and look forward to them throughout the year leading up to it. This is a great opportunity to market your brand as a sponsor or host of a fun festival, both leading up to the festival as well as at the festival.
Virtual event marketing ideas
If your company operates remotely, is tech-focused, or doesn’t have the largest budget to execute your event marketing plan, these online event marketing ideas will fit the bill.
22. Hackathons
For software companies, computer programmers, developers, and other tech-based brands, hackathons are a great event option. Present a challenge for prospective attendees to participate in and solve. You can present awards to those who best tackle the challenge you’ve put forth, and use it as a chance to cultivate new innovative ideas.
How This Helps You Market Your Brand: Present your brand as a company that supports innovation, the next generation of leaders, and empowers your community of advocates. The event can feature your branding, have ads for your company/products, and even help you scout people you might like to recruit.
23. Use event discovery websites
Use event discovery or neighborhood guides to promote your event, such as Eventbrite, Facebook events, or Ticketmaster. People will often browse these websites for events in their area, so even if they may not be familiar with your brand, they could come across your event on one of these discovery sites. Be sure to target events or websites based on the specific needs and interests of your target audience for the best results and engagement.
How This Helps You Market Your Brand: Broaden your event’s reach and attract a wider audience of potential attendees by promoting your event on a popular event discovery site.
24. Improve your email marketing
To better target groups within your audience, try segmenting your email list into categories (e.g., past event attendees, new potential attendees, various specific demographics, etc.) This will help your brand communicate more effectively and directly with specific audiences.
How This Helps You Market Your Brand: Email marketing will be much more effective when you can target specific audiences with specific messaging, rather than a more generic email newsletter that goes out to your entire mailing list.
25. Try ad retargeting
In preparing to host your event, you’ll more than likely have people that begin the ticket purchasing process but end up not completing it, or people who check out your website but don’t go through with buying tickets because they aren’t sure. Ad retargeting helps you serve an advertisement for your event to these audiences who were already interested in potentially attending.
How This Helps You Market Your Brand: Re-targeting people who have already shown an interest in your brand will show your ads to these audiences and try to hook them back in to pull the trigger and purchase the tickets. This strategy has a high rate of success!
26. Word-of-mouth marketing
Use word-of-mouth marketing by having your customer-facing employees tell potential attendees (your customer base) about your upcoming event. This can be done over the phone, through email, live chat, or other virtual communications.
How This Helps You Market Your Brand: Mentioning your brand’s upcoming event will flow naturally into conversations with your existing customers, and a personal invitation or encouragement to attend will go a long way.
27. Craft an event website that will convert
Your event is a big deal to your business, so it deserves its own dedicated webpage or microsite. A single webpage on your company’s website is alright, but a dedicated microsite is even better. Provide as much information on this website as possible, answering all the questions potential attendees might have. If this is an annual event, this site can also house recaps and photos of previous occurrences of this event. Make it very clear where tickets can be purchased and include calls-to-action to maximize online ticket sales.
How This Helps You Market Your Brand: This gives your event the online space that it deserves with its down dedicated site, and allows you to really push the details of your event without overwhelming your main brand website.
28. Promote your event’s perks
Tell your potential attendees as much as possible about all the upsides of attending your event. For example, benefits could include networking, workshops, keynote speakers, special guests, and more. What are all the upsides to attending your event? Be sure to mention all of them on your event website, in your social media posts, email marketing, and other communications. Many large events will even offer “Why To Attend” resources to help potential attendees present the rationale for attending to their managers.
How This Helps You Market Your Brand: Increase ticket sales by assuring your potential attendees that they will be getting value out of attending your event.
29. Virtual summits
A virtual summit is a great way to host a discussion about a specific topic, and invite leaders in your industry, topic experts, and guest speakers. This is a convenient way to host an event, especially if you’d like to feature well-known speakers. It’s easier for them to not have to travel to attend, and easier for attendees to join online as well.
How This Helps You Market Your Brand: Virtual events have the potential to reach very large audiences unrestricted by geography, as anyone with internet access could buy a ticket and join. This increased accessibility gives endless opportunities to boost your attendance rates.
Social media event marketing strategies
If your target audience is on social media, your brand’s marketing should meet them where they are. Check out these ten ideas for social media event marketing.
30. Partner with a sponsor
For companies that are on the smaller side, partnering up with another (ideally larger and more well-known) sponsor is a great way to promote your brand’s event and build credibility. You’ll have the opportunity to showcase your own organization, as well as the sponsoring company.
How This Helps You Market Your Brand: Reach a larger audience by pairing up with a sponsoring organization. A larger company will likely have a larger following and customer base, and a larger marketing budget to be able to help you boost ticket sales.
31. Hire a brand ambassador or influencer
Paid brand ambassadors and influencers are people with a large following of engaged audience-members who can be enlisted to promote your brand, products/services, and events. Influencers and brand ambassadors have a unique way of influencing their audiences to become interested in the products and services they talk about. These experts can help draw in additional potential customers and attendees.
How This Helps You Market Your Brand: If you hire a good influencer to promote your brand, their followers may follow your brand, make a purchase, and attend future events you host.
32. Hire a professional photographer or videographer
Hiring a professional photographer or videographer will capture/illustrate your upcoming event, show potential attendees what they can expect, and attract people who may be interested much better than poor quality or poorly lit images.
How This Helps You Market Your Brand: Professional photos and video will better showcase your brand, products, and promotional materials for future occurences. These assets will make promotion of future events much easier and more effective.
33. Make use of cross-promotion
Posting on your own social media accounts can only get you so far, but having your event’s speakers, partners, sponsors, and other people involved also share on their profiles will give you a much greater reach. Cross-promotion is a mutually beneficial way to help you market your event, and help promote the people involved at the same time. Be sure to @ mention or tag the brands or individuals in your posts so they receive notifications to repost and create a smoother process for them to be involved in.
How This Helps You Market Your Brand: Reach a wider audience of potential registrants for your event by having everyone involved share posts about the event. You can even set up individual links for each organization, speaker, etc. involved in the event to track more granular metrics of who brings in the most ticket sales or engagement.
34. Make attendees into ambassadors
Who better to promote your events than those who have experienced it for themselves? Your attendees will feel special when you ask them to be ambassadors for your event! Ensure that all of your guests enjoy themselves, then you can leverage the group of attendees in front of you by asking them to share about their experience on social media and with their colleagues.
How This Helps You Market Your Brand: Similar to cross-promotion or hiring an influencer, having your attendees act as ambassadors for your brand will help broaden your reach organically and make people want to attend your future events.
35. Share recaps of the event
After your event is over, the marketing doesn’t stop there! Post lots of follow-up and on-demand content from your event so people who missed it don’t want to miss the next one, and people who did attend can re-share your posts with their own audiences about the awesome event they went to. This is one of the best pre-event marketing ideas – sharing recaps of past events to promote future ones ahead of time. This gets even easier when you are able to hire a professional photo or video team to handle this for you.
How This Helps You Market Your Brand: You can still capitalize on the FOMO (fear of missing out) post-event, by creating hype in advance for your next event. When people see how amazing your event was by seeing your recap posts on social media, they’ll know they won’t want to miss your next one.
36. Encourage sharing
Encourage sharing about your event online by creating a hashtag and promoting it locally around the venue, having spaces for people to take “instagrammable” photos and videos, etc. You could even have an incentive for the person who shares the most about your event, such as a raffle or free swag/products to take home.
How This Helps You Market Your Brand: When you encourage your attendees to share photos and videos from your event with their audiences on social media, you’ll be able to reach more potential attendees for your next event.
37. Find your audience on social media
Social media platforms including Instagram, Twitter, Facebook, and TikTok have useful demographic information technology to help you target your desired audiences. Based on the demographics, location, and interests of your target customers, you can create and run targeted ads for your event marketing campaign on social media to help you reach those groups. This data can also inform your initial strategy for your event marketing plan, so be sure to tap into this resource early in the planning process.
How This Helps You Market Your Brand: Using targeted marketing through social media advertising is a great way to find your audience, grow your following, and promote your events in the process.
38. Promote on all platforms
Don’t limit your brand to only using one or two social media platforms – use them all! If you’re currently only using Facebook and Twitter, you’re missing out on massive social media event marketing opportunities on Instagram, TikTok, LinkedIn, and more. Use as many social media platforms as possible to reach the widest audience you possibly can.
How This Helps You Market Your Brand: Different people may be on different platforms, so don’t miss out on reaching potential audiences by limiting your social media marketing efforts to only a couple platforms. The more platforms you’re promoting on, the more potential reach your brand will have.
39. Use FOMO to your advantage
FOMO, or fear of missing out, is a major factor in swaying potential attendees that may be on the fence about coming to your event. If you market your event in a way that makes it seem way too awesome to miss, you’ll hopefully convince those people who weren’t sure yet. Use social media to generate FOMO and advertise your event as a can’t-miss opportunity.
How This Helps You Market Your Brand: Making use of the powerful force that is FOMO will help generate buzz and drive ticket sales.
Best event marketing ideas that are educational
Want to share information, ideas, product demonstrations, or training at your next event? These educational event marketing examples can inspire your marketing team!
40. Lunch and learns
Bring together your clients, potential clients, and/or new recruits for some refreshments or a meal and a learning session all in one. You could include demonstrations, training materials, and other presentations to educate the group. These can be done either in-person or virtually, but in-person may be more effective for the bonding aspect of this type of event.
How This Helps You Market Your Brand: Entertain and engage your potential customers by inviting them to a session to learn about your company, product, or industry while bonding over a meal shared together.
41. Industry roundtable
If you’re looking to share knowledge from your business with other industry professionals, an industry roundtable could be the perfect fit for your brand. Invite other business leaders to meet with you to share ideas, discuss topics that interest everyone invited, and share how your businesses might be able to mutually benefit one another. This is an amazing opportunity to form new partnerships!
How This Helps You Market Your Brand: This is a great way for your company to connect with other businesses in the same industry, form relationships, and showcase how you may be of use to related businesses.
42. Webinars
Webinars are a great and less expensive way to host an event focused on your brand, as they do not require an expensive in-person venue and all the logistics that come with planning an in-person event. They are also quite flexible and scalable and can be used for a variety of session types.
How This Helps You Market Your Brand: Webinars are a great cost-effective way to showcase products, teach customers about your products/services or how to use them, and even facilitate valuable Q&A sessions.
43. Deminars
A deminar is similar to a webinar, but specifically for product demonstrations. If you’ve recently onboarded some new customers or released a new product, a deminar is a great way to show them how to use your product to its full potential. Again, being done virtually is a great way to save time and money as online events are generally far less expensive to host.
How This Helps You Market Your Brand: Giving your customers a dedicated demonstration and learning session will make them feel like your company cares about their clients, can help build brand loyalty, and also help them use your products as intended.
44. Workshops
Another great educational event type are workshops. These can be either in-person or online, but typically involve some training, demonstrations, and hands-on learning all in one session. These can be standalone events or a mini-event within a larger conference or industry event. If you’re looking to host an interactive and informational session with current or prospective clients, a workshop is a great choice.
How This Helps You Market Your Brand: Workshops are a great way to market your brand while also helping attendees increase their skill level and learn about your products directly from you!
That wraps up our list of 44 great event marketing examples and ideas for every type of event! If you are seeking some assistance developing your brand’s event marketing strategy, Impact XM is here for you. If you’d like to work with our agency, contact us to find out how we can help.
