5 Benefits of Using Data to Market Your Event

6 minute read

Editor’s Note: The following content is a guest post submitted to the Ex Ordo blog by Accudata. The author is Gabrielle Perham. Gabrielle is the Director of Marketing for AccuData Integrated Marketing. She joined the organization in 2017 and possesses more than 15 years of experience in strategic marketing, branding, communications, and digital marketing. She earned a B.S. in Marketing and an M.B.A in Marketing Management from the University of Tampa.

 

As an academic event and conference organiser, you likely spend countless hours planning your organization’s event experiences. All just to ensure that every aspect goes smoothly on the day. But, no matter how well-prepared your events are, they won’t be successful if you don’t have enough attendees. 

That’s why your virtual marketing approach is so important. A great conference marketing strategy allows you to connect with prospective attendees, promote the benefits of attending your experience, and earn more sign-ups. 

But how can you figure out who your target audience is and the best way to connect with them? A data-driven approach will allow you to reach audience members on an individual basis… connecting with them on their favourite platform and getting them excited about your event. 

In this guide, we’ll review the benefits of using data to promote your virtual academic events. This approach allows you to: 

  1. Reach a highly targeted, receptive audience.
  2. Use location data to connect with a local audience.
  3. Segment your audience based on shared characteristics. 
  4. Connect with your audience using multiple touchpoints. 
  5. Use metrics to assess your performance.

Your virtual event marketing strategy should combine aspects of offline and online marketing to reach as many potential attendees as possible. Data research will allow you to identify the right platforms to reach these individuals successfully. So, let’s take a closer look.

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1. Reach a highly targeted, receptive audience.

Data marketing allows you to craft your conference marketing strategy using information you know to be true, rather than gut feelings or hunches. Using a combination of internal and external data sources, you can identify the exact audience that will be most interested in your event. 

Here’s how AccuData’s data marketing guide describes each of these types of data:

  • Internal data is the information your organization gathers on a regular basis, including data from your past events, email marketing campaigns, social media analytics, buying transactions, and attendee surveys. 
  • External data is any information you gather from third-party data sources. This data can come from data marketing agencies and help you fill in any gaps in your internal database. 

For instance, you can reach out to past event attendees who would be interested in attending your upcoming experience. And, you can use third-party data to supplement your internal database with any missing phone numbers or email addresses. If you have an existing customer base, especially if you do your business online like the fitness brand Impossible, you’ll have a network of warm leads to invite.

Plus, you can use this information to identify shared characteristics among your audience members. This allows you to create profiles that help you understand your audience’s interests and motivations. Then, you can design your conference marketing campaign based on what would resonate most with your audience segments. 

Data marketing delivers a higher return on investment (ROI) for your marketing campaigns. Research shows that businesses that invest in data-driven and personalized marketing see a 5-8x higher ROI on average.  Since you’re connecting with individuals who already have an affinity for your organization or message, they’ll be more likely to actually click on your marketing messages and learn more about your events. 

2. Use location data to connect with a local audience.

If you’re including an in-person element at your conference, you can use geofencing marketing techniques to reach businesses and homes in the local area.

This type of marketing comes in a few different varieties, including:

  • Geofencing, which allows you to identify and serve digital ads to only the businesses and homes within your ideal target market. 
  • Mobile geofencing, which uses GPS data to identify your target audience members’ mobile devices and serve ads to them while they are on the go. 
  • Geoframing, which uses coordinate data to identify a previous event’s exact location and inventory the devices of those who were within the event’s boundaries, allowing you to deliver ads to these devices. 

Let’s look at an example of how you might use this last technique, geoframing, to promote your virtual event. Perhaps a similar organization or a competitor hosted an in-person conference five months ago. By determining the coordinate data of that event’s venue, you can identify the individuals who attended the event. 

Using geoframing techniques, you can serve ads to these attendees to promote your upcoming virtual onference too. These individuals are more likely to be receptive to attending your event since you know they already participated in a similar one. 

This marketing technique can take a bit more finesse and expertise. So, if you want to go this route, consider partnering with a data marketing agency to help carry out your geotargeting campaigns ahead of your virtual event. 

3. Segment your audience based on shared characteristics. 

Segmentation is one of the most popular buzzwords of the marketing world. This process involves grouping audience members based on shared characteristics and serving them relevant content according to their preferences and interests. 

As Getting Attention’s guide to virtual event marketing states, using data to segment members allows you to send each segment more engaging content and personalize your messages, all while growing your audience at scale. 

First, identify your event marketing goals to determine how you should segment your audience. For instance, you might be interested in reaching a younger audience or in re-engaging past event participants. 

Next, use your internal database to group audience members into segments based on your marketing goals. Here are a few criteria you might use to group audience members:

  • Preferred communication platform
  • History of involvement with your organization (past event attendance, event participation, length of membership, etc.)
  • Volunteer involvement
  • Donation history and type
  • Demographics such as age and location

Then, use these segments in a variety of outreach activities, including email marketing, text messaging, social media advertising, and direct mail outreach. You can tailor each campaign to appeal to different segments, creating a more personalized and relevant experience for your audience. 

4. Connect with your audience using multiple touchpoints. 

Your data reveals which platforms your audience members are drawn to. For instance, your social media analytics reveal which social platform your organization’s audience uses the most. 

While reviewing your data, you’ll likely discover that different audience segments prefer different communication platforms. Make the most of this information by pursuing a multichannel marketing strategy to promote your event.

A multichannel strategy increases the likelihood that your target audience will not only see your message but also engage with it. 

Let’s say you’re trying to connect with a younger audience ahead of your event. You know that these individuals enjoy connecting via social media platforms such as Instagram and Twitter. However, through your data research, you discover that this group also has a penchant for direct mail as well. Your direct mail response rates are high for this group, especially when you send coupons, stickers, or other unique and tangible items. 

Therefore, you might decide to pursue a multichannel strategy using a combination of social media and direct mail to reach this specific audience segment.  

5. Use metrics to assess your performance.

Your data provides both a blueprint for your future marketing strategy as well as a valuable look back at your previous marketing efforts. When you track your data marketing efforts using your audience database, analytics tools, and other event management tools, you can use the insights to adjust your strategy for greater success moving forward. 

Analyze data trends from past virtual events, including:

  • The rate of event RSVPs vs. the actual number of attendees
  • The number of event sponsors
  • The attendee engagement rate, demonstrated through the number of attendees who participated in discussions, sent in questions for presenters, or engaged in small group discussions. 
  • Engagement rates across your marketing platforms, such as your email open rates and social media engagement metrics. 
  • Attendance rates for different segments within your event, such as workshops or panels. 

If you have yet to host a virtual event, you can use metrics from similar in-person events. Assess the successes and failures of past experiences to improve your upcoming event

For instance, if your event attendance rates are dropping, you can work to diversify or improve your marketing outreach using segmentation and targeting strategies. Or, if your attendee engagement rate is stagnant, you can implement new ways for attendees to participate, from audience polling to planning more small group discussions. 

Your data provides a valuable way to take stock of your marketing strategies, shedding light on which ones you should maintain and which you should discard for future events.

 

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Using data to market your virtual event

Proper marketing is crucial for all types of events, but especially your virtual events. If you’re in the process of transforming your traditional in-person events to the virtual space, a robust data marketing strategy will make audience members aware of the change and get them excited about your upcoming event.