If you’re creating a new event to wow a crowd, you’ll need to get their attention by marketing it well beforehand. Great event marketing will grab your target audience’s attention and get them excited to attend, but it’s not always simple to organize and manage.

No matter what kind of event you’re promoting, there are core strategies you can follow to attract as many attendees as possible. That’s why at Eventbrite, we took inspiration from our creators and built this complete guide to making your event a hit.

Table of contents

What is event marketing?

What are the benefits of event marketing?

How to identify your event marketing goals

Event promotion channels and how to use them

More event marketing resources

Put your event marketing strategies to good use

What is event marketing?

Event marketing can sometimes refer to using events to promote a brand, service, or product. 

But in this guide, I’ll discuss promotional strategies for marketing your events. Successful event marketing includes effective promotional efforts that encourage potential attendees to buy tickets. Promoting your event encompasses various inbound and outbound marketing techniques, such as: 

I’ll also focus on why marketing your event is important to its success and offer tips for executing your marketing in the best possible way. I’ll even offer creative event marketing ideas to help get you started with your own efforts.

First, let’s look at the obvious and less obvious benefits of marketing your event.

A well-attended event
SweetSpot / SweetSpot Dessert Festivals / San Francisco, CA

What are the benefits of event marketing? 

No matter the size of your event, you should do some kind of outreach to ensure people hear about it. From intimate concerts to large conferences, all events benefit from event marketing.

Why invest time and attention in marketing your events?

Events aren’t just a way to throw a fun party. They can help you meet important goals, including:

You can only access those benefits if you market your events successfully, and that means focusing on the quality of your marketing, not just the quantity. Marketing to as many people as possible can be a huge drain on your budget while generating unsatisfying returns. Instead, you need to make sure you target the right audience with the right kinds of marketing. 

Targeting the right audience with your marketing efforts

You may have several different profiles of people you want to attend your event. With a fine-tuned marketing approach, you can target those profiles with campaigns on different platforms so the right mix of people hears about your event.

For example, you might be looking for senior directors of companies in specific industries to attend your trade show. By targeting those profiles with your marketing, be it social media marketing or ads on events search engines like Eventbrite, you can ensure your event will be full of the people you’re looking for.

Fun fact: Events are popular entertainment, and a good 70% of people are planning to spend as much money on events this year as last year. People browsing Eventbrite’s event search tools and curated lists are already looking for an event to go to — this is an ideal audience to target.

But before you start spending time and effort on event marketing, you need to be clear on what you want to achieve.

Large crowd at a concert
Ultra Australia / Ultra Australia 2023 / Sidney Myer Music Bowl & Kings Domain / Melbourne, AUS

How to identify your event marketing goals 

Before you start planning your event, you need to make a list of your trackable goals, also known as key performance indicators (KPIs). These KPIs provide a yardstick by which to measure your event’s success after everything is over. 

Even if your event isn’t revenue-focused, you can still utilize KPIs, such as attendee satisfaction, to gauge whether your goal of ensuring everyone has a fantastic time was met.

Having the correct event metrics can help you fine-tune your event marketing strategies, improve sales, and increase attendance turnout. If you’re not sure where to start, here are some different ways to identify objectives worth tracking.

Start with your “why”

First, identify what you’re trying to achieve with your event marketing. You may have one or several goals for a specific event. It’s important to identify them in advance to know whether your event has been successful in achieving these goals.

A few goals to consider are:

All those goals may sound like appealing reasons to host your event, but you should prioritize which ones you think are the most important. Once you’ve done that, you can figure out what metrics you can use to measure your success with them.

Identify the metrics you care about

Now that you know why you’re hosting the event, you’ve laid the foundation to measure your success. Which metrics matter will depend on that goal, so keep your reasons in mind as you look at the different metrics you could track. 

1. Registrations

Registrations are the most vital metric to consider as the precursor to overall event marketing success. Look at peaks in registration to determine if any particular marketing effort drove the spike, and use the final number of attendees as a benchmark for your next event.

2. Attendance

Compare the number of registrants you had to the number of attendees who showed up. A large percentage of no-shows could indicate that your event was marketed well, but people didn’t feel invested or interested enough to actually attend. (Fortunately, there are ways to avoid no-shows.)

3. Lead generation

Many entrepreneurs choose to use events to promote themselves and their services and generate leads. So an important metric here would be to measure how many leads your event brings in. (Tip: Establish the quality of those leads pre-event, such as the average sales you hope to achieve per attendee.)

4. Attendee feedback

A post-event survey is a valuable opportunity to get feedback directly from attendees about their experience at your event. KPIs from surveys can include attendee satisfaction, intent to return, and net promoter score (NPS). 

Feedback is helpful for events of all kinds, but make sure that the questions you ask target the goals you had in the first place, such as whether your attendees had fun or met other people in the community.

5. Brand impressions

Develop an event hashtag so that your attendees have something to share on social channels. Monitor the hashtag to see whether your event was worth sharing and whether your event brand is reaching a wider potential audience through social sharing.

6. New customers

Depending on the length of your sales cycle, you can track how many leads generated by your event turn into customers. This may not be the most immediately measurable KPI, but it’s helpful in demonstrating the financial value of your event.

7. Information retention

If your goal with the event was to educate people about an important topic, you can speak with attendees or send them a form to see what information they retained. That can help you improve your next event and understand whether your setup and resources were effective.

Don’t forget to give yourself the tools to analyze your event data, such as Eventbrite’s events analytics tool.

Try Eventbrite today to explore our event marketing and analytics tools.

A well-attended event

Whichever goals you choose to pursue, bringing people to your event is crucial to reaching them — so let’s take a look at the different ways in which you can promote your event.

Illustration box that leads to download of an event promotion timeline checklist

Create a marketing strategy

Once you know what your goals are and how you’ll measure them, it’s time to choose a marketing strategy tailored to hit those goals. 

Different marketing strategies are better suited to different events and marketing goals. If your goal is to have as many event registrations as possible, your strategy should include marketing tactics that appeal to a wide audience. That might include:

On the other hand, you might care more about attendee feedback and information retention, which will see improvement if your attendees are already highly interested. For that, you’ll need a highly tailored marketing strategy, such as:

Making an event promotion timeline where you outline the marketing strategy you want to follow and the concrete steps you should take to make it happen will help clarify your actions at each step of the way. You can even download our Event Promotion Timeline Checklist to keep your marketing strategy on time!

But following your strategy is easier to do once you familiarize yourself with the different event promotion channels you have available to you.

Screenshot of events advertised on Eventbrite

Event promotion channels and how to use them

Marketing is not a one-note song. Instead, you need to use a variety of marketing channels to reach your target audience and entice them to attend.

Event promotion websites 

An essential first step in gaining traction for your event is to get it listed on a reputable event promotion website.

First of all, this listing acts as your primary online event page, to which you direct invitees when you send them emails, texts, or social media messages asking them to attend.

But there’s a secondary benefit. By listing your event on an events site like Eventbrite, you immediately take advantage of the site’s reach and its captive audience of event aficionados.

Let’s say you’re a social media whizz looking to help small business owners maximize their presence. You’ve decided to run a conference-style event with some impressive speakers.

By listing your event under categories like business, marketing, and career on Eventbrite, it automatically shows up in search results when potential attendees browse for upcoming events in those categories or with those keywords.

Now that your event page has appeared in the search, you want people to click on it, read the details, and feel compelled to buy tickets. So aside from important basic information like the event name, date, and location, your listing should motivate those potential attendees to purchase tickets and turn up. The way to accomplish that is to focus on how they will benefit from attending.

This listing by NWP Events is a perfect example of presenting the benefits and value of an event to participants:

Screenshot of an event listing on Eventbrite

Social media marketing for events

One of the best ways to spread the buzz about an upcoming event is by using social media. To maximize your social media event marketing efforts, do some promotion on a few different platforms, such as Instagram and TikTok, to ensure that you’re reaching a variety of potential attendees. 

When promoting an event on social media, your biggest challenge (and, therefore, goal) is to cut through the noise.

Your audience isn’t scrolling through Instagram to find events to go to like they are when browsing an event website. So, your post needs to get straight to the point and illustrate why your event is compelling. We recommend including the following in your social media promotional posts:

Check out this ad for a U AID Foundation charity event.

Charity Art Fair Instagram Ad

In their Charity Art Fair Instagram ad, U AID Foundation managed to capture all the necessary information and create a compelling invitation for people to unite through art and support the people of Ukraine.

You can apply these tactics to both paid social media ads and your non-paid organic social media strategy. The main difference in their reach is that organic traffic is more likely to come from your existing audience, and ads can bring you views from an audience you don’t usually engage with, opening up new opportunities. Which one you lean on depends on your event goals.

To amplify your message through organic social media, you could create a sequence of posts that drive urgency as you approach the event date. For instance, your first post would introduce the event, while a later post might be an update on ticket availability.

The more you use social media, the more you’ll be able to get a sense of what’s working and resonating with your followers.

When you make these tweaks, make sure to measure these key metrics:

Listing your event on an events platform like Eventbrite and promoting it through social media are great short-term strategies. However, if you repeatedly run events or if you’re organizing a large event and you can start your marketing early, you may want to consider how you’re going to get your event to turn up when people search for them through their chosen search engine.

Search engine optimization (SEO) for events

Your event page needs to be optimized for specific keywords relevant to the event to make it easy for people to find your event when they search on Google.

Start by using a keyword research tool to find the words and phrases that get the top results on Google, Bing, and other popular search engines.

For instance, if you want your event to show up in the search results for “networking events in Seattle,” the words “networking event(s)” and “Seattle” have to be present in your listing.

While it’s smart to optmize your listing for keywords, just remember that SEO is a little more complex than that. It can take time for a page to rank (sometimes months, which isn’t very helpful when your event is in a few weeks), and pages with what’s termed “domain authority” are more likely to rank. New pages don’t have much domain authority.

So, if your event is soon or your website is very new, rather than listing the event on your own site, choose an authoritative and established partner to host your event listing. The higher your partner’s domain authority, the better chance your event has at ranking in search results. 

That’s why listing your event on Eventbrite — one of Google’s top 100 most trusted sites — is so helpful. It’s the only ticketing or registration page with a high enough domain authority to rank alongside sites like Yelp.

Check out this Google search for “networking events in Seattle”:

Google search screenshot seattle networking events

See? The first results are all Eventbrite events!

One last tip:

For maximum exposure, find a web partner that optimizes mobile search results. Eventbrite is the only ticketing company that uses Accelerated Mobile Page search results for all event pages, so your event will automatically show up first — and fastest — when people search for your event on a mobile device.

Interested in listing your event on the largest events search engine in the world?

Sign up for Eventbrite today.

Large crowd at a concert

Email marketing

To sell out your event, you’re going to need a good email marketing strategy as well. Not only is email a direct line to potential attendees, but it’s also an optimal channel to build your audience.

To be effective, your email invite should:

Like your social media event promotion strategy, the email strategy for your event should be scheduled and sequenced. It’s also a good opportunity to include collaborations with influencers here, as a direct message from a relevant influencer can grab your audience’s attention like nothing else!

For instance, you might use a tool like Eventbrite to design a series of emails that gradually applies urgency so that your final email looks something like this:

Event email invitation

A sequence like this will help maximize email performance and drive more attendees to your event.

Speaking of performance, to make your event email marketing effective, you need to pay attention to key metrics such as open rate, click-through rate, and unsubscribe rate

Maximize your results by doing the following:

Tip: Stand out in an event-goer’s noisy inbox with these event email templates written for us by the experts at MailChimp.

Word of mouth 

Don’t underestimate the power of word of mouth in getting more attendees to your event.

Think about it: If every person currently attending gets just one other person to come, you’ve doubled your attendance.

To encourage this spontaneous outreach, you’ll need to find a good way to incentivize those who already have tickets or are about to buy them to invite others.

For example, you might run a cash-back offer, where for every successful invite an attendee makes, they earn a small amount of cash in return. If they bring enough new people in, they could end up getting their tickets for free!

All these marketing channels are effective ways to market your event. But let’s talk about some core ideas before you start your event marketing campaign. 

7-step guide to successful event marketing

There’s an array of reasons why you and you should consider this or that event marketing strategy, but you also want to be sure your strategies are successful. Use our guide to make sure you’ve covered your bases and consider some key suggestions such as:

1. Establish your event’s marketing budget

Without a thorough understanding of every dollar you spend, you’re setting yourself up to go over budget.

To establish your marketing budget, you need to:

2. Start your SEO marketing efforts

If your event is far enough in the future, you can start using search engine optimization (SEO) to market your event. There are six concrete steps you can take to implement SEO in your event marketing:

  1. Keyword Research: Before you start any SEO work, you need to understand what your potential attendees are searching for. Use tools like Google’s Keyword Planner or Ahrefs’ Keyword Explorer to identify popular search terms related to your event.
  1. Optimize Your Event Title and Description: Once you’ve identified your keywords, incorporate them into your event title and description. Keep your title under 60 characters so it appears in full on search engine results, and make sure your description is informative and includes your main keywords.

  2. Create Quality Content: Regularly publish quality content related to your event on your website or blog. This could be interviews with speakers or performers, behind-the-scenes looks at the event planning process, or articles on the event’s topic. Make sure all content is original, as duplicate content can harm your rankings.

  3. Build Quality Backlinks: Backlinks, or links to your event page from other websites, can significantly improve your SEO. Reach out to influencers, industry blogs, local event calendars, and partners or sponsors to get links to your event page.

  4. Leverage Social Media: While social media doesn’t directly impact SEO, it can help increase your visibility and drive traffic to your event page. Plus, search engines often show social media profiles in their results, offering another way for people to find your event.

  5. Monitor Your Results: Finally, use tools like Google Analytics to track your results. Look at metrics like organic search traffic and rankings for your target keywords to evaluate your performance and adjust your strategy as needed.

Remember, SEO is a long-term strategy that you should start early, but by following these steps, you can improve your event’s visibility, attract more attendees, and ultimately make your event a success.

Table showing three audience types

3. Create targeted ads

You have a solid list of people who’ve purchased tickets to your events in the past. You want to find more people just like that on Facebook, Twitter, and Pinterest.

These platforms have the technology to help you find lookalike audiences — people who match your buyer profile in terms of demographics, geography, stated interests, and online behavior. Using their algorithms and automated tools, you can then create ads targeted to those exact people.

4. Leverage influencer marketing

Partnering with influencers in your industry can help you reach a wider audience and build credibility for your event. Engage them to promote your event on their own social media channels and even speak or participate in the event itself.

But reaching a new audience won’t help if their audience isn’t your target audience, so you need to choose wisely. You need to make sure they have a track record of engaging their audience, so check that they don’t just have thousands of followers but also engagement, like comments on their posts.

5. Maximize PR opportunities

PR stands for “public relations,” and good PR is essential to spreading the word about your event. While advertising on social media and other platforms can be effective, there is a whole network of news outlets and publications that you can use to inform people of your event — and, simultaneously, your brand. Make sure you have the right PR strategy with tips such as:

Two attendees at a beekeeping workshop
Garden for the Environment / Intro to Beekeeping / SF, CA

6. Follow up with attendees

Once your event is over, don’t be lulled into thinking your work is done. Now is the time to follow up with your attendees to find out what marketing efforts they responded to and what campaigns you can forego next time. Surveys are a convenient and unobtrusive method — be sure your guests include an email address when they register for your event so you can communicate with them afterward.

7. Track your event marketing efforts

Once you’ve planned your event and rolled out promotions, it’s time to gather data and track your progress. So where can you find the information you need? Here are three places to begin your search:

Advanced marketing techniques

Ready to move past the basics and dig into even more advanced ways to market your event? You can increase your marketing efforts’ impact with these advanced marketing techniques that may require a little more elbow grease but can pay off in the long term.

More event marketing resources

Throughout this article, I’ve linked to some great resources on event marketing, but here’s a quick roundup in case you missed any and want more insights on how to make sure your event marketing goes as smoothly as possible:

Put your event marketing strategies to good use

Your event marketing can turn your event into something truly memorable. Whether you want an intimate setting or a huge crowd, your marketing efforts will ensure it’s full of enthusiastic people who are just as excited to be there as you are. 

With the right event marketing resources at your fingertips, you can figure out the goals that matter most to you and make sure you hit them out of the park.

That’s why so many event marketers rely on the Eventbrite marketing platform. From creating eye-catching promotion materials to measuring success with valuable analytics data, our platform helps you make sense of all the pieces of modern event marketing and maximize each event’s potential.