Whilst putting on an event may seem as simple as just throwing up a website, putting up a Facebook post, or sending a couple of emails, effective marketing is never easy. A well thought out marketing campaign is essential to being able to sell tickets and engage with your audience before, during, and after your event. To help you be successful in the event industry, here are four crucial mistakes that you don’t want to make.

1. A Bad Website

Your website is a portal into your event. You want to make a lasting impression whether it’s a modern, beautiful website or something that’s a little more cartoony or playful, you just need to make sure that the site is communicating the message that your attendees need to hear. There are some great website design companies out there that can ensure your event website will help you stand out from the competition. Make sure that your site is mobile responsive. If it doesn’t look good on a cell phone, then it won’t be an effective website. Since 2005 more people are using their phones to access the internet than they are a desktop so take that into account when you are designing your event’s company website.

2. Ineffective Use of Social Media

Social media marketing is absolutely essential in order to engage with your audience on a long-term basis. Whilst the events that you will plan have a hard end date, the relationships that you build with your attendees should never come to an end. There are three phases of event marketing: pre-event, live, and post-event. During the pre-event phase, you’re really looking to build up excitement and engagement with your audience. You can do this by posting questions to Facebook or Twitter. During the live phase, you really want that online audience to realize that they made an awful decision by not coming to your event. Finally, during the post-event phase, you should be featuring content that was created on-site at your event. This may include video clips, images or sponsor recognition opportunities.

3. Not Driving Content

Our events are the perfect stage for us to create digital content whether it’s attending interviews or speaker presentations, or just a walkthrough of the space, you should be sharing all of this content. You don’t even have to create any content at all, you can just share posts from industry influencers that might be attending your event, or from your speakers. You can also use your sponsor’s social media posts as well so that you’re constantly providing value and constantly engaging with your attendees.

4. Badly Designed Registration Process

There is nothing more off-putting to an attendee than trying to go through a registration process that’s difficult, clumsy, and ultimately doesn’t work. They are trying to give you their money and if you can’t take it, your events company is never going to be successful. There are many great ticket sales and registration platforms available. Test out one or two and see what works best for you, but be sure that by the time you are ready to sell tickets, your registration platform is operational.

A successful events company requires careful thought and effective content sharing. Make sure that you stay up to date on current marketing trends, and if you’re unsure about the best marketing or content strategies, there are event marketing professionals out there that you can bring on board to help you out.