From talking to organisations looking to get into the inbound marketing or content marketing game, it seems clear to me that many are considering what appears to be the easy option – hiring a recent graduate to manage their entire program, and kick-start this step change.

Email always comes out on top when event marketers are asked about their preferred or most effective marketing channels. But social media is catching up fast, and the only reason I believe it to be positioned in second place is that event marketers simply don’t know how to make the most of it. Here are our top mantras and musts for promoting your event on social media. Use this as an quick reference checklist for you and your team. 

If there was ever a good time for you to ask for a raise in salary, it’s now. It can be so easy to simply wait until your yearly review rolls around - and even then you may not make a strong enough case for your pay rise, but if you don’t ask then you don’t get. Sometimes the first step is just knowing your worth.

The B2B events industry is booming, that is a fact. Most companies want to grow their events, their portfolios, launch new divisions, etc. and that only means one thing. You need to team to do this and you need to recruit.

In the same wavelength, I have never heard of any events professional saying they are 100% happy with their salary and the job they are doing (if you are one of them please get in touch as you deserve a mention, I am serious). That only means that your only options are: Stay doing what you are doing or check what is happening in the market and explore your options.

Recruiting for a new role or finding a new job is a challenge from whichever angle you look at it. But whenever there is a challenge there is always a solution, and here is my list of top recruitment agencies that have a particular speciality for recruiting event professionals with experience in events and conferences.

If you watch this video and find yourself nodding, smirking and coming to the crude realisation that this fictional guy represents your business, then you have a reason to be well and truly ashamed.

While this video may be mocking an old school mentality, it is a sadly somewhat accurate reflection of the approach some organisations use to promote and sell their events.

If there is one single organisation which can be considered the events industry authority on events big and small with meaningful data, it is EventBrite. They recently released their Pulse report which delves into the must-know trends and crucial benchmarks for the UK events industry.

From my point of view, the Pulse report is a key piece of research to have at your fingertips. Every event leader asks me the kind of questions that this particular report answers. So get your hands on it today.

I have gone through the process of reading the whole 44 page report and have summarised the main key figures for you here. I do strongly recommend you download it and check it out as it is definitely worth a read.

First let’s talk about the money…

I was recently invited to take part in Pickevent’s Best practices in social media promotion session.

The event was jam-packed full of insights and best practices in social media promotion, and I can’t help but want to share them!

Here are my top eight takeaways from the session, with thanks to Elvira Hunte, Randy Nyssen and William Watts for being such fantastic fellow panel members. 

Undoubtedly, the most common question I am asked when speaking to event industry leaders is: “Do you think our open rates and click through rates are above or below the benchmark for the industry?”

While I haven’t officially surveyed the conference professionals that I know, I have many conversations to draw upon, and in my experience email is still hugely important to event companies. They really care about the results they are getting and want to know how they measure up to competitors and peers.

Now, when it comes to actual figures, I believe you have to take them with a pinch of salt. Many marketers like to think that they are already taking the right approach, and simply want to be assured of this. In addition, if you were to ask your marketing manager what kind of results they are seeing you will likely induce panic, and cause them to demonstrate only their best performing pieces for fear of criticism. 

But, based on my experiences across the board within the event industry, here are the metrics you should expect to see:

There are many ideas event planners use to stimulate engagement during the event. Some bring comedians, others commission Cirque du Soleil style shows, hire magicians etc... You name it and it has been done, especially in North America where events get additional, hype which I think is pretty cool.

I personally see the value events don't necessarily need to be serious and academic and networky all the time. Well, what if you could invest your money in something that will actually generate excitement, buzz, shares, a twitter frenzy, awareness and, more importantly, an everlasting memory of your event?

Try attempting to break a world record title and give yourself the chance to join the likes of Usain Bolt and Richard Branson by being in the Guinness World Records book!

Great, you’re convinced. You realise that at some point you’re going to have to come around to the idea of an online community for your event(s) and what better time to start than right now? So how exactly do you do that?

Start Blogging! Start your own, blog on LinkedIn, blog wherever you want, but do it consistently.

Well we’ve shown you the shape an online event community can take, so think about which areas you’d like to focus on. We have some advice of our own on that topic but ultimately it’s down to you to fit the forum to your ideal customer, or the place you know your prospects and customers can be found.

However, we can’t stress this point enough – if you don’t have a blog you’re missing a major opportunity to generate leads and build a captive audience. This is the most effective first step you can take in creating YOUR community, though you might not think it’s the easiest.

Here are our 5 steps to blog success, take them one step at a time.

How to attract an event audience, and how to keep them

Is there really a secret recipe for event success?

And then a secret sauce to keep them coming again and again?

Not really, it is not rocket science.

This was the opening line from Ashley Friedlein from econsultancy at the recent PPA Breakfast connect event.

I couldn’t agree with Ashley more - there is no silver bullet for achieving event success. So if there is none, what is the magic that some successful events like the Festival of Marketing enjoy?

Everyone knows the formula for event success and the most common mistakes to avoid.

The way you will attract an audience is through the “promise of the experience” and the experience you deliver. This is what Ashley thinks is the secret sauce. Successful events like the Festival of Marketing have the following elements:

Most event companies we’ve engaged with have at least an understanding that something in the industry needs to change, even if they’re not sure quite what shape this change will take. They’re all scratching their heads as to how they can achieve greater levels of awareness for their events, drive delegate attendance, and increase ticket sales – and do so in a sustainable way.

The beauty of the online community is that it checks all the boxes. It is the only clear solution. Any conference organisation that isn't thinking about developing a community, generating good engaging content, pulling rather than pushing and recognising that there needs to be a different approach, is missing a huge opportunity.

Many event companies are just waking up to the fact that online communities could become a huge part of their event marketing strategy, so let’s start by clarifying exactly what we mean.

An online community, put simply, is a virtual community where members or users primarily use the internet to share information and interact with one another. In the event industry, an online community is formed around a single event, or if the topics are related, a group of events. The information shared would relate to the topic of the event(s), and participants in these interactions would have an interest in the sector. In its purest form, an online community is inbound marketing in action: the process of attracting leads to your organisation, rather than using outdated, interruptive methods to gain new business.

Sometimes it’s easy for the marketing team to become an island, and as a marketer your job can feel like a constant battle to prove yourself, and the value of the work you do, to the business. But it doesn’t have to be this way. Some simple cooperation can encourage other teams to view yours as an equal, and can demonstrate to your boss just how much of an asset you are.

Picture this: Your business launched an event last year and it was a resounding success, receiving 150 attendees. This year, your target is 200 delegates (about 30% increase), and senior management believe that if you "do some clever marketing" and "throwing some additional money at it" your could easily reach 300. That’s right; the boss has just raised the bar by forecasting a 100% increase in event attendees. Simply because there is a good feeling about it.

Salesforce recently published their 2015 report on the current state of marketing, and naturally it has given me plenty of food for thought. The report is a thorough and comprehensive overview of what marketers say about their budgets, priorities, channels, strategies and metrics for 2015. Yes, it goes into great detail, but there are definitely a lot of valuable insights in there for curious marketers. With a focus on the UK, and B2B marketing primarily, I’ve summarised what I believe to be the salient points.

If you read this blog, you know my view on how event marketers use and abuse email marketing, and I’m afraid to say it hasn’t altered just yet. If anything, I realise that there are several fundamental forgotten points that I just had to make. If you’re a B2B event industry insider, and you use email as your main marketing channel please listen up, because your approach so far is not good, not because I say so, just because click-through rates in our event industry are appalling!

Email marketing click through rates in the events industry range from 0.5% to 1.5%

Video for B2B events is a must, and any organiser who doesn’t think to budget for it and prioritise its importance will likely regret it when the sales and marketing teams come to sourcing or generating new leads next time around.

But how exactly do you make the most of that conference footage? And how can you tell its effectiveness as a lead generation tool? Well, I’ve been keeping an eye on one company in this arena that is driving the industry forward in a very innovative and cool way. CatchTalk.tv has built its own platform for event companies to showcase conference video on, and not only that, but it can demonstrate the ROI behind it too. 

As an event professional, there’s simply no excuse for not knowing the numbers and relevant statistics that indicate whether your event will be successful or not. This does not just apply to the marketing team, and even if you are not directly responsible for tracking these metrics, it’s crucial that you retain a regular awareness. B2B event planners that don’t bother to find out are just relying on wishful thinking to guarantee success; now what kind of strategy is that? Here are the most important numbers to help analyse the success of your event before it even takes place!