4 Strategies for Upgrading Your Event Marketing Approach

The world of marketing is ever-changing, and for good reason! Considering the average American sees 4,000-10,000 ads each day, marketers need to make their messages stand out to grab people’s attention.

This is especially true when you’re promoting a nonprofit event. Your event’s success depends on your ability to spread the word and attract attendees, so you must get creative with how you market your event to your audience and develop personalized, engaging content that encourages people to sign up and attend.

If you’re looking to take your event marketing strategy to the next level, you’ve come to the right place. Check out these effective strategies to upgrade your event marketing efforts.

1. Let data drive your strategy.

Your organization already collects supporter data from various sources, including your online donation page, email marketing platform, and social media channels. Why not use this information to customize your event marketing communications to your supporter base?

According to Getting Attention’s nonprofit marketing statistics guide, 72% of people claim they only engage with personalized messages. Leverage your collected data to make your event marketing materials more impactful and likely to convert audience members to attendees.

Additionally, you can combine this information with third-party data sources to expand your knowledge of your audience and target them more effectively. Deep Sync’s data marketing guide recommends following these steps to create a well-rounded, data-driven outreach strategy:

• Set clear goals. Goal-setting brings focus to your event marketing efforts and allows you to easily track your results. For instance, you may aim to register a certain number of attendees, break into a new audience segment, or secure more event sponsors.

• Collect data to inform decision-making. Then, find the data you need to help you reach these goals. Start by assessing the data you’ve already collected in-house and determining if you’re missing any essential information. Fill in any data gaps by conducting a data append, or build a custom marketing audience to expand your reach. For example, you may use a data append to source supporter email addresses or work with a data provider to unlock an audience of registered voters for a political event.

• Analyze and apply your data. Make your data useful by segmenting it into relevant groups you can leverage to personalize your event marketing. For example, if you’re aiming to engage more local supporters, you may segment audience members by location and focus your outreach on those who live in your area.
• Measure campaign performance. Lastly, measure the effectiveness of your data marketing strategy by tracking performance metrics. These may include conversion rate, email open rate, and social media engagement rates.

Data marketing transforms your event marketing approach by ensuring you speak directly to your target audience rather than a generalized group of potential supporters. With each event you host, iterate on your strategy to optimize your reach.

2. Use a variety of digital marketing channels.

We’ve touched on the importance of using data to personalize your event marketing efforts, but where exactly should you reach your supporters? Omnichannel marketing allows you to reach your target audience across multiple channels with the same cohesive messaging. The more touchpoints you have with your audience, the more likely they are to sign up for your event.

Leverage a variety of digital marketing channels to promote your event, including:

• Social media
• Email marketing
• Programmatic advertising
• Your website
• SMS marketing

Develop engaging content that aligns with your target audience and each specific platform. For example, if you’re targeting a younger audience, create TikTok videos that encourage people to sign up for your event and send short text messages with your registration link via SMS marketing.

3. Optimize your website.

Your website is your organization’s digital information hub. It can also be a powerful event marketing tool—if it’s optimized for search engines and user experience.

Whether you’re hosting an auction, gala, or fundraising 5K, take this opportunity to upgrade your website—both to promote your event and attract more supporters to your site overall. Start by implementing search engine optimization (SEO) best practices to boost your website’s performance and drive event registrations. These include:

• Using specific, locally popular keywords in your content to attract target audience members.
• Optimizing metadata to signal to search engines what your content is about.
• Incorporating internal and external links to enrich your content and encourage users to stay on your site.

You should also make sure that your website offers a positive user experience. That way, supporters who land on your site will not only be more likely to stick around and sign up for your event, but you’ll also signal to search engines that your site is worth landing on. Enhance the user experience by providing clear site navigation, maintaining fast loading times, and ensuring mobile-friendliness and accessibility.

4. Experiment with influencer marketing.

You’re undoubtedly familiar with the concept of social media influencers. However, you may not realize that you can use influencer marketing to support your nonprofit’s event marketing campaigns. The term “influencer” doesn’t just refer to social media celebrities; an influencer can be any member of your organization or community whose opinions carry weight.

Deploy local nonprofit influencers to act as ambassadors and promote your events. Look for individuals who are involved with your organization or have influence in your larger community, such as:

• Board members
• Staff members
• Volunteers
• Long-time donors
• Local leaders
• Local business owners

With the global influencer marketing market size at $24 billion in 2024, it’s clear that influencer marketing is an impactful way to persuade your audience to take action—in this case, signing up for your event. Influencers provide social proof that encourages people to follow their lead and show up for your organization.

As the world of marketing evolves, so should your event marketing strategy. Don’t be afraid to hop on trends and experiment with different techniques to reach your target audience and encourage them to attend your events. Along the way, remember to keep data at the core of your strategy so you can personalize your messaging to your supporters and provide engaging, individualized experiences that resonate with them.