Content Marketing for Events: A Multi-Channel Strategy

Marketing can make the difference between a jam-packed event and an empty venue. A stellar promotional campaign helps create hype and attract a flock of excited attendees. 

Marketing also helps your guests understand what to expect from the event — from the theme to the schedule of activities. But choosing the right marketing strategy can be challenging, especially if you’re addressing diverse audiences. 

Content marketing for events is one of the most effective ways to promote your functions. This approach involves creating valuable content and repurposing it across multiple channels. Translating your content allows you to engage your target audiences more effectively and raise brand awareness. 

We’ve teamed up with ContentSquare to share top content marketing tips. This guide will help you develop a winning event marketing strategy for achieving your goals and growing your audience. 

Event Marketing: The Importance of Repurposing Content

In an ideal world, marketing an event would be fast and simple. You might send a few emails to your mailing list, maybe make a fun Instagram post, and ta-da — the RSVPs would come flooding in. Of course, every marketer knows it’s never that easy.

While there’s no guaranteed shortcut to promoting events, content marketing can help you reach potential attendees effectively and efficiently. This process involves creating or drawing on existing content related to your event and adapting this material across different content distribution channels for maximum visibility. 

For example, ContentSquare is currently hosting the CX Circle World Tour 2024. This series of hybrid events takes place in 11 major cities worldwide. Customer experience experts attend the events to learn about cutting-edge CX (customer experience) strategies and tools. ContentSquare's global content team promotes CX Circle through blog posts, social media, trends reports, and other channels. 

Here are a few benefits of repackaging content for different event marketing channels: 

• Brand consistency: Adapting content helps you develop a cohesive and uniform brand identity across all platforms. Suppose you create a short video featuring your keynote speaker. You can adapt this material into social media posts using the same caption, colors, slogan, and other brand elements. This strategy builds familiarity and trust with your audience. 
• Expanded reach: Distributing your marketing efforts across different channels lets you connect with diverse audiences. For instance, Gen Z customers might decide to attend your event after discovering your hilarious TikTok videos. By contrast, older users may prefer to learn about it while browsing an email newsletter or industry whitepaper. 
• Resource conservation: You don’t need to create content from scratch for every marketing channel. Save money and time by repurposing promotional materials into different content formats. For example, you can transform the most valuable insights from a trends report into infographics or short videos. 
• Increased attendance: Sharing your content across multiple channels lets you engage wider audiences with different preferences. This approach can help you attract more customers and boost your event attendance. 
• Lasting content: Compelling content keeps promoting your brand even after the original event has passed. Say, for example, you record event speakers and share the videos on your website and YouTube channel. New users may discover this content months or years later and decide to attend future events.

ContentSquare: 7 Considerations for Event Marketing Management

ContentSquare recently met with Compose.ly to discuss how they align their event management and marketing across multiple content channels. Below, we share some of the key takeaways from our conversation. You can watch the full webinar for additional insights and examples.

1. Set Clear Guidelines To Align Topics and Theme

Event marketing planning can feel daunting, especially if it’s your first time using multiple channels. You may be tempted to experiment with random strategies to see what works. However, establishing simple guidelines will simplify this process and help you develop a more cohesive message. 

Start by identifying your event’s core theme and brainstorming relevant content ideas. For instance, ContentSquare’s 2024 CX Circle theme is “Level Up Your Cx Game.” Many topics relate to this theme, including CX career tips, loyalty programs, and personalization. 

Next, develop clear guidelines to align the marketing content with the event theme and topics. These instructions help content creators produce consistent and relevant marketing materials for all platforms. 

Here are a few examples of aspects to address in your guidelines: 

• Accessibility: Create accessible, user-friendly content to accommodate all attendees. For example, ask content creators to include alt-text for images and transcripts for videos. 
• Messaging: Maintain a consistent message that reinforces the event’s key theme. If your event focuses on innovation, each piece of content can explore industry trends and ground-breaking technologies.
• Platform-specific criteria: Develop guidelines to tailor your content for different channels. For example, adding relevant hashtags to social media posts makes it easier for audiences to discover your content organically. Meanwhile, blog posts could feature images related to your theme for search engine optimization (SEO). 
• Relevance: Focus on creating insightful content that aligns closely with the event theme. Consider defining sub-themes that let your audience immerse themselves in relevant but niche topics. 
• Tone: All content should have a similar voice for consistency across all channels. For example, if your target audience is young professionals, you might consider a playful yet informative tone. 
• Visual design: Define the visual elements for all content, such as colors, fonts, layout, and logos. These elements should relate to the event’s overarching theme and fit your brand identity. ContentSquare shares design templates with event organizers and content creators. 

2. Plan Your Strategy Before the Event

Even the best marketers can’t promote an event overnight. It takes time to circulate content and build anticipation. Develop your event marketing plan well in advance so you have enough time to implement it. 

First, identify specific content marketing goals. Follow the SMART framework by creating goals that meet these criteria: 

• Specific: What do you hope to accomplish with your event marketing campaign? 
• Measurable: How will you determine if you’ve met your goal? 
• Achievable: Is the goal realistic based on past events and industry benchmarks?
• Relevant: Does it fit your overall marketing and event goals? 
• Time-bound: When do you plan to achieve the goal? 

These objectives will guide your decision-making and help you prioritize tasks. Here are a few examples of effective event marketing goals: 

• Boost ticket sales by 20% in the next three months 
• Build brand awareness by gaining 100 new hashtag mentions 
• Grow your social media following by 500 users before the event 

Once you’ve established goals, research your target audience’s preferences and needs. For instance, you can survey past attendees about the type of content they want to see for future events. The Pew Research Center and other organizations also publish reports about how different audiences consume content. 

Use your goals and research to choose appropriate event marketing tactics. If you want to sell more tickets to Gen Z customers, engage them with influencer and video marketing. If you want to attract hip business professionals, consider interactive emails and whitepapers. 

3. Align Your Content Strategy With Your Product Roadmap

Effective content marketing promotes your events, products, and services simultaneously. 

Consult your product development and sales departments to learn about their plans for the upcoming year. For instance, the development team may plan to launch a new feature, while the sales team may focus on expanding into a new geographic region.

Collaborate with these teams to align your event marketing strategy with the product roadmap. Here are a few potential tactics: 

• Create blog content with customer success stories 
• Hold interactive product demonstrations during the event 
• Host educational webinars about how your products solve industry challenges
• Offer event attendees early access to new products 
• Publish case studies highlighting how customers have used your products 
• Spotlight upcoming products in event newsletters and videos 

4. Leverage On-Site Event Insights To Create Market-Driven Content

Marketers often focus on creating pre-event content to encourage their target audience to attend. However, the event itself can also provide valuable data and additional content opportunities. Here are three ways to transform on-site insights into post-event content. 

Turn Client Speaker Content Into Case Studies

Repurpose client speaker content by adapting it into case studies. Prepare the client beforehand by asking them to address specific aspects of their experience during their talk. For instance, they could discuss how they used your product to overcome a challenge or achieve results. 

There are many benefits of case studies. This content enhances credibility by demonstrating how clients use your products and services to accomplish their goals. You can also adapt it into multiple formats, such as blog posts, social media posts, and videos.   

Create Trends Reports for Lead Generation

Events let you gather data and insights from industry professionals and thought leaders. Analyze this information and assemble the results in trends reports. 

For example, ContentSquare recently published the 2024 Digital Customer Experience Trends report. They created this report by surveying over 2,700 digital professionals who registered for CX Circle events in 2023. The report provides cutting-edge insights about the latest trends shaping digital customer experiences. 

This trends report has become one of ContentSquare's top lead generators. The company gated the report by requiring visitors to share their contact information before downloading it. This approach lets ContentSquare gather leads while allowing users to access the information for free. 

Trends reports establish your company's authority and industry expertise. They also drive organic traffic to your website by attracting people who want to learn more about your event theme and topics. These users may continue to explore your website and take the next step on the buyer's journey. 

Publish Long-Form Blogs To Drive Organic Traffic

Events provide plenty of fodder for long-form blog content. Consider transforming each activity or session into an informative blog post. You can also interview attendees about their industry, insights, challenges, and best practices.

Like trends reports, blog posts can drive more visitors to your website. Research relevant keywords for each topic and incorporate them into the blog to increase your website's search ranking visibility. This approach generates leads year-round and grows your audience for future events.

Blog posts can also guide leads through the sales funnel. For instance, ContentSquare leaves its blog posts ungated to drive traffic to its gated trends report. This strategy raises brand visibility and helps the sales team prioritize leads who have shown interest by downloading the gated content. 

5. Integrate Content Creation Within the Event Form

Organizations typically use event forms to register attendees and gather contact information. Take the next step by using these forms to collect insights and feedback for content creation. 

For example, ContentSquare used an event form to ask CX Circle attendees, "What do you think will be the biggest trend for CX next year?" This approach allowed them to collect significant data from their target audience, which they used to produce their trends report. 

6. Validate Your Strategy With Quantitative Data

Measure your content performance by gathering quantitative data from your attendees. For example, you can survey them about how they learned about your event and which marketing channels they find most compelling. 

ContentSquare uses post-event surveys to discover which content resonates most with their audience. This information helps the content team tailor future event strategies and marketing campaigns to their audience’s preferences.

7. Use a RACI Framework To Align Your Teams and Projects

The RACI model can help you manage complex projects in larger enterprises. This acronym stands for: 

• Response 
• Accountable
• Consulted
• Informed

Use this tool to define different stakeholders' roles in your event management and marketing projects. For example, the content manager is responsible for developing the overall marketing strategy, while videographers and writers are accountable for producing specific content. 

Perfect Your Event Content Marketing Strategy With Compose.ly

Content marketing and event planning go hand-in-hand. The right content strategy can attract enthusiastic participants to your event. Meanwhile, events can provide the perfect opportunities to create authentic content to inform your audience. 

Elevate your event marketing strategy with Compose.ly. Our case study writing service will help you transform client testimonials into compelling narratives. Our skilled writers can also craft blog posts, emails, landing pages, trends reports, and other content to promote your events. 

Contact us today to learn more about our writing services and request a sample.