Marketing

Event Marketing Examples for Every Funnel Stage

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By Market Veep

4 min read

Event marketing, also known as experiential marketing, is all about the power of face-to-face interactions and live experiences.

But exactly what is event marketing, and how can you incorporate it into your overall marketing strategy?

As you’ll soon discover, there’s no one correct answer. While traditional events like trade shows were once reserved for efforts like increasing awareness, today's promotional events can be customized to support nearly any level of the marketing or sales funnel. We’ll demonstrate how with successful examples of real event marketing campaigns, each with its own unique goal and format.

Understanding the Marketing Funnel

The marketing funnel is a series of stages that potential customers progress through on their journey to becoming paying customers. These stages may vary slightly from one sales marketing agency to the next, but the fundamentals tend to be very similar. Here’s a brief overview of common content marketing funnel stages and the customer actions associated with each:

Awareness
Potential customers become aware of your products or services.

Consideration
Leads explore whether your solution is the best solution for their needs.

Conversion
Leads convert into paying customers.

Loyalty
Customers become loyal brand advocates.

Why mention this before jumping into our promotional events examples? Because choosing the best event marketing campaigns for your company begins by nailing down your goals and which funnel stage (or stages) you’d like them to support.

Still a little skeptical that live events can do much more than spread awareness? Check out these marketing event examples and how they use various tactics to support different types of goals.

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Awareness: Industry Conferences

HubSpot - INBOUND

HubSpot’s INBOUND is an annual 3-day conference for business, sales, and marketing professionals. Since its first launch in 2012, INBOUND has grown into an industry-leading event that attracts speakers ranging from CEOs to public figures like Michelle Obama and Derek Jeter.

inbound.com home page

Last year alone, INBOUND attracted over 11k live attendees and racked up over 100k live stream views. Packed with live demos, educational lectures, and plenty of networking opportunities, INBOUND has only helped bolster HubSpot’s reputation for premiere industry expertise.

inbound.com featured speakers page

Even if you don’t have the resources to create your own conference, it’s worth attending top events in your industry. Conferences can be excellent top of the funnel networking opportunities, not to mention a chance to stay up to date on all the latest trends and innovations.

Consideration: Next-Level Product Launches

Google - Google I/0

A hyped up product launch or an excellently executed demo can go a long way to converting a lead into a paying customer. Google I/O is one of the few event promotion examples that manages to pull off both on a consistent basis.

Google I/O home page

What's Google’s secret to creating anticipation for its latest product and feature announcements? Incorporating them into Google I/O - it’s annual developer conference, which generates plenty of anticipation in its own right. But that’s just the tip of the iceberg when it comes to the things Google I/O does right.

While Google I/O takes place in front of a small live audience, you can also register to tune in live or on demand from anywhere in the world. The event also offers online virtual classes, networking opportunities, and product demos, creating a truly global online experience.

Conversion: Offer Free Workshops

Canva - Canva Events

It’s one thing to show a potential client how your product works. But if you’re really after a conversion, consider helping them learn to use it themselves.

Graphic design platform Canva offers a great example with Canva Events, a series of free online workshops hosted by industry experts. While some Canva events cover topics as basic as the fundamentals of graphic design, others are clearly targeted at niche audiences.

Canva Events page

One workshop demonstrates how the platform can be used by school systems, while another demonstrates how to use Canva whiteboards for work collaboration. By teaching potential customers what their software offers firsthand, Canva increases the odds that more leads will upgrade to their Pro or Team subscription plans.

Loyalty: Interactive Experiences

Namely - Engage Namely Hackathon

In 2016, an HR software company called Namely launched one of the best loyalty-stage event promotion examples we’ve ever seen. Employees from all across the company were divided into 17 teams, each of which spent 24 hours designing a new tool or feature for the company's software.

The winners were then judged by a panel of the company’s clients. The event was such a success that clients were even invited to work alongside Namely employees for future hackathons.

Many of the ideas developed even originated from the clients themselves, demonstrating Namely’s commitment to client-led growth. Never underestimate the power of marketing events that keep clients engaged, all while demonstrating your commitment to feedback.

Incorporating Key Trends and Insights in Event Marketing

As demonstrated by the event advertising examples above, live events are still a great way to connect with both potential and current companies. But event marketing has also evolved a great deal over the past few decades.

Here are some considerations that can help you incorporate key event marketing trends and insights into your next campaign:

Industry-leading conferences now incorporate not only lectures, but also demos, workshops, entertainment, and other live experiences.
Incorporating major product launches and announcements into other anticipated events is a great way to build excitement.
Marketing events are becoming more interactive, offering current and potential clients a more engaging way to interact with products and services.
Gone are the days when trade shows and conferences were limited by geographic location. Hosting an online/hybrid conference or webinar can substantially increase your audience reach.

Conclusion

We hope these examples of event marketing have helped demonstrate how live events can help boost your efforts at every stage of the sales and marketing funnel. Don’t be afraid to get creative and experiment with bold new ideas for reaching your target audience in fun and unique ways.

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