Neil Borden an American academic invented the term Marketing Mix for all the components one needs to promote a brand. Later it was E Jerome McCarthy an American marketing professor and author who reduced this mix to just four elements namely – Product, Price, Promotion and Place.
But did you know that experiential event marketing has its own 4 P’s as well?
That includes Planning, Promotion, Preparation, Performance – the absolutely imperative ingredients needed to make any event successful.
Planning:
Planning is not only the first P of experiential event marketing but the most significant one as well. It is said that the more you sweat in peace, the less you bleed in war -which means a good event plan in place is like half the battle won. Event planning starts at the pitch level itself. Planning incorporates all aspects of the event, from its initial conception, idea formation stage through to the timetable for the D-day. Proper planning of the entire event is crucial to ensure maximum reach and success. Remember the age-old saying ‘haste makes waste’? Similarly planning benefits to attain efficiencies in terms of time, resources, capital and can help roll out the mega event smoothly.
Promotions:
The correct & apt Promotion of an event is an absolute necessity.
The biggest benefit of promotions today is that one can make use of various online platforms for marketing and promoting. These include blogs, social networking websites, video hosting websites etc. where news about the event can be spread correctly. As an event planner, you must ideate on an apt marketing strategy and promotional message for your event and then push it out on platforms that work best for your event. These promotions will help your delegates get an understanding of what to expect from your event and once you get them hooked to your promotions, they’ll become your “word-of-mouth” tools as well.
Preparation:
Events, exhibitions, trade shows, conferences etc. are the types of events held to get the brand and business noticed. Preparation at such a big level isn’t as simple as booking a ticket and crossing your fingers for business.
Whatever is the goal/objective of the event, make sure some SMART targets are set. This will help in planning the rest of the activity accordingly and will assist in keeping everyone in the business on track. Basically, the term ‘being prepared’ is to limit the number of unknown variables that can alter the functioning on the D-Day.
For eg: If a talk session is to be held, its topic and content should be pre-decided so that the talk seems to be natural and well-planned.
An event marketer or a business person should commit this to his/her memory that “Failing to prepare, is preparing to fail!”
Performance:
Performance of an event does not finish with the event. Instead, it is after the event that one is able to assess its effectiveness and reap its profits. Event success or performances rely on various factors.
Measuring the progress after each event grants the privilege of more accurate future events, and allows for better outlining in order to improve management and engagement. Subdividing each component of an event in measurable pointers helps in achieving more specific business analysis.
At Shobiz, we offer a series of integrated services. So that irrespective of audience, market, objective, budget or geography, you are always a step ahead in your business promotions/events. We ideate and deliver a holistic solution that will have maximum impact, can be implemented on a huge scale. We track the key metrics of engagement and ROI at every milestone. With implementation of the above 4 P’s, we help the brand to reach the next level of business success via experiential event marketing.