How to market your event successfully: 5 essential steps for maximum impact

A step-by-step guide to event marketing

You’ve booked the venue, finalised the programme, organised the branding, and set up your stand. Next on your checklist is the crucial task of promoting and marketing your event. With 78% of organisers identifying in-person events as their organisation’s most impactful marketing channel (Bizzabo, 2025), it's clear that a well-executed promotion strategy can make or break an event.

In an ideal world, developing a communication plan helps clarify your objectives, theme, and key messages. While this may take some time upfront, it will ultimately save you effort and improve your event’s success.

Here are a few simple tips to maximise the success of your event:

1. Approach sponsors - bringing sponsors on board has multiple benefits—they can add another dimension to your event, enhance credibility, and help promote it through their network. With 53% of organisations increasing their spending on sponsoring events (Forrester, 2024), leveraging sponsorships is a powerful way to boost visibility and engagement. Be creative with how sponsors can get involved. Consider how their brand aligns with your business and your event’s theme.  Ideally there should be some form of synergy.  Consider the best way to get the sponsor involved whilst adding value to your event experience.  Could the sponsor provide relevant products or services that enhance your attendees experience for example so the sponsorship isn’t merely a financial transaction for brand exposure? A well-integrated sponsorship can add significant value and attract more interest.

2. Plan the invite - creating a well-thought-out invitation strategy is crucial to ensuring strong attendance at your event. Start by compiling a list of relevant customers, prospects, partners, suppliers, and colleagues. Decide on the best format for your invite—whether it’s a personalised letter, a professionally designed invitation, or an email. Remember to include key information in the invite including the date, time and venue, the cost if applicable. Since 94% of event teams consider pre-event email marketing the most important type of content in your event toolkit (Forrester, 2024), put the time in to get this right. Send invitations well in advance, include a clear response mechanism, and set a deadline for RSVPs. Don’t forget to follow up with reminders—sometimes, a phone call is the most effective way to confirm attendance.

3. Create a buzz – use social media to promote the event and encourage those who register to share the event within their own networks.  You can also do an event countdown and set up your event as an ‘event’ on LinkedIn, Google Business Profile and Facebook. This will make people feel more involved and constantly remind them about your event so they'll be more inclined to attend.

4. Piggyback – are there other brands you could team up with to cross-promote the event. You could develop a joint promotion for the day.  Teaming up with another business means you’ll have double the promotion efforts so people will be more likely to be aware of and attend your event.

5. Make friends with the media – ensure you keep journalists informed about the event and form a target list of local and relevant trade media. Draft a press release and distribute it to core media along with any marketing assets. Always send hi-res photography.

Maximising the value from your event

You may have done all the publicity so people know about your event but consider how the event can help you with other elements of your marketing to get maximum value. I’ve given 4 tips below:

1. Market research – use the event to do some simple market research. Speak to your target audience and find out what motivates them, obtain feedback on your product/service and find out what they would like to hear about. You can design a simple survey and get them to complete it at your event. Think about the sample size and demographics to ensure you get a robust and representative sample.

2. Blog posts – the event provides the perfect opportunity to create some original content. Consider capturing behind the scenes footage, recording videos of any demos/speakers and take pictures of you mingling with your customers and partners.

3. Lead generation – Always keep lead generation in mind.  Events provide a prime opportunity to connect with potential customers who are genuinely interested in your products or services. In fact, 80% of attendees say in-person events are the most trusted way to discover new products and services (Freeman, 2024). To maximise this, ensure you have business cards ready and a clear strategy for following up with prospects. Whether through email, phone calls, personalised outreach and timely follow-ups can turn interest into action. I would thoroughly recommend you draft a series of follow up emails before the event to ensure these are ready to use straight afterwards.  Also, be mindful of GDPR compliance when collecting and using attendee data for marketing purposes.

4. Testimonials – use the event to record testimonials from customers. You can even use a simple video to capture the sound bites.

And afterwards...

Always write up your key learnings and do this whilst it’s top of mind.  An event evaluation will enable you to plan better next time and ensure you’re clear on what results were generated and estimate the ROI.  Your event evaluation should include:

·      The objectives you set out to achieve

·      A breakdown of the budget and time invested

·      The key deliverables and mechanics

·      What worked, what didn’t

·      Results and estimated ROI

I hope you've found this article helpful.  For more marketing tips and practical advice, feel free to visit my blog the ‘Sharp End’.

If you would like further help with marketing your small business, then please contact me for a 30-minute free consultation.