Digital Event

Strategist
MODULE 5 WORKBOOK PART 1
 MODULE 5 PART 1
MODULE AGENDA

Building Your Digital Event Marketing Plan 3

Content Marketing Strategy 5

Content Marketing Planning 8

Digital Event Website + Email Marketing + Social Media 10

Twitter 12

LinkedIn + FB + IG 14

Building Community 16

Video Marketing for your Digital Event 18

www.pcma.org Page 2
 Module 5 Part 1 Takeaways:
Build a robust digital event marketing plan with objectives, actions, and measurement.
Use social media, video, email, and content to drive engagement with different segments of your
audience.
Build a community around your event to create long-term revenue growth for your organization.

Lesson 5 Main Points:

Marketing for a digital event is very similar to a physical event. You need to craft a marketing
strategy.

Review how to create a plan. Learn the best types of content to share and what dedicated actions
work best for your digital marketing plan.
A marketing plan is critical to success.
There are no perfect templates for digital events. The best marketing plan for you is the one that
works for you.
Make the plan easy and immediately applicable.
Essential parts of the marketing plan are: objectives, actions, measurements and to then adjust
objectives.
Before defining objectives, gather a marketing team.
Take advantage of collaboration marketing.
Involve speakers, industry influencers, media sponsors, partners, suppliers, exhibitors, and even
your participants.

Know your audience:

Define your marketing objectives based on your target audience profiles.
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 Take into consideration, "are they tech savvy or newbies?"
This will impact the choice of channels tools to communicate and interact with them.
Know what kind of information the audience is interested in and what problems we may solve for
them through our event.
Set up a multi-platform marketing strategy integrating social, mobile, digital and even the
traditional marketing efforts.

Questions:

1. What is critical to the success of a hybrid event?

2. What are two essential parts of a marketing plan?

3. List two considerations you should keep in mind in regards to your audience.

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It is crucial to integrate marketing strategy, event objectives and all other components of the
event itself.

Everything is interconnected.

Key Objectives = Extend your audience:

Digital events enable you to reach a global audience.
You can have participants connected from all around the world.
National audience can be bigger with no restrictions, travel expenses or limitations.
Apply this objective to both remote and in person attendees.
The online experience can be used to drive in-person attendance at your next physical event.

Build demand to generate registrations:

Important objective to set up for marketing = Transform your audience into an online community,
community members into registrants, and then into effective participants.
Create engagement with your participants and have them interact with you.
Converting registrants to attendees is a key objective. Find a way to nurture them to show up.

Drive engagement:
Not only during the event, but also before, so they can be converted into participants.

Contribute to increasing the income of the event:

This is an event objective, but with the marketing actions, you can really contribute to successfully
achieve it.

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Broaden exposure:
Increase exposure of your exhibitors, sponsors or partners, including speakers and the hosting
organization in the marketplace.
Content created or captured during the event can significantly help you in promoting your next
event, and all the stakeholders of the event itself.

Don't forget to make your objectives measurable. Verify you are doing well, and be able to adjust or
change your actions accordingly.

Content strategy and actions:

Define the actions of our plan.
Marketing actions start well in advance and will be executed before, during and after the event.
Digital events need a multichannel approach aimed towards content creation and distribution.
Whether you promote your physical and online events together or separately, offering both
options ensures you reach the broadest audience in the format that's more convenient for them.

Create marketing content suitable and/or exclusivity for the online audience.

Useful content drives viewers:

Know what content is already available, and what content you need to create. Some content
creation can be outsourced to trusted partners like speakers, sponsors, media, etc.
Keep in mind: Useful content drives viewers to your website, the place we want them to land.

Segmenting your audience:

Not everyone wants the same thing. It's important to talk to them differently.
Change subject lines in emails, share relevant content by segment, send tailored messages, use
the right tools and media to reach each segment.
Stay away from self-glorification.

Delivery methods and tactics:

Directing the marketing of digital events gives you the chance to have various channels working
together in synergy.
Channels and tools are essential to your strategy, optimizing your marketing efforts and finding
easier solutions to obstacles.
Choose the communication channel that best fits your audience preferences.
Know your audience! If you don't know them, you don't know what to say.
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Questions:

1. Everything is .

2. How can you build the demand of registrants for your event?

3. What are two ways you can segment your audience?

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Plan your marketing schedule well in advance.
Most digital attendees will register in the two weeks before the event, but digital events may take
more time to get people excited.
You might need five or six impressions to catch their attention and move them to registration.
Take extra time to continue building excitement and desire to attend your event.
You may need a secondary attendance campaign for all those who registered for your event to
ensure they attend. Send slide decks, or video previews to keep reminding them of why they
wanted to attend.

Put time and effort into building your digital registrants into a community.
Get speakers involved with talking to registrants, sourcing material or taking surveys.
Get the education department involved in discussions about what they'd like to do during the
virtual event.
Collect information using a poll. Know how to better focus your content to engage them and be
sure they will participate.

Preparing your calendar:

Create a list of post types to share on a regular basis. Include conversation starters, blog posts on
topics, and reshares of interesting content! Relate posts to your event topics or to your partners,
products or services.
Include tips on how to attend, what's new, unique, innovative or exclusive of your event.
Share videos and various multimedia content. (Videos are taking the lead in marketing on social
media (Periscope, FB Live, YouTube, etc.)
Offer early bird rates and discount codes dedicated to specific segments of the audience.
Announce a new speaker, new partner, or an agreement reached.
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Content Releasing:
Define when and where to release your content.
Use tools to help you to decide the "best day of the week" and the "best time to share your
messages"... based on your audience’s location and preferences.
Consider digital events usually have a global audience with different time zones. (The solution may
be a more massive sharing of the same info to cover all the timing and areas of interest.)
Content on demand can be released all year long as a component of a year round content
management strategy.
Use different communication styles! Be more formal for emails and LinkedIn, and less formal on
Facebook, Twitter or Instagram.
Your timeline planning document can be an Excel or Word file, or a feature of one tech tool.
To manage communication campaigns for social media, consider using Hootsuite, a scheduling
calendar or a project management tool like a Podio.
Find templates!

Define your measurements:

Analytics allow you to track conversations, topics of interest, presentations or workshops attended,
providing you with valuable insight
Google analytics provides the visits to your website, so you can track the most interesting topics, or
the most clicked links.
Additional information can be collected including the nationality and other demographic data of
your audience, as well as if they connected using a mobile device or other browser.
Execute your plan, record and measure your results.
Be sure to tag and monitor all your marketing activities.
Gather information on which strategies were most successful in driving registrations or achieving
any other relevant objective.
Periodically check out things. Actions can be updated and objectives can be added.
Let your plan be flexible to make the best out of it

Questions:

1. When will most digital registrants sign up for your event?

2. How can you build your digital registrants into a community?

3. What do analytics allow you to do?

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Your Digital Event Website:
The website is the collector of all crucial information about the event, and the place where
participants can register.
To drive viewers to the website, it needs to be dynamic and interactive. Consider a blog and not a
static website.
Make regular event related posts on your blog to alert followers about your plans. Keep in mind
that useful content drives viewers.
Take time to plan the right posts and which days you will post them to social platforms.
The website is the landing place for all your social media channels.

Wordpress:
You can have a blog with a very easy to use platform like WordPress, or you can use widgets
available on your website.
WordPress allows you to download and use plugins with several options to engage with your
participants, chatting in real time and collecting their suggestions.
Test the functions of embedding photos, documents, videos and your livestreaming activities.
Share social media buttons in a visible place on the main page to facilitate visitors to like and
follow you, or to share your content.

With any external tools, make sure your website is a harbor and cross promote.

Email marketing:
Integrate your email marketing activities with your blog posts, and all information related to the
digital part of your hybrid event.
Share content regularly through a newsletter, or focus your messages to a specific audience.

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 Share info and instructions on how to register and take part in your event remotely.
In the four months prior to your event, be sure to add sidebars highlighting the chance to attend the
events remotely.

Mailchimp as a marketing automation tool. It is perfectly integrated with the WordPress and several
other platforms.
Use lists to manage your communications to different categories of attendees. Customize the
messages based on the list you are using to share the info.
Mailchimp has a plug-in that you can download on your website to allow you to grow your database,
and then offers an amazing set of analytic tools that will help you better focus your content.

There are several other solutions that work really well. Find the one that best fits your needs and
that of your participants.
After an event, send a follow-up email to remote participants to thank them for their contribution
with a recap of the event.
Suggest they sign up for a newsletter to get future event updates, including sessions on demand
and other valuable material you collected during the event.

Social media:
Social media for online and hybrid events is a very important communication channel to...
Recruit participants, speakers and sponsors.
Create a community and a buzz around your event.
Keep your followers updated.
Interact with your audience in real time.

Don’t forget to include these four essentials on your profile: the name and date of the digital event,
the place (if it’s hybrid) or the platform, the website and the event hashtag.

Questions:

1. What is the collector of all crucial information about an event?

2. How can you utilize Mailchimp for your event?

3. List two important uses of social media for events.

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Twitter Set-up Gameplan:
Twitter for events is one of the most popular and effective channels because of its real time
interaction options.
Set up a profile for the event itself. Make it informative!
Create a community connecting with the target audience of your event and share useful content.
This will grow your following.
Create a hashtag for your event by simply writing it in a Tweet.
Send out an invite to your Twitter tribe to use it for joining the conversation.

Hashtags Tips:
Use the hashtag to follow what people say about your event, to interact with them, to obtain
analytics or to keep your attendees informed with a Twitter wall.
Give credit to your supporters, speakers and sponsors. Include their account in the text of your
tweets. Retweet them!
Twitter will allow your network to retweet and spread the word to another network.
The text you provide must be easily retweeted, and the hashtag simple and intuitive.
Before choosing a hashtag, type it into the search field of Twitter and check if it is already in use.
This gives you a clean and dedicated channel for your event and reliable analytics.
For the digital component of your event, consider using a dedicated hashtag.
Promote it everywhere you do for the live event hashtag.
Invite attendees to use the hashtag that you create for the digital event.
This will get people talking and collect all the videos and photos taken by participants.
Use gamification activities.
Organize a contest with a prize for the most creative photo share using the event hashtag.

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 Use a dedicated hashtag as a channel for assisting your attendees. Hire a social media
management team to monitor and respond in real time or use apps to receive alerts.
Combine hashtags with others well known in the industry, events or community.
Keep in mind social media etiquette.

Questions:

1. What is one of the most effective marketing channels for events?

2. How can you help your following on Twitter grow?

3. What should you do prior to selecting a hashtag for your event?

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LinkedIn:
Most important social network for meeting professionals.
500 million members. Virtually everyone you want to connect with in a specific industry is there.
Set up a LinkedIn profile or make the one you have more appealing using the tools provided by
the platform.
Create a community connecting with your target audience.
Do this using the advanced search option and filter based on keywords: location, country,
industry, groups.
When sending a connection request, write a nice message explaining why you want to connect
with them.
Similar to Twitter, there are automated messaging tools for auto reply, giving an immediate
response to whoever is connecting with you. Make it personal.
Set up a company page if it applies to your event case, then promote it through updates.
Link the website or promotion with a discount code or prize.
Join LinkedIn groups related to your event.
Do not post promotional or commercial updates in these groups. Share only valuable information
of interest to these groups.
Test out LinkedIn events.
Share information, invite people to attend and send people to the registration page with a link.

Facebook:
Personal network, but people love getting updates there.
Pictures and videos are very popular on Facebook.
Set up your event’s Facebook page.

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 Invite your friends to Like or Share your Facebook page or event website.
Join Facebook Groups relevant to your event.
Provide regular updates about your event.

Instagram:
Most popular network for photos and videos.
Set up a business profile.
Instagram provides your contact details and gives you access to Instagram insights, where you
can learn about your followers.
Add short descriptions and hashtags to your posts.
Provide regular updates leading up to your event.

Questions:

1. What is the most important network for meeting professionals?

2. What two things are very popular on Facebook?

3. List two benefits of Instagram.

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Digital events can be an important part of community and relationship building efforts. It is important
to establish a focus on online communities to extend the life of the event.

Consider using the following social media management tools:

Hootsuite or Buffer:
Schedule and organize your posts on social media. This will help you save time and keep track of
what to post and when.
Easily discover trends within your most successful posts.
Differentiate the titles and text of the messages to share.
Choose different times of the day or days of the week, according to the time zones of your
audience.
Find out which messages work most effectively with analytics tools.

GroupTweet:
Useful tool for Twitter.
Allows you and your team to use the same Twitter account to share messages based on a
specific permission or hashtag.

Event app:
Have an event app ready to use long before your event. Use it to share specific messages to your
audience or guidelines.
Set up a public chat to facilitate networking between online and onsite participants.
Collect feedback and engage participants through polls and questions. Evaluate audience
interests and preferences.
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 Integrate various components of in-person and digital events with your digital, social, mobile and
traditional marketing to create a nearly unlimited combination of ways to engage your audience.

Facebook frame
Create a customized frame for your event with your hashtag.
This can be created directly through Facebook to customize the photos and videos that you and
your participants take with the Facebook camera.

Twibbon:
To have the frame for all of your social media channels, use Twibbon.Create a campaign and share
the link so your participants can login and add the frame to their social media profiles.

Clicktotweet/QR code generation:

Go to the clicktotweet website, write your Tweet, add hashtags and mentions, then click generate
link. Copy the link and paste in QR code generator website (QR Code Monkey).
Click on the generate QR code button. Download the QR code image.

Questions:

1. What can be an important part of community and relationship building efforts?

2. How can Hootsuite help you save time?

3. What can Twibbon be used for?

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What is the relevant content?
Use a variety of content types to attract a variety of user types.
You need a strategy well before the event.
Consider what you want to collect, and when and how you decide to share it.
You need a team, selected tools and a reliable platform.
Differentiate professional content versus audience generated content. (Audience generated
content may have a very important role.)
Giving a contribution and working with peers keeps people engaged.
Be aware of all the technological solutions that will be adopted for your event.
Categorize the content in the videos to see what kind of content we can produce and capture.

Some of the most effective tools for digital events for YouTube, email, Periscope, Facebook live, and
other live streaming platforms.

Before the event:

Ask "What kind of videos can we create?" or "What are the tools we can use to record? What are
the platforms to archive and share them?"
Consider creating short pre-recorded videos, live streaming leaders promoting the event,
speakers giving a preview of their presentations, or sponsors and exhibitors presenting their
product.
Share backstage moments, asking participants what they want to experience.
Share content through webinars about what attendees will learn at the event.
Create a short video pointing out the benefits of your digital event and instructions on how to
participate.

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During the event:
Live stream interviews with speakers, industry experts, or a product presentation.
Focus on solutions, backstage moments, and networking activities where participants are having
fun or making good business connections.
Make the attendees the stars. Ask them for testimonial videos.
Re-share them in real time or after the event.

After the event:

Create a video collecting all of the best moments and memories that happened during the event,
even if it takes place in a virtual environment.
Share screenshots or screen recording recordings so people's memories can be positively
influenced.
With on demand content, we can release videos of the sessions one by one in between the event
and its next edition, if there is one.
Videos from participants can help you achieve the goal of engaging them and their community.

Content Capturing:
Mobile devices, smartphones and tablets are taking the lead in facilitating video content
production.

The first two social media live streaming applications were Meerkat and Periscope (Released to the
market in 2015).

Instagram and LinkedIn now have their own live streaming features.
The YouTube app now gives you the chance to go live as well.
Collect the point of view of your participants and let them be the informal channel, where you can
share real life moments of your event and every step of the process.

Periscope: Go live using the Twitter app.

The most important feature of Periscope is the interaction.

Participants can message you, send hearts to show appreciation, share your live stream with their
community or share the link to your video and invite their followers to join them.

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Periscope rules:
Apart from an effective title with your event hashtag, you should repeat frequently what you are
scoping about, where you are, etc.
Interact as much as possible with the people who join your scope. Ask questions, ask for
feedback, help them to know you and them to know each other.
Embed your videos and send potential viewers to your website. Periscope videos are now finally
embeddable.
Watch them on your computer using the Periscope TV channel. This is a powerful tool!

YouTube is no longer only a platform to archive videos, but does have a live streaming feature. It is
very easy to set up and perfectly and embeddable.

YouTube live:
The limit to live streaming on YouTube with your mobile phone is at least 1,000 followers. Create a
very strong community.
You can go live from your computer and be successful.

Facebook Live:
Facebook Live is the live streaming application of Facebook.
You can find the live stream option when you update the status of your personal profile, or when
you create a new post for a business page.
Videos while live streaming, and even after you finish, are prioritized by Facebook and displayed
on top of the other news.
Friends and followers receive a notification with an invitation to join. There is an entire station
about Facebook Live.

Instagram:
Instagram allows you to go live and share replays of your live videos on your Instagram stories for
up to 24 hours.
Please note: A live broadcast is limited to one hour, which is similar to Facebook. Live Periscope
doesn't have a time limit on live video broadcast.
Watch your battery life if you're using the mobile phone and your data limitation.

Video channels:
YouTube and Vimeo are powerful channels to archive and share video contents. They have a
double function to give you visibility and to enlighten the sharing of a content.
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 You don't need to upload any videos on your website, they are hosted on these platforms.
You can embed them into your website through a code and share only the link to this content on
social media.
Consider the option to sell your content or make it private and share it only with that selected
group of people, like event participants or a specific segment of your audience.

Photos and documents:

Professional photos are a great way to promote events. Shots of smiling and engaged people will
reinforce the good memories of your on-site participants and will connect the remote audience to the
face-to-face event.

In order to have photos available in real time to share on social media and engage with your
remote participants, consider using your mobile device.
Selfies are one of the most effective ways to have your participants as ambassadors.
Ask your remote participants to take selfies or videos of themselves while attending your event.
Share on a specific channel with a specific hashtag.
Give them visibility, showing their contribution on the main screen, or by mentioning them during
the broadcasting.
Participants love to be on stage, even if only virtually.
Pictures are crucial for posts and any other message shared on social media channels. (They
capture the attention of followers more than the title or content of the posts.)

Flickr is a platform where you can store pictures. It is a premium platform.

Create albums and your participants can download pictures in a high resolution.
You can even embed nice photo galleries into your website, adding an easy to install, dedicated
plugin in.

Pinterest and Instagram:

Engaging social media tools to share pictures of your event.Take care of all the social media
profiles, be consistent with the info about your event and use the official hashtag everywhere.

Slideshare:
Share any presentation, file or document related to the event.
Embed these presentations and documents into your event website or landing page. Share the
link on other social media.
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 It is now owned by LinkedIn, so you can also show your documents or slides gallery on your
LinkedIn profile.

Benefits of content creation:

You can engage participants, making them your reporters and testimonials.
Increase the value to event attendees.
Create a story of your event.
Provide access to content on demand.
Generate year round revenue or attention.
Use it for your future event promotion.

Questions:

1.iWhen should you create your strategy?

2. List two Periscope rules

3. How can you utilize Slideshare?

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