Social Media

A Digital Marketing Checklist for Events

Event Marketing Checklist | Image via Unsplash
Written by Kaylynne Hatch
Buffer

There’s a popular book within productivity circles that focuses on one simple tool that makes a world of difference when it comes to planning. It’s called “The Checklist Manifesto” by Atul Gawande. In the book, Gawande discusses the value of using checklists in order to organize teams, increase efficiency, and cut down on mistakes and mishaps when dealing with complex operations (like flying a fighter jet or performing surgery). Gawande cites a number of studies and many many anecdotes that demonstrate the incredible effect a simple checklist can have.

Consider how many things you already use checklists for when it comes to event planning. You likely have a checklist for at least your overall planning process, your AV needs, your catering needs, seating, etc. So why not also create a simple checklist for your event marketing?

Here, we’ve done just that! In fact, we’ve created a simple checklist that you can use when developing your event’s overall digital marketing plan!

Overall Event Digital Marketing Checklist:

These should be basic to-do items for any event marketing plan.

Before:

☑ Create an Event Website and/or Landing Page
☑ Setup Event Registration
☑ Setup Any Marketing Automation Tools
☑ Establish Social Media Profiles
☑ Create an Advertising Strategy (social ads?)
☑ Put Together a Social Media Strategy
☑ Create an Email Marketing Strategy or Sales Funnel
☑ Establish Event Hashtag(s) & Encourage Attendees to Use it
☑ Decide What and How You’ll Collect Event Data (consider setting benchmarks and/or KPIs)
☑ Write Relevant Blog Content to Promote Your Event (and Boost SEO)
☑ Send out Pre-show Emails

During:
☑ Use Social Listening in Order to Leverage Content Created by Attendees
☑ Reshare Content on Social
☑ Create Social Posts that Help Inform Attendees about Key Moments during the Event
☑ Post Highlights of the Event as they Happen
☑ Create Livestreams Throughout the Event (if it’s part of your marketing strategy)
☑ Continue to Encourage Attendees to Use the Event Hashtag

After:
☑ Send out ‘Thank You’ or Post Event Messages via Social
☑ Send out ‘Thank You’ or Post Event Messages via Email
☑ Announce Next Year’s Event & Update the Event Website (as well as the Hashtag & Social Profiles)
☑ Review Any Marketing Data Collected During the Event (measure results against benchmarks and/or KPIs)
☑ Gather, Clip, and Otherwise Preserve Content Created at the Event for Future Marketing Endeavors

Digital marketing can be a fairly complex project to tackle, although it helps, to think of it as something of an ecosystem. Everything you do can feed or support another part of your overall marketing strategy. Using a checklist can help you keep the ecosystem stable and organized. Mind you, the checklist above is very simplified because every event is different. However, it should provide a good base on which to build your event’s overall digital marketing plan.

 

Did we miss anything? What would you include in your event’s digital marketing checklist? Tell us below in the comments or tweet us @MeetingPool. We would love to hear from you!

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Kaylynne Hatch

Editor / Social Media Manager at The Meeting Pool
Kaylynne Hatch is a social media expert and online marketing manager. With a Bachelor of Science in Communications and New Media from the University of Utah and a background in graphic design and entrepreneurship. She has been working in the events and travel industry since 2013.
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