Extraordinary Measures

More competition, fewer budget dollars — it’s a familiar mantra in today’s challenging marketing environment. And it’s true: whether you’re a brand-side marketer or an agency partner, you’re having to do more with less.

But that doesn’t mean your results have to suffer. Extraordinary times, as they say, call for extraordinary measures. To unlock new value in your event marketing program, here’s what you need to do in the next 12 months.

1. Integrate.

The days of doing a trade show, mobile tour, pop-up retail, entertainment sponsorship or other form of live marketing in a vacuum are giving way to an approach encompassing multiple channels. In turn, many marketers are struggling to break down the barriers between marketing disciplines to unlock the value this strategy offers.

To begin the move toward integration, keep in mind that not all events have the same effect, and neither are they singular instances of brand-audience interaction. Effective event marketing is multidimensional, employing different event types for different stages of the conversion cycle and leveraging traditional advertising, digital and other disciplines to reach audiences on a number of levels.

2. Think ’campaign.’

Take on a “campaign” mindset for event marketing planning, bringing different marketing perspectives to the planning process and stringing together incremental innovations to achieve this transition smoothly.

For instance, Toyota’s FJ Trail Teams “Seasons” integrated the live and online experience. Ultimately forming a brand community, FJ enthusiasts came together to plan their own unique event.

3. Measure. Now.

Measurement improvements aggregate over time, evolving into best practices you can rely on for smarter decision making — and use as evidence to justify an increased budget. In fact, research shows that those who measure events are twice as likely to expect their budgets to increase than those who don’t. Therefore, deciding on a measurement strategy and tools to back that plan up is imperative for both brand-side marketers and their agencies.

Measurement programs that have a simple impact typically begin with simple data capture pre-event, on-site and post-event. Even this data can be used to enhance an event’s operational performance or attendee experience. Eventually, however, data capture can grow to include qualitative information that helps shape more complex activities such as content development and overall portfolio improvement.

4. Think quality, not quantity.

Collapsing both the number of events you participate in and the number of agencies you bring in to support event programs can significantly improve portfolio performance.

A consolidation play changes the dynamic of the marketing game from quantity to quality. The number of events you participate in or generate doesn’t matter as much as the business impact those activities have. Properly executed consolidation programs can cut costs in the neighborhood of 50 percent, generate exponentially increased revenues and push the expense-to-opportunity ratio way down.

How will reducing the number of agency partners improve that performance? Here are just a few key factors:

• Portfolio-wide measurement
• Customized systems
• Volume buying
• Centralized portfolio management

5. Create a roadmap to success.

The practice of replacing old habits and assumptions with fact-based decision making and research places a bright spotlight on the event marketing world’s most pressing need right now: event marketers need to build well-defined program strategies that encompass specific objectives, clear planning and measurable performance milestones that arise from reasoned analysis of the market, all aligning to overarching brand objectives.

Having a comprehensive program strategy is far more than simply having a plan for an event. It means developing a roadmap for how the complete portfolio and each individual live experience will fulfill the market’s expectation of a company and in turn, translate into a business result. It’s a need to develop smarter marketing programs overall.

It’s clear that today’s economic climate in the U.S., combined with the wild growth of emerging markets, is pushing event marketing teams to conduct research into an event portfolio’s numerous audiences — media, employees, consumers, analysts, shareholders, etc. Once captured, that information must translate into a vision of the world and the brand’s place in it, forming a framework that subsequently informs event marketing strategy and tactics.

For example, at the 2007 Consumer Electronics Show, a worldwide communications provider used a strategic approach to create an immersive, mass-customized brand experience that generated superior traffic — while creating buzz that led to extensive media coverage.

With a wide variety of best practices, methodologies and experienced talent now available to generate truly strategic event marketing programs, brand-side marketing managers and their agency partners must dedicate real resources to the idea and practice of strategy to drive measurable results.