Posted on July 10, 2023
No matter your business’s industry, you must understand that genuine success depends on your ability to make your brand and customer experience memorable. And this is particularly true for event branding.
There are many reasons to ensure every brand event you throw is unforgettable:
- The element of memorability can hugely help differentiate an organization from its competitors.
- It can communicate the unique value that encourages consumers to attend.
- It can improve brand recall and recognition, which boosts consumers’ purchase intention.
- And it can be a core growth factor for your business — from building trust to attracting new customers and potential partners.
So, if you’re interested in creating a memorable event brand, here are the top tips to reach your goal, including some great examples to learn from.
Tip 1: Know Your Audience
Almost every instance of branding and marketing advice starts with the same tip: know who you’re trying to sell to. But the simple fact is, having an in-depth knowledge of your target audience and buyer personas makes any branding undertaking so much easier.
When you know who you’re trying to attract, you can effectively align all your design and marketing choices with your audience’s preferences. Your visuals will likely appeal to the people you want to attract. Moreover, the copy you use will better encourage prospects to come and visit.
To successfully define the people you want to attract to your event, pay attention to the following demographic info:
- Age
- Location
- Identity
- Occupation
- Interests
- Pain points
If your business already follows a branding strategy, it will be relatively easy to pick out the segments of your audience you want to attract to your event. However, if you’ve never taken the time to collect this data, you must do it before you start investing in marketing. That way, you will save your budget to reach the right people. If your target audience includes attendees who want to look their most glamorous, consider offering to rent ball dresses or gowns online as an option. This can be a particularly attractive choice for galas, charity balls, or other high-end events.
The good news is that this is all info that’s relatively easy to collect. All you need to do is look at the analytics tabs on your website and social media profiles, and you’ll instantly unlock a wealth of knowledge about your audience. Then, decide whether these are the people you want to reach and brainstorm ideas for coming up with marketing messages that will appeal to your guests.
To see an excellent example of properly targeted event branding, check out the Marvelous Mrs. Maisel Instagram post below. You’ll see that the marketing team from Amazon Studios did an exceptional job of gauging the show’s viewership and transforming the unique appeal of the series into an immersive experience. And the entire marketing campaign worked so well because the team behind it identified the things their target audience would enjoy seeing. Then, they brought the visual identity of the comedy series into the real world, creating an immersive adventure and a fun opportunity no show fan would want to miss.
Tip 2: Differentiate Your Event from the Alternatives
The second essential aspect of successful event branding is differentiation — clearly defining and communicating the unique value prospects receive by attending the event and interacting with your brand.
There are numerous ways to encourage your target audience to attend:
- You can offer attractive goodies or organize sweepstakes to try and convince your prospects to come and join you.
- You can collaborate with experts and celebrities who hold sway in your niche and invite your target audience to come and meet them (and perhaps even learn from them) — like when Wildlife Warriors got Doug the Pug to make an appearance at the Steve Irwin Gala Dinner.
Or, you can transform the entire event into an adventure/scavenger hunt, injecting the experience with a dose of gamification.
The above strategies are excellent ways to get people excited about your event.
However, offering something in return for people showing up is one of many (or best) ways to attract visitors. For your business to enjoy the long-term effects of hosting a memorable event, you must differentiate your brand by ensuring your audience understands why the event is unique and convince them that it deserves their attention.
And the thing with this is that the work to differentiate starts way before the actual date of the event. You’ll want to use every opportunity to convince your audience that your brand does things differently from everyone else in the industry (or that it offers benefits they won’t find elsewhere).
The e-commerce industry is a particularly excellent source you can draw inspiration from. Businesses selling physical products know much about highlighting the distinctive value in an oversaturated market.
For inspiration, you can check out the Transparent Labs Creatine product page. It uses charts, custom badges, and educational content to help prospects understand the outstanding advantages of using this brand’s formulas.
Alternatively, you could invest in specially designed content to draw your prospects’ attention to how your event stands out from its alternatives.
For example, you could create your own (event-oriented) version of Aura’s guide to Amazon repricer tools. The article compares the brand’s software solution with its competitors’ products. Now, you may think that this approach detracts from what you’re trying to achieve — getting more people to show up and engage with your brand. But that’s not the case. On the contrary, creating content that empowers your target audience to make better decisions regarding what brands they buy and support is essential for ensuring customer satisfaction — even if some of your prospects decide that another business solves their unique pain points better than yours.
Tip 3: Win People Over with Breathtaking Visuals
Visuals (in all their forms) are hugely powerful marketing and branding tools. So, if you’re going for the effect of memorability for your event, it’s good to know that images, illustrations, and videos are a great way to maximize awareness and recollection.
According to research, people interact best with visually conveyed information because a sizable portion of the human brain is dedicated to processing visuals. And if that’s not enough to prove that your event could be made more attractive by using graphics, don’t forget that visuals can also be used as a way to inspire an emotional reaction to what your business offers.
Ecommerce brands regularly utilize images to depict a connection between their products and the emotional effects they unlock.
For a great example, check out the Find Your FOCL Feeling section on the FOCL homepage. You’ll notice that it shows a relaxed and happy person holding the brand’s product, causing web visitors to instantly create an association between the solution and the positive feeling that they, too, could experience by clicking the “Buy” button. And the best thing is that this is an outcome you can recreate for your next event.
Alternatively, you can use visuals to create a deeper connection with your prospects by telling a story that will resonate with your target audience.
For instance, the Ultra Music Festival marketing team uses video to transform events into relatable stories. These effectively encourage the brand’s audience to imagine themselves on the spot. And they positively impact their purchase intent. With an entire YouTube channel dedicated to posting festival after movies, performances, and memories clips, Ultra does a magnificent job attracting new event visitors each year. In fact, the festival increased its attendance from 10k people in 2000 to 165k in 2022.
ULTRA MIAMI 2023 (Official 4K Memories Clip)
Source: youtube.com
Of course, using visuals isn’t the only way to add a dose of storytelling and emotional impact to your event branding strategies. Copy can have the same effect — especially when it addresses your audience’s pain points or aspirations. For a great example, check out the Building the Future Hackathon page, which uses copy to inspire developers to collaborate and create solutions fit for the modern world.
Tip 4: Boost Trust and Minimize Risk
If you’re trying to get your target audience interested in your online and real-world events, you must prove to them that there’s no risk involved with them signing up. And there’s no better way to achieve this than to employ social proof.
If you look at how people decide whether to invest in a product, service, or solution, you’ll see that it’s based on existing evidence on whether the brand can deliver what it promised. Virtually all consumers — 97% of them, to be precise — consult social proof before converting. So, if you wish to create a memorable and successful event brand, it’s a good idea to focus some of your energy on proving trustworthiness.Fortunately, building consumer trust doesn’t have to be complicated (though you shouldn’t think it can be hacked or faked). In some cases, as in the example from Part-Time YouTuber Academy below, it will be enough to supplement event landing pages with ratings and reviews.
Source: academy.aliabdaal.com
However, do you want to take social proof to the next level and guarantee it cements your brand’s identity as a dependable organization your target audience (and anyone else) will trust? If that’s the case, show off advanced instances of social proof.
For example, you can draw inspiration from medical alert systems brand, GetSafe. Knowing that people decide whether they trust an organization based on whether they perceive that organization as competent, this business chose to enrich its landing pages with instances of social proof that show its team dealing with real-life situations.
Finally, if you want more people to perceive your event brand as credible and sign up, don’t be afraid to use techniques that build trust through association. For example, Dress Forms USA proudly points out that it’s the number one product provider for some of the biggest brands in the fashion industry. And seeing that these brands include houses like Ralph Lauren, Nike, and Louis Vuitton, it’s no surprise that its customers feel so comfortable choosing the business — a fact beautifully reflected in the massive number of reviews the products in the brand’s shop have collected.
Source: dressformsusa.com
Tip 5: Don’t Think the Work Ends Once the Event Is Over
As you endeavor to create a memorable event brand guaranteed to support your business goals, remember that you must work to ensure memorability even once the big event has passed.
At the end of the day (or night), an event is just a one-time occasion. And the only way for it to benefit your business is if it has lasting positive effects on the way your target audience continues to interact with your brand. In other words, it’s just a point in the buyer’s journey, with the end destination being a loyal customer base that continues supporting your business for years to come.
Fortunately, there are a couple of techniques you can use to guarantee memorability after the day.
For one, leverage social media to its fullest potential. And don’t just share images and videos for days, weeks, and months after the event, but create incentives for attendees to do the same. For example, at its Cannes Lions Beach Takeover, Twitter created a dedicated photo set where visitors could lie in a dreamy hammock and take a fun picture to share on their socials.
Source: bizbash.com
Secondly, don’t let the media buzz die down too quickly. Collaborate with content creators and influencers and encourage them to report on their experiences a few days after the event. For instance, fashion brands like Manolo Blahnik always invite influencers and online personalities to their launch parties because they know their events present a prime opportunity to create beautiful content. And, seeing how social media requires users to post a lot to get high engagement rates, it’s almost guaranteed to happen that they’ll choose to share (and re-share) as many photos from the said event as they can. Plus, the brands get access to some pretty unique UGC as well, making the entire ordeal a win-win.
Source: instagram.com
And last but not least, consider whether your event could be the place where you build an (almost) unbreakable relationship with your prospects. Jewelry brand Finn did this wonderfully a few years back, using its pop-up shops to offer buyers the option to get a gold bracelet permanently welded onto their wrists. After all, nothing is as unforgettable as an item that will remain with your prospects for months or even years to come.
Source: instagram.com
Final Thoughts
With the right approach to event branding, you can guarantee that all your hard work results in the outcome you’re after — a positive boost in your brand’s reputation. So, don’t hesitate to apply the branding hacks we’ve discussed here. After all, planning for and investing in your business’s future is never a waste of time. And if you do it right, you might find that it’s the key to getting the high ROI you’re after.
About the Author / Ana Almeida
