Businesses constantly struggle with putting together a customer journey that ends with an online fan turning into an offline customer. When you have a brick-and-mortar business model, you live by in-person sales. So, your marketing needs to encourage that by promoting in-store events! But, how do you attract customers to your event after you’ve created one? We’re here to share some key strategies as a marketing roadmap to promoting your in-store event and filling it with paying customers!
Your strategy for promoting in-store events starts with content planning
Step one of your event marketing strategy should focus on setting goals with your marketing team. Create SMART Goals (Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Relevant, and Time-bound) for your campaign and your event to have a results benchmark for your team to achieve before your event. You also want to make sure that you have a shared calendar or platform to communicate if you have a team that works off-site.
Plan on a consistent frequency for posting your content – share 3-5 Facebook and Instagram posts a week with daily posting to your stories. Share your content across platforms consistently to ensure visibility for your event!
Create quality content and repurpose it for different mediums
Once you’ve set goals and shared your strategy with your team, you’ll want to plan out content that appeals to your ideal customer. (Need help figuring out your ideal customer? Learn more about buyer personas.) What topics have you found people interact with most in your normal marketing? How can you provide value with your content?
When you create your content, make sure it follows this general structure:
- hook your audience with an attention-grabbing headline.
- tell a story with your content. This could mean sharing more about you and your business, actually telling a story of a past customer, or simply giving expert tips and advice that resonates with your customer.
- End with a clear call to action that gives your reader the next step. Do you want them to book an appointment to come see you? Give you a call? Make that clear in your content.
A powerful content strategy involves creating a piece of content on your blog and then repurposing that same content for all channels of your marketing. This gives you maximum visibility with a more streamlined process for creating content. You can also upcycle content from past events that seemed to work well with your audience!
Have a good promotions strategy and partner with other businesses
Lastly, you need to provide a sense of urgency for the event you are promoting. You can use date-specific promotions as a great way to create urgency for your event and encourage bookings early. Partner with a local business for a fun collaboration where you can cross-promote on each other’s platforms. Use your resources to create promotions that appeal to your ideal customer.
BONUS: Here’s a free webinar on promoting in-store event traffic for your business!
Watch our video on implementing these tactics for promoting your in-store event on the Do You Speak Bride Facebook page!
