Event Activation 101: Creating Unforgettable Moments to Turbocharge Your Brand’s Success

Ignite your events and leave attendees in awe! Discover the secret to exceptional events with the power of event activation; a brilliant marketing tool and brand activation strategy.

In this blog post, we’ll show you how to create unforgettable experiences that will have everyone talking. From immersive moments to cutting-edge technology, we’ve got the inside scoop on planning, executing, and optimizing your event activation strategy. Step into the spotlight – it’s time to activate your events like never before!

Before we go any further let’s check out some statistics;

Did you know that successful event activation marketing campaigns can build brand loyalty by 91%? That’s right – consumers reported that they would be more inclined to purchase the brand’s product or service after participating in a brand activation or experience, and 40% felt they become more loyal to the brand.

And it doesn’t stop there. Brace yourself for this one – experiential marketing is one of the top five marketing strategies companies currently leverage. Event activations play a crucial role in experiential marketing because events provide an ideal platform for creating immersive and engaging experiences.

Best Practices to Develop and Execute a Winning and Engaging Events Activation Strategy

Identify your goals, target audience, and budget

Before you start planning your event activation, you need to have a clear idea of what you want to achieve. As well as who you want to reach and how much you can spend. The goals for the event activation should be aligned with your overall event objectives.

Your target audiences should be segmented based on their demographics, psychographics, behaviors, and preferences. Your budget should be realistic and flexible enough to accommodate any changes or contingencies.

Research your competitors and industry trends.

To create an exceptional event activation that has a wow factor and outshines your competitors, it’s crucial to research industry trends and analyze their marketing initiatives. Explore brand engagement and marketing campaigns of competitors to learn from their successes and mistakes.

Stay updated with the latest industry trends, incorporating cutting-edge technology and immersive experiences into your event activation. Consider the importance of event planning, event branding, and event management to create a memorable and engaging event experience.

Foster meaningful connections with guests through a social wall, interactive activities, and photo booths. By researching competitors and industry trends, you’ll discover brand activation ideas. Different brand activation ideas make your event stand out and leverage your brand.

Design a creative and memorable theme and concept.

Choosing the right activation elements for your event will capture the attention and interest of your attendees.

Your theme and concept should reflect your brand identity, message, and values. It should also resonate with your audience’s needs, wants, and emotions.

Example:

Theme: “Tech Oasis: Where Innovation Meets Adventure”

Concept: Create an exclusive event where participants can fully engage with cutting-edge technology and have an immersive experience that showcases brand values and creativity.

Activation Elements:

1. Interactive Technology Showcase: Set up brand activation that allows guests to interact with the latest gadgets, virtual reality experiences, and innovative event software. This engaging display will demonstrate your brand’s commitment to cutting-edge technology.
2. Fun Games and Activities: Devoting the entire event to interactive activities and fun games can create a sense of excitement and entertainment. Consider a virtual world where attendees can participate in virtual conferencing challenges or compete in friendly competitions using event-designed games.
3. Social Media Wall: Install social media walls displaying live feeds of attendees’ posts using trending hashtags related to your event. This not only encourages brand engagement but also creates social proof, showcasing the lively and vibrant atmosphere of your event.
4. Memorable Experiences: Design a welcome video wall that greets participants with a captivating visual display, instantly immersing them in the event experience. Create wow moments throughout the event, such as surprising performances, cutting-edge technology demonstrations, or unique food stations that align with your brand values.
5. Meaningful Connections: Provide opportunities for attendees to create lasting connections with fellow attendees, sponsors, and event organizers. Incorporate dedicated networking sessions, a support desk for personalized assistance, and sponsor areas where guests can engage with brands directly.

Use social media channels and multiple platforms to promote your event and generate buzz.

To attract more audience to your event activation and create anticipation and excitement around it, you need to use multiple channels and platforms to promote your event and generate buzz.

Use email marketing, social media marketing, content marketing, influencer marketing, paid advertising, and word-of-mouth marketing to reach out to your target audience and persuade them to register for your event.

Another way to entice them to join your event is by creating teasers, countdowns, contests, challenges, and incentives.

Provide interactive and immersive experiences for your attendees.

Make your guests feel valued and connected to your brand by leaving a lasting impression. For a lasting impression, you need to provide interactive and immersive experiences for them during your event activation.

You can use technologies such as augmented reality (AR), virtual reality (VR), artificial intelligence (AI), and gamification to create realistic and engaging scenarios that will stimulate your audiences’ senses and emotions. Try also, live polling, Q&A sessions, crowd engagement activities, and personalized experiences to encourage their participation and feedback.

Collect feedback, data, and user-generated content from your participants’

Collect feedback, data, and user-generated content from your participants during and after your event activation to measure and optimize your event activation results. Use surveys, questionnaires, interviews, focus groups, and online reviews to gather their opinions, suggestions, and testimonials.

Tools and platforms such as Event Espresso or Event Smart can also help in tracking and analyzing attendee behavior, engagement, and conversion. It is also best to encourage attendees to create and share their content such as photos, videos, tweets, and stories about your event activation on their social media channels and networks.

Follow up with your leads and customers after the event

Nurture and retain your leads and customers after the event by making a follow-up with them and providing them with relevant and valuable information, offers, and incentives. Use multiple channels and develop loyalty programs to keep in touch with them and remind them of your brand, products, and services.

You can also use personalized messages, thank-you notes, discounts, coupons, and freebies or swag bags to show your appreciation and gratitude for their attendance and support.

How to Measure and Optimize Your Marketing Strategy and Event Activation Results

Define your key performance indicators (KPIs) and metrics

Evaluate the effectiveness and efficiency of your event activation strategy by defining your key performance indicators (KPIs) and metrics. Establish KPIs that will help you track and measure your progress and performance against your goals.

Some examples of KPIs and metrics for event activation are attendance, engagement, satisfaction, awareness, leads, sales, ROI, etc.

Use tools and platforms to track and analyze your data

Make use of tools and platforms to help you track and analyze collected data in a timely and accurate manner.

You can use tools and platforms such as Google Analytics, Event Espresso, Event Smart, social media analytics, and CRM systems to monitor and report on your data from various sources and channels. You can also use dashboards, charts, graphs, and tables to visualize and communicate your data clearly and concisely.

Track lead generation and conversion

Determine the impact of your event activation on your sales funnel and revenue by tracking lead generation and conversion from your event activation.

Lead generation is the process of attracting and capturing potential customers who are interested in your brand, products, or services. Lead conversion is the process of turning those potential customers into actual customers who make a purchase or take a desired action.

Compare against benchmarks

Compare the results with industry or market benchmarks to evaluate the effectiveness of your event activation. These benchmarks represent the average or expected performance, allowing you to gauge the quality and quantity of your results.

Utilize industry reports, surveys, studies, and best practices to find relevant benchmarks for your event activation. Or you can also use the same tools and platform you use to track and analyze data.

Implement changes and improvements based on your findings

To optimize your event activation marketing strategy for your next event or future events, you need to implement changes and improvements based on your findings. These findings are from your data analysis, evaluation, comparison, and feedback. As an event host, you can’t satisfy all the needs and demands of guests. However you can ensure that you don’t repeat the same mistakes, feedback is crucial.

Event Activation Ideas That Drive Participation

Social Media Contests and Challenges

For brand activations, you can create and launch social media contests and challenges that will encourage your attendees to interact with your brand and each other on social media platforms such as Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, TikTok, etc.

Offer prizes, rewards, or recognition for the best entries or submissions. Some examples of social media contests and challenges are photo contests, video contests, caption contests, hashtag contests, quiz contests, etc.

Personalized Experiences

Personalized experiences for your attendees always make them feel special and valued by your brand. Avail technologies such as AR, VR, AI, and gamification to create customized scenarios that will cater to their preferences, interests, and needs.

You can also use data and analytics to segment your audience and offer them relevant and valuable content, offers, and incentives. Personalized recommendations, personalized invitations, personalized badges, personalized gifts, etc. are some examples of personalized experiences.

Crowd Engagement Activities

Connect your brand to your audience and each other by providing crowd engagement activities. Take advantage of technologies such as live polling, Q&A sessions, and crowd engagement activities to encourage their participation and feedback.

Leverage live streaming, social media, and online platforms to reach out to your remote or virtual attendees and make them feel part of your event. Craft crowd engagement activities like trivia games, icebreakers, scavenger hunts, karaoke, etc.

Virtual Reality and Gamification

Provide virtual reality and gamification for your attendees. Attendees feel entertained and challenged by your brand and event. You can use technologies such as VR headsets, controllers, and sensors to create realistic and immersive games that will transport them to different worlds and scenarios.

You can also use gamification techniques such as points, badges, leaderboards, and rewards to motivate them to play and compete. Some examples of virtual reality and gamification are VR escape rooms, VR treasure hunts, VR puzzles, VR simulations, etc.

Celebrity or Influencer Presence

Make event attendees feel excited and inspired by your brand and event by inviting a celebrity or influencer. Invite celebrities or influencers who are relevant to your industry or niche to attend or speak at your event or promote it on their social media pages or networks.

Offer opportunities for your attendees to meet or interact with them during or after your event. Some examples of celebrity or influencer presence are keynote speakers, panelists, moderators, hosts, ambassadors, endorsers, etc.

Brand Activation Ideas That Leave a Lasting Impression

Coca-Cola’s Share a Coke Campaign 

This was a global campaign that involved personalizing Coca-Cola bottles with popular names in different countries and encouraging consumers to share them with their friends or family.

The campaign aimed to increase brand awareness, loyalty, and sales by creating an emotional connection with the consumers and generating user-generated content on social media.

The campaign was a huge success, as it increased Coca-Cola’s sales volume by 3% in Australia alone and generated over 998 million impressions on Twitter.

Disney’s D23 Expo 

Disney’s D23 Expo aimed to increase fan engagement, excitement, and loyalty by providing exclusive access to Disney’s stars, creators, and executives and offering interactive and immersive experiences such as panels, exhibits, screenings, demonstrations, and merchandise. 

The event happens every other year and it showcased the latest news, announcements, and previews of Disney’s upcoming movies, shows, parks, and products.

Adobe Summit’s Sneaks

Adobe Summit’s Sneaks is an online brand activation that lets you take a sneak peek of the latest innovations and experiments from Adobe’s research labs and engineers. The session is intended to increase attendee interest, curiosity, and feedback by showcasing cutting-edge technologies and solutions that could potentially transform the digital landscape and customer experience. The session also involved celebrity hosts and guests who added humor and entertainment to the presentation.

BMW’s Ultimate Driving Experience

Ultimate Driving Experience was a nationwide tour offering consumers the opportunity to test drive and learn more about BMW’s latest models and features. The tour was designed to increase brand awareness, preference, and sales. This was done by providing a hands-on and educational experience that showcased BMW’s performance, innovation, and design.

The tour also included various activities and attractions. These activities include autocross courses, car control clinics, teen driving schools, and stunt shows.

MPI World Education Congress (MPI WEC)

MPI WEC was a hybrid event that brought together meeting professionals and event specialists from around the world to network, learn, and collaborate. The event focused to increase attendee engagement, knowledge, and inspiration by providing a diverse and dynamic program that featured keynote speakers, breakout sessions, workshops, expos, and awards.

The event also leveraged various technologies and platforms. Platforms such as mobile apps, online platforms, social media, and chatbots to be able to connect and interact with the live and virtual attendees.

Event Activation Unleashed: Achieving Event Success with Event Espresso’s Powerful Features

As you can see, event activation is a powerful marketing strategy. Event activation can help you achieve your event goals, increase your brand awareness, generate leads, and build loyalty. However, to create and execute a successful event activation strategy, you need a proven powerful tool. A tool that can help you manage and optimize your event activation strategy.

Event Espresso fills that gap. Event Espresso is a WordPress plugin that allows you to create and manage any type of event on your website. Whether you want to host a hybrid, virtual, or physical event, Event Espresso has all you need. With Event Espresso, you can:

• Create and customize your event registration forms and tickets with ease.
• Accept online payments and issue invoices and receipts with security and convenience.
• Send personalized and customized automated email confirmations and reminders to your attendees and registrants.
• Track and manage your attendees and registrants with filters and reports.
• And much more!

Event Espresso is the ultimate tool to help you ensure that you achieve your event objectives and maximize your ROI.

So, what are you holding out for? Use Event Espresso to unleash the power of event activation now! Get started with your free demo now.