From Attendees to Advocates: Strategies for Sustaining Brand Loyalty through Events

The best relationships and connections happen authentically. But that doesn’t mean brands should leave things to chance when creating a community of engaged customers. To create meaningful connections and drive brand loyalty, brands can use strategic planning to maximise the return on their event strategy. 

How can event marketing strategies boost brand loyalty? 

A robust event marketing strategy allows customers to interact with a brand in new ways. This is why event marketing goes beyond the remit of traditional marketing channels, and gives brands the unique opportunity to interact directly with their target audience, communicate with authenticity, and build a community of supporters. 

So, let’s take a look at different event marketing strategies brands can use to boost loyalty, and create tangible event success.  

Strategy 1: Personalisation

According to research from McKinsey, personalisation can reduce customer acquisition costs by a staggering 50%. But how exactly can you create a personalised event experience that drives results? 

• Take the guesswork out of personalisation: Use existing data collected during previous event marketing campaigns to personalise with confidence, and create data-led customisations to each attendee touchpoint. 
• Allow attendees to shape their own experience: Allow your attendees to build their own agenda, and heighten their investment in an experience they have helped to shape. 

Strategy 2: Adding Unique Value 

By creating an experience that feels exclusive to the people in the room, you can add the kind of unique value that turns attendees into advocates for your brand. Consider the following ways you can add value to your event experience. 

• Networking & Learning: 60% of attendees citing networking as their primary reason for attending an event. Enhance the networking opportunities with event technology like swipe to match networking features on a custom event app. 
• Elevate your Storytelling: Get creative with how you communicate your event messaging. Utilise event technology such as gamification, AR and VR to create jaw-dropping wow moments that drive home your brand communication. 

Strategy 3: Post Event Engagement 

You’ve gone above and beyond to create an event experience that creates meaningful connections between you and your attendees. But the relationship doesn’t stop once the event is over. Your post event engagement is what’s going to cement your long term relationship with your attendees, and help you reach your event objectives. 

• Start a Dialogue, Not a Monologue: Keep open your channels of communication between you and your attendees. Invite your audience to share their experiences with you, and help shape the future of your event marketing strategy.
• Adapt your Future Strategy: The feedback you measure is so important for informing future iterations of your event marketing strategy. Using the data and insights you’ve collected you can craft future event messaging and value propositions that are bespoke to your audience. 

Want to turn your event attendees into brand advocates? 

Share these strategies with your team and discuss how you can implement these strategies across your future event marketing activity. 

Still feeling bamboozled by brand loyalty? 

Why not get in touch with the First Event team? As a 360 creative agency, we can work with you as strategic partners to implement strategies like these, and drive your brand loyalty.