Characteristics of Events
The term event can be defined as an occurrence which takes place at a prior determined time and place, majority of time with the participation of human agent. Events are considered to be the part of the hospitality industry. Event management can be defined as the application of project management to the creation as well as e of large scale events and festivals along with ceremonies, conferences, formal parties, weddings, conventions and concerts. The process includes identifying the brand, identifying the target audiences, devising the concept of the event and coordinating the technological aspects before finally launching the event. In order to manage the events effectively, it is highly crucial to have a successful event planning. Event planning is referred to the process of planning as well as coordinating the event. . The mentioned process includes budgeting, scheduling, site selection, coordinating transportation, arranging décor, entertainers, catering, event security and emergency plans. Considering the fact that there prevails a basic difference between the natures of the events, the processing and planning of each event differs on the basis of its types. In this essay, the three basic characteristics of thee events that impose high influence o ho they are marketed and promoted will be discussed. Along with this, analysis of their marketing implications will also be performed in this essay. Finally, recommendation to the event organizers about effectively organize the essay will be provided in this essay.
In this paragraph, identification of the three major characteristics of the events that has the potential to influence their marketing and promotion has been discussed. The characteristics of the event that influence their marketing and promotional techniques include the time and occurrence of the event, event location and event type. The time and occurrence of an event can be defined as the time of the day when the event is open for business.
This characteristic of events includes whether the event is being organized during daytime or during the night, during the weekdays or during weekends, will be completed within a single dy or will take a number of days or even weeks or whether the event is organized during the tourist season or not (Jones 2017). For instance, weekend events are open for Friday, Saturday and Sunday. On contrary, wedding events or meeting events are comparatively of lower time duration. When it comes to event location, it can be defined as the type of venue selected for the occurrence of the events. Like the time of occurrence of the event, event location is also highly dependent on its type. There are several types of event location that includes ingle venue, multiple venue, fixed venue, temporary venue, parks or even streets. Traditionally, a hotel, conference rooms and restaurants are considered to be ideal venues for official events. Fixed venues like stadium and areas are found to be able to provide more accommodating capacity and facilities like parking lots along with efficient access to freeway as well as principal streets. On contrary, events that are held in temporary venues are often found to lack the above mentioned facilities. Event type is referred to the type of events that are organized based on the reason behind organizing the events (Nakfoor 2017). The four chief types of events includes Sports or concert events, fair or festival event, parade or race, corporate events and finally conventional events. The most common types of corporate events include seminars and conferences, executive retreats, production launch events, golf events and appreciation events and company milestones. When it comes to sports event it includes globally renowned events like Olympics and world cup. The type of events plays a major role in determining the venue and duration of the same.
Implications on Event Marketing
In this paragraph, a brief discussion on the implication of event types on how they are marketed has been discussed. Event marketing is rapidly emerging as a promotion catalyst along with traditional marketing communication tools. According to researchers, types of an event are considered to be the determinant of strategies for marketing the same (Masterman 2014). For instance, the strategies developed by the event planner while marketing a sport event will be highly different from strategies that are being developed for marketing a conventional event. The steps that are followed while marketing a sport event are as follows:
- Selecting a memorable name for the sport event to be marketed.
- Creation of a strong logo with attractive colors. While creating the logo, the marketers should keep in mind that the logo will be printed on T-shirts and caps for promotional purpose and hence should be of wearable colors and maybe with strong statement (Ryan 2016).
- The third step taken by event planners to plan an event includes designing a website that will help people to be aware of the events. Moreover, the website will also contain information that will help the participants to gather information they need to know.
- The final step taken by the event planners is to obtain press coverage as much as possible. Inviting an elite runner, or a celebrity personality, or a reporter to participate in the event boosts the post event press coverage.
- Apart from promoting the events online, offline marketing like sponsoring sports equipments in local tournaments and clubs are used.
When it comes to social practices, rituals and festive events, the tactics for promotion adopted by the event planners are quite different from that of the tactics adopted for sport event promotions. According to researchers, majority of the festive events are organized during the tourist season in order to attract tourist and thus enhance the overall revenue of the country Van der Wagen and White 2018). Like sports events, while promoting a festive event action can be taken from the end of the local government alongside the event planners. The steps taken to market a festive event includes
- Promoting the event through social media websites like Facebook, Instagram and Linked in. Unlike the promotion of sports events, while promoting festive event it is highly crucial for the event planners to click attractive and high quality pictures of the event in order to attract tourists to visit the event (Getz and Page 2016).
- In case of festive events, the official website designed for promotion should be completely different from that of the sport event.
Thus it can be understood that the type of an event does influence the strategies of marketing the same highly. Hence, event coordinators must implement specific strategies to plan each of the above mentioned event types in a way so that a high increment in the profit can be evidenced.
The time of occurrence of a event is a major determinant of the success of the event. Therefore, event marketing is highly dependent on the same. According to researchers, an event which is organized during festive season or during the tourist season are more likely to get success compared to even that are organized during off season (Plante et al. 2014.). Promoting an event that is taking place during festive season or tourist season is much profitable compare to the vise versa. During marketing the event it is highly crucial for the event planners to know whether the event will occur during daytime or night or weather the time span of the event is a daylong or will continue for a week. For instance, for promoting a popular event like Olympics that will continue for several weeks, event planners mainly focuses on providing the information about the uniqueness of the event that year. However, when it comes to promoting a local sport event which will of duration of one day, the promotion techniques are completely different. For the latter, the promotion will be mainly to attract local population where as for the former the target consumers belong to both the local as well as international market (June et al. 2015).
Marketing Strategies based on Types of Events
Like the above two characteristics, the venue of event does impose a high impact on promoting and marketing technique of the same. According to researchers, the venue selected by the event organizers is based on the financial amount spent on the event (Aapro et al. 2014). Marketing a local event which organized in the middle of the town will attract more population compared to an event that is organized near a suburb or in an area that lacks effective communication. Moreover, considering the fact that majority of popular the even target both local as well as global consumers it will be highly difficult for the event promoter to promote an event to the international consumers if the event is taking place away from the airport. Apart from that, the availability of resources requires for marketing a certain event is highly dependent on the location. Researchers state that promoting an event that is located in a remote place needs to target population that prefers local and traditional events (Bhatt, Manadhata and Zomlot 2014). Thus it can be clearly understood that the venue of the event has the potential to vary the target population of the event.
In this paragraph, the issues faced by event organizers while marketing an event have been discussed. According to researchers, With an unending number of events and experiences consumers can take part in, it’s not enough to just have a great event but it is highly crucial to make individual know about the event so that it stands above the crowd and drives the ticket sales (Pearcy et al. 2014). In Australia, since a huge number of events are being organized every year, it becomes highly difficult for the marketers to attract the attention of the population and make them aware of the event taking place. The second issue that is often faced by event organizers is to turn the online community into ticket buyers. In several cases, especially when it comes to local events, it has been observed that while a commendable number of people are aware of the event, a comparatively less number of the targeted population are actual investing on the event. Considering the fact that the amount of tickets sold is directly proportional to the effectiveness of the marketing if the event, lack of ticket selling can be considered as a major issue faced by the marketers. Another mention worthy issue faced by the event markets while marketing an event is lack of regular traffic. Irregular trafficking will hinder the process of enhancing the search engine optimization of the same. As a result of this, the efficiency of the traffic monitoring system will lack its efficiency and the purpose of the event organizers to assess the motives, trends and expectations of the consumers will get reduced. This in turn will adversely affect the marketing since little amount of the target population will be aware of the event and thus the success of the event will be hampered. Lack of brand loyalty of the organization opting for the event is another issue faced by the event markets frequently. Promoting an event for an organization that lacks brand loyalty may result in irregular traffic. Apart from that, lack of awareness about the brand within the consumers makes it difficult for organizers to gain competitive advantages over events organized by popular brands. Moreover the budget spent for marketing by organizations that lacks brand loyalty is much less compared to that of the organizations with high brand loyalty. Hence it is highly difficult for the marketers to attack a commendable amount of traffic by using marketing techniques that lacks marketing techniques. Managing multiple events at the same time is another mention worthy issue faced by event markets (Wee et al. 2017). Considering the fact that each event has its definite requirements that needs to be fulfilled by marketing, managing several events within a limited span of time is a major issue faced by the event marketers.
Challenges Faced by Event Organizers in Marketing
In order to deal with the above mentioned issue several strategies can be undertaken by the event organizers and marketers. Firstly, in order to encourage the target population to buy the ticket, the event planners needs to understand their specific requirements. This can be done through active conversation between the consumers as well as the event organizers. For this, popular social media platforms can be used by the marketers. Regular and effective conversation with the consumers will allow the organizers to understand the specific requirements of the same. Specially, when it comes to international consumers posting attractive and high quality pictures of the event will be able to enhance the interest of the consumers to visit the event. Another benefit of using social media platforms like Facebook , Instagram and LinkedIn, is that these platforms are highly cost effective since promotion through them are majority of time free of costs or costs minimal charges (Wee et al. 2017). Apart from promoting the event through social media, event planners should also opt for other promotional avenues like PR, outdoor and print media in order to understand which of the channels are driving the best result for the event.
In order to encourage the online community to buy tickets of the event, event organizers can opt for strategies like offering major discounts or enhancing the attraction of the event by inviting famous celebrities. Apart from those brand new technologies that allow the followers of the event to buy the tickets in 2 clicks without even leaving the social media sites can be implemented. This will not only enhance the consumer base of the event but will also help the organizers to gain competitive advantage over the competitors.
In order to enhance the online traffic in the official website or in the social media platforms, event marketers should generate and post frequent hyperlinks in the social media platforms (Ryan 2016). Along with that pay per click advertisements should also be posted in popular websites in order to regulate the traffic and enable the event organizers to understand the trends and motives of the target population.
In order to deal with the issue of brand loyalty, the event organizers can implement the strategy of developing content around the lifestyle of the potential consumers. This will enhance the uniqueness of marketing the event and thus will attract more attention. Once the consumers are able to relate themselves with the event, this fact will act as a source of encouragement for them to buy the tickets of the event.
From the above discussion, it can be concluded that the success of the events are highly depended on the effectiveness of marketing of the event. The chief three characteristics of the event that posses high implications on the marketing of the same includes event type, event time of occurrence and location of the event. The strategy taken by the marketers to market the event is totally based on the above discussed characteristics. While conducting the event several issues associated with its promotion are being faced by the competitors of the event. In order to deal with the issues, several strategies that have been discussed above can be implemented by the organizers of the event. Finally it can be said that developing effective strategies for marketing an event has the potential to make the event successful.
Reference
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