Bringing an event to life means juggling countless marketing details. For Event Coordinators and Marketing Assistants, it’s easy for important promotional steps in your pre-event plan or post-event approach to be missed, affecting your event’s outcome.

This is where a dedicated event marketing checklist becomes truly useful. We’ve put together a lasting planning guide to take you through the pre, during, and post-event marketing stages. Our aim is to ensure that your promotional work is thoughtful, seamless, and ultimately drives the results your hard work deserves.

Pre-Event Marketing Checklist

The success of your event is decided long before the doors open. A robust pre-event marketing strategy is what builds anticipation and drives registrations.

It ensures you have an engaged audience ready for what you have to offer. This phase is about laying a strong foundation and executing with precision.

Laying Your Strategic Groundwork

Before you even think about sending an email or posting on social media, you need clarity. Here’s how you can start laying crucial groundwork:

• Start by defining truly SMART marketing objectives and specific key performance indicators (KPIs) for your event. Think beyond just attendee numbers to things like your target for qualified marketing leads or desired social media engagement rates.
• Alongside this, develop detailed target audience personas for your marketing efforts. Go deeper than basic demographics to understand their specific pain points that your event can solve.
• Know which channels they frequent and what truly motivates them to attend. This deep understanding will shape every message you send.
• Finally, craft a compelling Event Value Proposition (EVP) – that concise, powerful statement of why your event is a must-attend. This establishes the key messaging pillars that will echo consistently across all your promotional activities.

Building Your Digital Foundation

With your strategy in place, you can now turn your attention to your online presence. Here’s how you can start the process:

• Your event website or landing page needs preparation for search engines (SEO) and for getting people to sign up (CRO).
• This means keyword research and ensuring your page loads quickly and is mobile-friendly.
• A/B test parts like your titles and sign-up buttons to maximize registrations.
• Complement this with an integrated Content Marketing Calendar. Plan out blog posts, video teasers, and speaker spotlights thematically linked to your event.
• Strategically release these content pieces to nurture interest as you approach the event date.

Launching Your Promotional Campaigns

Now it’s time to actively promote. Drive awareness to your event by doing the following:

• Create segmented email marketing campaigns, adjusting messages for different groups, such as past attendees, new prospects, or different industry segments.
• Use automation for reminder sequences or to re-engage those who started but didn’t complete registration.
• Carry out planned social media campaigns with platform-specific content and a consistent event hashtag.
• Consider Paid Advertising on platforms like Google Ads or social media, using your audience personas to guide targets and track results.
• Ensure your online registration form experience is smooth and user-friendly.
• Explore implementing early bird pricing or other promotional offers to incentivize prompt sign-ups. This creates a sense of urgency and rewards those who commit early.

During-Event Marketing Checklist – Engaging & Amplifying in Real-Time

The moment your event kicks off, your marketing focus shifts, but certainly doesn’t stop. This is your prime opportunity to foster real-time engagement and amplify your message beyond immediate attendees. It’s also key for capturing valuable content and data.

Bringing Your Event to Life Online, Instantly

Your social media channels should become a vibrant, live extension of the event itself. Follow these steps to make it a lively experience:

• Execute your pre-planned live social media coverage – think timely updates on Twitter or engaging Instagram Stories.
• Actively monitor your official event hashtag — this is where you’ll find attendee-generated gold.
• Encourage and enthusiastically curate user-generated content (UGC). When attendees share their experiences, reshare the best posts and engage with their comments.
• Remember, authentic content from attendees can significantly boost your organic reach and credibility.
• Designate team members to capture high-quality photos and short video clips for immediate sharing and later use.

Fueling Interaction and Capturing Insights

If you’re using an event app, you can leverage its features for marketing impact. Explore doing so in the following ways:

• Use polls and Q&A sessions not only to boost audience interaction but also to gather valuable insights.
• Push notifications can highlight can’t-miss sessions or key sponsor activations.
• This is also the perfect time to capture authentic enthusiasm. Actively seek out and record brief video or written testimonials from happy attendees and speakers while their positive experiences are fresh.

Post-Event Checklist for Driving Future Action

Once the venue empties or the live stream ends, your event marketing work isn’t over. In many ways, it’s just entering a new, crucial phase.

This is where you capitalize on the energy generated and nurture new relationships. You also strategically lay the groundwork for future successes.

Keeping the Conversation Going Immediately

Your first step is a prompt and thoughtful follow-up by:

• Sending out segmented thank-you emails to your attendees, speakers, and sponsors, ideally within 24-48 hours. Don’t just say thanks — include clear calls-to-action (CTAs).
• This could be an invitation to access session recordings, download presentation slides, or view the event photo gallery.
• Share initial event highlights and key takeaways quickly across your social media channels and on your blog.
• If you promised access to recordings or slides, make sure these are readily available.

Turning Event Content into an Evergreen Asset

Now, transform the valuable content generated at your event into marketing assets that keep working for you.

Implement your post-event follow-up strategy with targeted email nurture sequences for different attendee segments or leads. Not everyone is ready for the same next step, so tailor your communication.

Crucially, execute a robust Content Repurposing plan. Those insightful speaker sessions and lively Q&A discussions can become a wealth of new material.

Think engaging blog posts, detailed case studies, or shareable social media video snippets. This creates a library of evergreen content that continues to attract your audience.

Analyzing, Reporting, and Planning Ahead

Measuring the results is the fuel you’ll need to optimize and improve your future events continuously. Here’s how to truly understand your marketing impact:

• Conduct a post-event survey to gather feedback. Specifically ask questions about what marketing channels brought attendees in and what content resonated most.
• Compile a comprehensive post-event report that analyzes your marketing KPIs against the objectives you set.
• Look at registrations by channel, engagement rates, and the quality of leads generated.
• If possible, assess the overall return on investment (ROI) for your marketing spend.
• Use these valuable insights to refine your pre-event marketing plan for the next event.
• While the current event is still fresh, consider announcing a “save the date” for your next iteration.