Event Marketing Essentials: Leveraging Calendar Tools for Maximum Impact event

Event marketing may not be the first thing that pops to mind when you hear talk of marketing in 2024; however, it’s still one of the driving forces of modern business promotion. Now, with digital events also in the mix, there are more tools available than ever before. 

Navigating the digital landscape, however, is not easy. Not only do you have to promote your business and event online, but you need to find the right tools to do so.

Calendar tools are especially significant since event planning and marketing are always going to be time-sensitive. There’s so much to plan, so much to schedule, and so many tasks to complete in a typically tight timeline.

Let’s dive into some tips to help bring it all together. 

The significance of calendar tools in event marketing 

With calendar tools, you can easily streamline event planning by centralizing all your tools into a single system. These platforms are always developed to be integrated since it’s highly unlikely that you’ll ever use these calendars as a standalone tool. Aside from basic scheduling, they’re always used in sync with other platforms. 

Also, one should never downplay the significance of keeping your team on one centralized platform. Different people have different tasks on the same project, but since these tasks are tightly intertwined, even a small delay can put a serious halt in the event planning process.

Your event promotion has to be paced. If you start too early, people will cool down and even completely forget about you, even though they were originally hyped. You start slow and build up the hype, but there’s no pacing without scheduling. You also need the right calendar tools for that.

Here’s a brief rundown of tips you should abide by to make this work.

Understanding your audience

The key thing you need to understand is how your audience is approaching this event. What markers are they looking for, and what events are they orienting themselves around? You need to tailor the features of this calendar based on your audience, but despite popular belief, your audience is not a homogenous group.

This is why you need to ensure you have proper audience segmentation to improve overall event attendance. If your audience consists of separate groups, you need to find the appeal of your event for each group. Each segment will come for a different reason, and they might not come if this hook is not presented correctly. 

Giving them a strong reason to come will set their expectations and help them adopt a mindset that already guarantees a much higher engagement.

Choosing the right calendar tools

The next thing you need to worry about is using the right tool. Generally speaking, calendar tool features really don’t differ that much across the board. Calendar itself is a pretty simple concept. In a way, it’s the interactive equivalent of the traditional calendar.

So, you’re focusing on three things.

The first one is integration capabilities. What other tools and platforms are you using to integrate the calendar in question? This is the main determiner when it comes to the specific platform you’ll choose in the end. You already have a digital arsenal; this calendar must fit like the last piece of the puzzle.

Next, you need to worry about the UI. The calendar in question is really simple, and while the UI may not sound that important, the truth is that you’ll spend hours and hours looking at it. Ideally, you want to have access to customization options so that you can change anything you’d like.

Lastly, you’re looking for something simple and beginner-friendly. This is a calendar tool; the last thing you want is to spend hours onboarding your team on how to use it. 

Integrating calendar tools into your event marketing strategy

A calendar is just a tool by which you can integrate your roadmap. The process should go something like this. 

You start by arranging a number of meetings and logistical outreach in order to assess, realistically, how long it would take you to organize the event.

Then, you start teasing the event, eventually making a full announcement. Soon after, you send out invitations or start selling tickets.

You don’t want to start too hot, since you risk people cooling down as the event approaches. Instead, you want to ramp up your email marketing and social media campaigns as the event draws nearer. 

With the help of calendar tool integration, you’ll have an easier job automating your marketing campaign to the best of your abilities. 

It doesn’t stop there since you can integrate these reminders (even a countdown timer) into your web design. Take, for instance, a real-world example where a real estate agency is hosting an open-house. Since web design for real estate agents is fairly straightforward, integrating a countdown timer with these calendar tools shouldn’t be a problem.

Enhancing visibility and accessibility

You need to make sure that your audience knows the exact time and date of the event. By doing so, you’re enhancing the visibility and transparency of the organization and making the overall organization appear far more professional.

Also, remember that your audience is likely to do some research on this topic. So, what you want to do is be pretty transparent about featured events. Make sure to go into as much detail as possible. If the event takes place over several days, using a calendar tool will help them understand the timetable and plan their attendance and event activities accordingly.

With the help of automated reminders, you’ll have a fairly easy job dealing with the organization during the event, as well. If several events occur in succession and are on a tight schedule, your audience will be less likely to miss out on anything with reminder notifications. 

Engaging your audience pre and post-event

You should never forget what this is all about. Your main objective is to use this event as an opportunity to network. This means that while the event itself is supposed to represent your business in the best light, you also need to use this as a platform for meeting up with people in person. This is one of the best ways to get some much-needed feedback (with old-fashioned face-to-face engagement).

Later, you can check your activity by comparing the plans in the calendar with the actual activity you managed to achieve during the event. Then, you can analyze the two and come up with a more efficient time plan for the next event. Understanding the first step in the marketing research process is crucial for this analysis, as it allows you to clearly define your objectives and ensure that the time plan for the next event aligns with your marketing goals.

Leveraging analytics for continuous improvement

As we’ve said in the last segment, you need to think about what comes next. With the help of a calendar, you’ll have a fairly easy job of tracking your actual performance. 

When it comes to organizational tasks, you can engage analytics to check if you’ve started booking venues and organizing all the services and amenities in time. 

You can also apply this to marketing tasks. For instance, were the invites sent out in time, or would you have benefited from sending them out a bit earlier? 

The point of all this is the continuous improvement. This is just one event, the first of many. If you do everything right, it will turn out to be a resounding success, but it will only increase your appetite for future success. 

Best practices for event marketing using calendar tools

The best way to use calendar tools is to start with them from the beginning. You don’t want to have a hundred appointments that you have to schedule at the same time. These calendars give you the exact same thing as conventional calendars – a graphic representation of the passing of time. One of the best practices is to use this to orient yourself before you get overwhelmed with too many schedules, appointments, and tasks.

Marketing is time-sensitive, but modern automation and calendar tools can be integrated to easily enable self-execution once the conditions are met (e.g., a certain date arrives). 

Your pre-arranged automated messaging and templates will start sending invites, reminders, and content. There’s no delay, and no messages are missed. Ensuring your system has reliable uptime is crucial to keeping this automation process seamless and efficient and avoiding potential disruptions in your marketing strategy.

This way, you’ll never miss a beat.

Conclusion

Ultimately, organizing events requires you to always be on a schedule. 

All your marketing methods are time-sensitive, and when you send something matters just as much as what you send. If you don’t believe us, feel free to check out the best times for engagement on social media (although you probably know this empirically).

These calendar tools are made to be easy to integrate with your other tools, which makes them an ideal fit. Whatever your plans are, they’ll just be a great addition. 

To learn more, feel free to explore some of the calendar tools offered by addevent.com. Also, feel free to share whatever calendar tool tricks and ideas you may have. 

About the Author

Sonya Newson is a seasoned marketing specialist passionate about driving business growth through strategic online campaigns. With expertise in organic search optimization and targeted marketing initiatives, she has successfully enhanced the digital footprint of numerous brands. A true advocate for meaningful content, Sonya is dedicated to delivering measurable results for her clients.