4 Ways to Do Event Marketing on a Budget

Are you unsure how to market your event on a budget? With in-person events back in full swing, 78% of small businesses are expecting to spend $10,000 or more each year on event marketing. Attending, hosting, and marketing an event are often expensive, but there are ways to reduce costs while still putting on a high-quality, engaging production.

For business creators, event organizers, trade show professionals, exhibitors, or anyone hosting an event, innovative strategies exist to curtail costs without compromising on quality or engagement.

Why is Digital Event Promotion Important?

Digital event promotion is pivotal in today's hyper-connected world, serving as the bridge that connects your event to a wider, more engaged audience. It transcends geographical and temporal limitations, allowing your message to reach potential attendees no matter where they are or when they discover you. Through targeted strategies and platforms, digital promotion boosts visibility, enhances attendee engagement, and significantly increases the likelihood of your event's success.

Regardless of whether your event is virtual or in person, digital event promotion is highly cost-effective. Not only can you use your own channels--blog, website, and social media--to create content that drives ticket sales or sign-ups, but you can also utilize these platforms for ads.

Issuu is an effective way to create high-quality digital event content to promote your event online. Issuu turns static PDFs into a wide range of eye-catching digital formats that can be accessed on any device. Whether you want to add interactive elements like embedded Videos or web Links, you can distribute your Flipbooks across multiple channels and even measure Statistics like impressions, read-time, and clicks to see what’s garnering the most attention from your audience.

1. Master Cross-Channel Marketing and Community Engagement

Issuu helps turn one file into many, allowing you to repurpose flyers, brochures, ebooks, and more into web, social media, and email assets you need, ensuring your marketing message remains cohesive, impactful, and widespread.

• Social Posts

An event flipbook showcases your agenda, introduces speakers and activities, and offers incentives for signing up for early bird pricing. On Issuu, you can use our easy drag-and-drop builder to create on-brand social posts in minutes, generated from your flipbook. Instead of painstakingly optimizing and resizing social media graphics for individual platforms, Issuu's Social Posts feature makes it easy to repurpose your content when you’re short on resources.

• Articles

Given that an impressive 96% of American internet users surf the web via mobile devices, creating mobile-friendly content is essential to broaden your reach.

Articles are a game-changer for event promotion, offering automatic formatting that makes your content easily digestible and visually captivating on any device. Designed for the on-the-go consumer, Articles ensure swift loading and optimal readability on small screens, guaranteeing a premium user experience that keeps your audience engaged and informed.

2. Utilize Email Marketing

With 44% of email users checking their inboxes multiple times daily, a well-crafted email campaign is crucial for event marketing success.

Craft a customized email drip campaign that unfolds gradually over the weeks leading up to your event. This approach allows you to segment your audience and tailor messages for maximum relevance and engagement. Highlight essential information such as your event's agenda, engaging activities, key timings, and any pricing details. This strategy not only keeps your event top-of-mind but also builds anticipation, ensuring your audience is fully informed and excited to attend.

3. Highlight Event Details Where Your Audience Lives

Your website is the central hub for all the information your potential attendees are seeking. It's crucial to showcase every detail—from the agenda to guest speakers, location specifics, and more. By embedding all the details on your website in a sleek, professional-looking flipbook, you can ensure visitors find exactly what they need without frustration, leading to higher conversion and engagement rates.

4. Focus on Retargeting and Community Engagement

If you have a marketing or advertising budget for ads, try retargeting customers, previous event attendees, or any other custom audience list on social media. Most social networks offer retargeting, where you can put your ad in front of specific audiences who have viewed your website, purchased something from your company, attended a previous event, or another parameter.

Retargeting warm audience members means they’re more likely to want to attend your event than someone who’s never heard of your business in the first place. Retargeting is also cheaper and more effective than other ad placements, resulting in a 400% increase in engagement over display ads.

Community Facebook groups are goldmines for sharing local, niche events. For example, if you’re hosting a food and wine event, try searching for groups centered around wine tastings, community activities, things to do for adults, food lover groups, and more. Plus, it’s free to share inside Facebook groups, and with Issuu, you can create content for every type of channel. For a Facebook group, you might want an eye-catching GIF or properly sized social post, and Issuu can help you make those materials in seconds.

Maximize Impact Without Maximizing Costs With Issuu

You don’t need a huge budget to make your event wildly successful. Utilizing cost-effective channels like social media, your blog, email marketing, and Facebook groups allows you to reach a wider audience at a low cost.

Attract and engage event attendees with high-quality event collateral through Issuu. Start repurposing your marketing material into immersive, interactive experiences that you can easily share across channels and reach more potential attendees than ever before.