Event marketing remains one of the most successful strategies for getting your brand noticed and engaging with audiences.

The idea of using an event to promote your products, services, or brand isn’t new. Companies have deployed this technique for decades.

However, event marketing has evolved rapidly in recent years, and what worked five years ago might not guarantee success today – especially as virtual and hybrid events have become the norm alongside in-person experiences.

These days, it’s everywhere. Brands attract customers to product launches and new store openings. Even the B2B trade show sector – a historic cornerstone of event marketing – is worth billions of dollars.

Planning and promoting an event is no small feat and is part of your brand management strategy.

Multiple teams, countless details, tight timelines, and high expectations add to the challenge. The good news? With the right strategy and a tool like Brandwatch at your side, you can conquer event marketing and guarantee success.

This guide walks through the world of event marketing and highlights how brands promote events to showcase themselves. Let’s dive in!

What is event marketing?

Event marketing is a promotional strategy that involves creating and hosting an experience to engage a target audience and drive business objectives.

Brands do event marketing all the time. From improving client-business relationships to raising brand awareness, events really are great at capturing attention.

It’s about using events as a marketing channel – whether it’s a conference, trade show, product launch, webinar, workshop, community meetup, or any branded gathering.

Event marketing encompasses all the activities to plan, promote, and execute the event in a way that creates a lasting impression on attendees and delivers value for your brand.

A great example of event marketing done well is in the sports industry. Soccer teams, for example, use online and in-person events to launch new kits and generate hype for the season ahead. The kit launch plays out over numerous events at once.

Large or small, online or offline – events focus on direct engagement. Unlike purely digital marketing, event marketing enables face-to-face (or real-time virtual) interaction between your brand and your audience. It immerses people in a branded experience.

Why event marketing matters

The ultimate goal of event marketing is to create meaningful connections. By providing valuable content, entertainment, or networking opportunities at an event, brands can connect with attendees on a deeper level than through an ad or social post.

At the surface level, event marketing captures an audience's attention and boosts brand awareness. Using an event to launch a new high street store attracts potential customers and keeps your brand top of mind.

Events also build connections on a human level that is hard to establish purely via social media. Develop trust with your audience, and it will soon become brand affinity.

This, in turn, is likely to generate higher-quality leads because your event has forged a closer audience connection. This is particularly pertinent for B2B companies, where 68% of marketers say live B2B events generate the most leads of any tactic.

Event marketing can establish a brand’s authority and boost its thought leadership credentials when done right. Charities are great at doing this. They raise awareness via events and then follow that up with additional messaging around their area of concern.

Thankfully, event marketing isn’t just about top-of-funnel buzz. It can directly boost revenue and return on investment (ROI). Product demos, exclusive event promotions, and the excitement generated can all translate to sales during or after the event.

Just think about how Apple markets its iPhones each year with a big reveal at its Worldwide Developers Conference. Sony used to do the same thing when launching the new PlayStation. Bloomsbury generated huge hype for each Harry Potter book with mega events at their stores, with kids lining up until midnight to get their hands on each new edition.

Event marketing matters because it combines the reach of marketing with the depth of personal experience. It’s one of the most effective ways to humanize your brand and create impact that echoes long after the event ends.

Technology is transforming how events are used to market brands, products, and services. It wasn’t too long ago that brands used events to attract media, who would amplify what they were selling. Just think of how movie studios used to launch red-carpet events for new releases. The celebrities had to be there and be interviewed in order to whip up hype on TV and in magazines.

These days, there’s an added layer of owned media that wasn’t there in the past, thanks to digital marketing.

Now, brands can create their own hype and don’t have to rely on external media quite so much. It's much easier to follow marketing trends. Movie studios still roll out the red carpet, but they also launch immersive digital marketing campaigns around each live event and trailer release.

This digitization of the event marketing landscape has plenty of advantages. The COVID-19 pandemic created a virtual event boom in 2020 and 2021. Brands toyed with experimental marketing and it stuck. Many events in 2025 have both in-person and online components.

These hybrid events let you reach a wider audience by combining a live venue with streaming and digital engagement for remote attendees. What’s more, you don’t have to rely on external media to get noticed.

Digital marketing also makes it easier to jump on hospitality trends. For example, the Parisian hospitality sector jumped on the Summer Games and joined in the conversation, even though most venues weren’t official partners of the event.

As tech continues to evolve, advances in AI and data allow for personalized marketing touchpoints for advertising events.From recommending event sessions based on interests to customizing follow-up content, it’s never been easier to keep audiences in the loop.

Pre-event planning and strategy

Now it’s time to look at creating an event marketing strategy. The planning phase is where you set objectives, craft your message, and lay the groundwork for promotion.

Skipping thorough planning is a recipe for lackluster results. Thankfully, there are only five steps here, which makes event planning really simple.

Step 1: Define goals and KPIs

Start with the why. What will an event help you achieve? Is it to generate a certain number of leads? Drive direct revenue from ticket sales? Boost product awareness or press coverage?

Be as specific as possible with your event goals and ensure they align with broader marketing and business objectives.

Once you know what you want to achieve, you can start to visualize the type of event you’ll need to accomplish it.

>> Read more: Five steps to align goals to business objectives.

Step 2: Identify your target audience

Next, know who you want at this event (and who you want to reach because of the event).

Use Brandwatch Consumer Research to identify your target audience and then profile your ideal attendees.

Understanding your audience’s demographics and interests will guide many decisions – location, content, promotion channels, and even timing.

For instance, an evening networking mixer with social media promotion might work best if you're targeting young professionals.

Use any data you have – past event attendees, CRM contacts, or social listening – to understand what your audience cares about. Brandwatch Consumer Research helps uncover online conversations and interests around relevant topics so you can craft an event that truly resonates.

Step 3: Craft your core message and value proposition

With goals and audience in mind, determine the key value proposition of your event. Why should someone attend? What will they gain from it?

This core message should be concise and compelling – it will be the thread that runs through all your marketing materials.

>> Read more: What is a value proposition?

Step 4: Set a budget and timeline

Logistics matter in marketing. If you get this stage wrong, your event can look really unprofessional, which leads to audience distrust.

Outline your budget for the event, which should include operations and promotional budgets. Remember, your event is there to market your brand, product, or service. While you might spend some resources promoting the event, the event itself is part of your wider marketing strategy.

Sketch out a timeline backward from the event date and map key milestones. When does registration open? Are there early-bird deadlines? When do you want certain promotional content (blogs, emails, ads) to go live?

Intensify your promotional material as the event draws near to create urgency (people often respond late, so those last few weeks are prime for conversions).

Consider external timing factors, too. For example, avoid launching event promos during major holidays or industry events that might distract your audience.

Step 5: Plan the event and attendee experience

Once you’ve done the research and created a timeline for your event, it’s time to plan it! While this borders on event management, it’s a vital part of marketing: ensure the event itself is designed to impress.

From the agenda and speakers to venue and technology, the product or service you are marketing needs to be front and center of the conversation.

An appealing agenda (topics that interest your audience, compelling speakers, and opportunities for interaction) will make your promotion much easier.

Plan some “wow” moments if you can, such as a surprise guest, a product reveal, or an entertainment segment.

Remember, your event’s quality will directly impact your brand perception, so design it thoughtfully. Marketing can only succeed if the underlying event is compelling.

Pre-event promotion: Multi-channel marketing tactics

Once your event plan is in place, it’s time to spread the word and drive registrations. The best approach is omnichannel – use a mix of marketing channels and tactics to ensure you reach your target audience wherever they are.

Consistency is key. Maintain a coherent message and brand look across all channels so each touchpoint reinforces the others.

Your first step is to create a digital destination for your event and subsequent product or service. Focus on your owned media and build a web page that serves as the information hub for the event and the thing the event is marketing.

For example, you might create a landing page for tickets to a fashion show, which forms part of a market strategy to highlight a new superstar clothing designer.

From here, start conducting some content marketing to bolster your reach. Create guides and how-to videos on what the event, product, or service involves. Use search engine optimization (SEO) techniques to grow your event’s presence on Google and make it easier for audiences to find out more.

If you have the resources, create an event press release for news sites and a media kit on your event page.

Next, prepare social media platforms for the event. Create brand or product profiles on X, Facebook, Instagram, YouTube, TikTok, etc. and plan content. Movie studios do this for big new releases, such as Marvel movies.

Social media promotion also incorporates using influencers to amplify reach. Use a tool like Influence to find the right accounts and work with influencers one-on-one. You can also ask key figures at your event – speakers, celebrities, etc. – to promote it on their channels.

You can use email marketing for the event, too, and keep audiences up to date. Advertise the event – and your product or service, too – with regular messages to your mailing list. Keep those who have signed up updated with additional news about the event as it draws near. This is more about event promotion, but it’s still hugely relevant to your wider marketing strategy.

Finally, consider paid advertising to promote the event and your brand during the event. For example, you could run Facebook and Instagram ads before a product launch to generate hype before issuing fresh ads after the event with key snippets that audiences may have missed.

By the night before your event, you should have done everything possible to get a full house (or a full Zoom webinar). But your work as a marketer isn’t done when the event begins. Next, let’s look at maintaining momentum during the event itself.

Engaging your audience during the event

The big day is here! You’ve got attendees gathered (physically or virtually), and your preparation is about to pay off. Event day marketing is about two things – delivering a fantastic experience to your current attendees and amplifying that experience to those who couldn’t attend.

Ensure you capture the day. Take photos, videos, and audio recordings and distribute them to social media and traditional media in real time. Ensure someone is “across” social media to publish interesting content as it happens during the event. You want audiences to know you’re doing something great.

Interact with those in attendance, too. Ask them to share their experiences and use a branded hashtag. Interview them and get them to product test the thing you’re marketing. Involving attendees is the quickest way to create buzz.

If you can, facilitate further interactions and meetings. You could create breakout spaces at a product launch event or establish groups from a virtual event to keep the conversation flowing.

Then, listen to feedback. Collect data from those in attendance to understand what they liked and disliked and how much they now know about your brand, product, or service. Use social listening to see how people feel now and what their experiences are.

Remember, event marketing is about using an event to highlight something else. Engaging with an audience across multiple touchpoints keeps that product or service front and center during the event.

What to do after the event

The event may be over, but an event marketer’s job isn’t. Post-event marketing is where you cement the gains from your event and extract insights to make the next one even better. 

Remember, you ran your event to boost awareness of your brand, product, or service. You might not have converted a single customer yet. It’s time to act.

Start by communicating your event successes. Recap the highs and thank attendees. Remind those who couldn’t attend that they can watch back on social media or your event website.

Engage attendees and ask for feedback. A simple email may be enough to gather their thoughts. You could also conduct social listening to see what people are saying about the event – and, subsequently, your brand, product, or service – online.

Then, repurpose the content you captured during the event. From slide decks to crowd photos, user-generated content, and transcripts of talks – use each piece of content to further your marketing efforts.

Then, create news pieces for your own blog based on the event and add captured imagery or videos across your website. Perhaps that perfect shot of a celebrity opening your new store should go on your website’s landing page. Maybe a series of customer photos published on Instagram would look great as a carousel on your own Insta account.

All this activity is post-event marketing to squeeze more value from the event. The aim is to nurture leads and convert interested audience members into customers, subscribers, or your original goal at the start of the process.

Measure your success against these goals using Brandwatch and track key metrics. Gather all relevant data: number of registrations vs. attendance, revenue (if ticketed), number of leads and any immediate sales, social media metrics (mentions, hashtag usage, reach), website traffic spikes, press coverage obtained, and feedback scores from surveys.

Calculate your event ROI. For example, if you spent $50,000 on the event and can attribute $200,000 in pipeline or new business to it, that’s a strong ROI.

Or if your goal was brand awareness, maybe your hashtag got 10 million impressions, and your share of voice in your industry increased that month.

Whatever the metrics, use Brandwatch’s dashboard to compile them into a report. Identify which goals were met or exceeded and which fell short.

This data will be the foundation of planning an even better event marketing strategy next time.

Time to start event marketing today

Event marketing, when done right, is one of the most impactful marketing investments a brand can make.

It’s where a brand meets its audience in a live, authentic way, creating impressions that digital ads or traditional PR alone can’t match.

Successful event marketing in 2025 is about blending timeless principles (know your audience, provide value, build relationships) with innovative tactics (hybrid experiences, personalized outreach, and data-driven tweaks).

By following the strategies outlined above – from clear pre-event planning and multi-channel promotion to engaging experiences during the event and diligent follow-up after – you can elevate future events from one-off activities to cornerstone elements of your marketing strategy. 

Use a tool like Brandwatch to help and confidently plan your next event. Set those goals, rally your team, and craft an experience your audience won’t forget.

Here’s to a sold-out, buzz-worthy, goal-crushing event for you and your team!