The Role Of Branding In Event Marketing

Your visual brand identity is what makes you stand out from the crowd — without a unique symbol or specific colours, it is difficult or impossible to uniquely identify yourself as a brand, which means that standing out from your competition or being recognised by your target audience will prove itself extremely hard as you can’t effectively communicate your products or services without proper branding.

Branding helps tell your stories, communicate your values & showcase your unique style. It is an essential part of every business and cannot be undermined in any terms.

Branding also plays a primary role in marketing campaigns and event marketing.

In this blog post, I’ll be taking a look at the role of branding in event marketing.

WHAT IS EVENT BRANDING?

Event branding is the practice of using a specific name, symbol, or design style that create a unique identity for your event.

It involves capturing the essence of your organisation’s brand and representing it in the most accurate and appropriate form in your event marketing campaign.

WHY DOES EVENT BRANDING MATTER?

Event branding matters, because it leaves a memorable impression in the minds of your target audience. It is what communicates with your audience and sets their expectations. Strong branding for your event will determine how your event and your brand are perceived and often determines whether your audience thinks you are a better choice than your competition.

Look at the flyers above — which of the events would you choose to attend? It’s crystal clear that the flyer on the left looks more fun and more professional than the one on the right. The colours are more appealing and better suited for the occasion being promoted as opposed to the one on the right that looks rather bland and as if your nephew used an app to create it.

WHAT TO CONSIDER WHEN BRANDING

When branding in general, there’s a whole lot that’s considered in terms of the anticipated users. The same process applies to event branding as well. You must understand your target audience — study the demographics and psychographics of your proposed audience. This helps in creating appropriate campaign material that will truly resonate with your audience.

You must understand their socio-economic classification, their age, the region they are from, their motivations etc., the list goes on…

To put this in more relatable terms, below are some practical questions to ask when designing for your proposed audience:

• Who is my target audience?
• What motivates them?
• What content will be the most engaging?
• What fonts, colours, images, and icons will be suitable?
• What copy style will resonate?
• What channels will be the best?

WHAT DO YOU BRAND?

Every brand has a multitude of online and offline touchpoints — from your website to printed flyers to merchandise — all possible touchpoints are to be considered. However the particular one(s) to leverage fully depend on the uniqueness of your audience.

Let’s take a look at some key channels to leverage in your event branding:

1) Online Branding

No one would argue the relevance of digital marketing, especially after the impact of the pandemic. Most brands were able to stay afloat solely by this means and it’s the future of marketing.

When we talk about Online Branding we are basically looking at your digital assets — your website, social media handles, email newsletters, digital ads, streaming platforms etc..

It’s important to leverage digital channels for your event marketing because it is relatively cheap when compared to traditional media or print. It gives you a more targeted reach and tracking the effectiveness of your campaign is very easy.

When branding your digital channels, the following must be adhered to:

• Look & feel should be consistent across all channels
• Your brand should be clearly communicated
• Designs should be responsive
• There should be clear call to actions (CTAs)
• Designs should be simple and easy to assimilate

2) Offline Branding

Before social media banners were a thing, organisations leveraged print media for communication. This means of promotion is not yet dated as flyers, flag banners, billboards, and event booths in their different capacities continue to contribute to bringing your events to life.

When planning your events, consider leveraging print — in non-virtual events, wall posters, backdrops and rollup banners help reiterate the brand’s presence and flag banners can help direct attendees. Well designed and branded event booths make information access for attendees fluid and seamless.

Another area that’s key in offline branding is merchandising. Sometimes called swag, this is one way to keep your brand at the top of mind as it has an emotional appeal and in turn, builds brand loyalty. It is also an easy way to get your brand in places you may not currently have reach.

SWITCH UP YOUR EVENT GAME TODAY

In summary, your brand is what tells people who you are and positions you uniquely. It matters, because brands are often perceived by the way they appear. It is what shapes how your audience remembers you. If you get it wrong, you are likely to leave the wrong impression on your audience forever.

Switch up your event game today —here’s a video from our latest Lunch and Learn

where I showcase some of our event branding work and talk you through the ins and outs of event branding — click here to check it out.

If you have any questions, please leave me a comment — I would love to hear from you.