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Marketing Partnerships For Effective Event Promotion Justin Belleme – Founder, Director of Strategy JB Media Institute
Marketing Partnerships For Effective Event Promotion
Justin Belleme – Founder, Director of Strategy
JB Media Institute
Why Marketing Partnerships
Types of Effective
Partnerships
Common Goals and Outcomes
Examples and Case Studies
Outline: Why Care About Partnerships
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• Reaching new people & building trust is challenging & takes
time
• Communicating with an existing audience is always easier
• That’s why: Email < $ < Social < $ < Most Other Marketing
• Big events use celebrities and corporate sponsorships +
partners
• Thinking creatively about partnerships = big wins for local
events
• Some types of partnerships are free or very low cost
• Partnerships can be low risk, high reward when done well
Why Marketing Partnerships?
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Marketing Partnerships can be one of the most effective ways to reach new potential attendees.
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Reaching A Partner’s FB Fans
Coordinate with industry peers
Work with peer groups such as associations
Engage in reciprocal marketing efforts with related companies
Work with influencers or niche / local celebrities
Work with affiliates and commissioned partners
Come up with mutually beneficial partnerships with non-profits
Who Could I Partner With?
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Think outside the box of boring, “I’ll pat your back if you pat mine” type of partnerships. Look for ways to work together to amplify each other’s message.
• A thought leader, typically with a focused content topic
• Typically use online channels to build and talk to their audience
• Almost always strong on social media and blogging
• Often also use YouTube and/or Podcasting to communicate
• Influencers range in popularity from < 1000 to millions of
followers
What is an Influencer?
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If your company is looking to communicate with a niche national audience then there is most certainly one or more influencers you could be working with. There are also local influencers as well, Ashvegas would be a local example.
Local Influencer Example
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Pro Tip: Strength in Numbers
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• Marketing partnerships take time to establish and execute
• Look for opportunities to work with more than two partners
at a time in order to amplify the effect
• Putting your event in the role of creating the campaign and
coordinating it will lead to more control over the outcome
• Also look for beneficial partnerships where you can
participate in a more passive way and go along for the ride
too
Pro Tip: Strength in Numbers - 2
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• With partnerships its all about executing the plan. It’s easy
to focus too much on the plan but fall short on following
through. You must remind partners to do their part
because it’s easy to lose momentum over time.
Build your email list
Grow your event awareness to new audiences
Expand your reach around specific event promotions
Common Outcomes from Partnerships
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Marketing partnerships don’t always have to lead directly to sales in order to be highly effective.
• Online sweepstakes w/ partner supported prize packages
• Virtual online events or summits
• Partner discount codes: Network or media partnerships
• Collaborative content creation: Partner supported e-books or
blogs
• Basic cross promotions: I’ll promote your event if you promote
mine
• Affiliate relationships with peers, influencers or other partners
Types of Partnerships
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• Reaching an existing Facebook audience is affordable
• The audience has an affinity to the partner brand or event
• The partner’s posts will resonate more than your own targeted posts
• Campaigns with multiple partners will generate audience overlap
and lead to buzz
Pro Tip: Partner Promoted Posts
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Being an effective Facebook marketer is about more than just knowing how to grow and engage your own audience. Through partnerships you can reach new organic and paid audiences through sponsoring posts on partner pages.
Case Studies and Examples
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Event Marketing w/ Network, Media and VIP Partners
Partner Supported Cruise Giveaway Contest
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Case Studies and Examples
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Case Studies and Examples
By the Numbers
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SOCAP: 150 partner tickets, > 50 press passes, 150 media mentions
Cruise Contest:
20,000 landing page views
9,900 entries with email addresses
Nearly 500,000 contest impressions on Facebook
10 full cruise tickets sold to contest entrants
Q and A
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