Promote Events with Influencers & Ambassadors: Crash Course

It’s no secret that influencer marketing is one of the hotter trends in the marketing world right now. It has the potential to be a powerful tool for event organizers, but how can you best maximize the reach of your influencers? 

Influencer marketing is about getting your event in front of new audiences, specifically people who already like, trust, and respect those who represent your cause. If you’re not sure where to start with this strategy, this post will give you a crash course on everything you need to know about what brand ambassadors are and how they can help make your event successful.

What are brand ambassadors and what is influencer marketing?

Imagine you’re planning an online auction to raise funds for children in need. You want to promote your auction, but you don’t have a large enough budget to pay for traditional advertising. Rather than running TV ads or extensive digital ads, you instead ask a few people who are influential in the community to get behind the brand and drive engagement on social media. 

These people are called “brand ambassadors” and depending on your relationship with them, you may not even have to pay for the added exposure.

If this sounds like something worth doing, then you’re already well on your way to launching your first influencer marketing campaign. Influencer marketing is a form of marketing that uses social media platforms like Twitter and Facebook to create awareness about your event and expand into new audiences. 

Influencers already have a sway over their followers. By combining marketing efforts with these important people, you’re able to use the trust and influence they’ve already built with their community to get more people’s attention.

How can ambassadors and influencers help my event?

This is the first question to ask yourself as you begin to launch your campaign. Setting the proper expectations and goals around all your marketing initiatives is crucial in finding success. If you don’t make plans, it’s always hard to know if you reached your goals.

If you’re especially looking to acquire a new audience, then an influencer or brand ambassador may be essential. The most important thing to remember when choosing these ambassadors is that they need to be relevant. If they aren’t the right fit for your event, then they won’t help be very helpful at all.

Here are just a few ways that brand ambassadors and influencers can help your event:

• Ambassadors and influencers can help you reach a wider audience.
• They can help you get more people to register for your event.
• They can help you get more people to engage with your event.

Although many influencer campaigns will primarily result in a wider reach. Those who are introduced to your organization through that reach can then be nurtured and eventually become event attendees. Many of them will immediately register for your event as well. If you partner with the right influencers and ambassadors, the sky’s the limit!

How do I find the right brand ambassadors and influencers?

You should look for ambassadors and influencers who are already highly active on social media, have a large following, and are interested in your event. It’s also ideal if they have credentials or extensive experience in the industry that your event is about. But, this isn’t always necessary if the person has a big enough name to draw crowds regardless. You also need to make sure that they have a positive reputation. After all, you don’t want someone representing your brand if they’ll also damage it by association.

One place to begin looking is with those you already follow and interact with. Think if any of these people already in your network would be good partners to represent your brand to their audience.

The next step is to expand the search radius. Begin by following some of the large names in your industry, but then begin to see who these people follow. Start making a long list of names of people that you think are an important part of the conversation. By creating a large target list, you’ll be able to have more options when it comes time to make a choice.

How do I measure success with influencer marketing?

After you’ve begun running your influencer marketing campaign, there are a few metrics that you’ll want to keep your eye on: 

• Reach. The most common metric when running an influencer campaign is new eyeballs. Even if these people don’t immediately register, you got your message in front of someone new. And nobody ever expanded without having people first become aware.
• Revenue. Track registrations from the campaign as effectively run influencer campaigns can have a huge impact on revenue generated.
• Leads generated. You may also want to create ways for people who interact with your influencer marketing materials to engage with your brand without having to register. Someone may first hear about your event this year, but they may not make it until next year. Create a plan to engage with these people over the next year, so that next year they end up attending.

Conclusion

We hope this blog post has given you some insight into the power of influencer marketing and why it can be a great tool for promoting your next event. To find new people, you’ll have to get creative. And influencer marketing is an incredible way to engage with audiences that you already know are interested in your industry.

If an influencer with a strong following has a reason to attend your event and draw their crowds there to see them, make sure you invest in building a partnership with that person. Pull out the red carpet for them so that they bring their audience to your event.

Influencer marketing can have a huge impact on your event long term. We hope you have fun connecting with brand ambassadors and influencers that make your event an even greater success this next year!