How conducting events can help your retail business?

Last year, many retailers leveraged social media to engage consumers and influence their purchase decisions, all in an effort to increase sales, attract new customers, and retain customers for their retail business. But in this new year 2015, we are expecting companies to go beyond that and use social media not only to promote products, but to actually sell them. Event marketing is the answer!

Why conduct events for your retail business?

In today’s buyer-empowered world, consumers are expecting more personalization that would make them feel connected to the brand and stay loyal. This is where events come into picture. By organizing events for your retail business, attendees will earn a unique opportunity to interact with your brand and get direct sense of your products and brand. The major advantage of event marketing, it’s most effective form will automatically encourage people to talk and write, all about your business. In the end, it will help you come up with good bottom line results.

Some Stats

Use of event marketing in the United States in 2014

The statistic presents data on the use of event marketing in the United States as of June 2014. During a survey, 14 percent of responding marketers stated that their event marketing activities brought a return of investment rate of 5:1.

Source: Statista 2015

Four reasons to conduct events for your retail business

1 – Brand awareness

By organizing events you can divert a large amount of potential customers, all at one time and in one place. By adopting some technical innovations you can come up with effective ideas and thoughts about your brand and products which can be presented in the exact manner you want to, increasing awareness for your retail business.

2 – Lead-generation

Another important reason for organizing an event, is to generate maximum leads. And, events can offer the best platform that mostly includes your target demographic. This way, being loud about retail business and it’s offering within a group of prospects, can result to generating maximum leads for your retail business.

3 – Engagement

One of the most beneficial reasons to organize events is to gain the attention of your customers beyond the distractions of their daily work. This means, attendees are encouraged to engage more with your brand, allowing positive personal interaction that build loyalty.

4 – Upsell

Events can be an ideal place to upsell products. And, the best way to do so, is by offering them products or services that is new and could address their needs. By doing this, they’ll automatically get encouraged to spread a good word about your event, which in turn will increase the chance of diverting new attendees for your next events.

Most common types of Event Marketing that you can consider

1- Online events

Online events can include Webinars, virtual events, and live streaming events. Theses sources allow you to connect participants from across the globe via a web-based interface. A cost-effective modern marketing solution, that can enable you reach geographically dispersed audience.

2- Offline events

Offline events, also known as physical events can include tradeshows, conferences and seminars. While they can be expensive than an online event, offline events allow the most effective interaction (face-to-face interaction) with potential audience. This helps you create a lasting and powerful impression of all that your company can deliver.