It goes without saying that good marketing brings attention to the events that you plan and organize. A strong marketing plan pays attention to your target audiences and leverages the data found on them to create content and strategy that will get your audiences to attend your events. As event planners and organizers, you know that there are different types of events that you organize. The things that you consider for an event are things that you probably won’t apply to a conference. Additionally, how you market an event will probably differ from how you market a conference and this is so important to take note of.
Truth be told, it doesn’t matter how much content you create and how hard you promote it when your tactics are not suitable for the event. For instance, you have to understand how a music event differs from a conference and consider how these differences will impact how you and your team will market the event and conference to your target audiences. It’s important to take notice of these distinctions because marketing pays a lot of attention to how things are received by an audience and when it doesn’t even reach them in the first place, there’s a tactical problem that needs to be resolved.
To avoid these problems, you have to start thinking about how a conference differs from a music event in the planning stages of your marketing plan. Here is how to get started.
What makes an event different from a conference?
Asking yourselves questions is always a great way to begin. What makes an event different from a conference and what are the qualifications? Most people know what an event like a music event is. A music event is one of the most popular forms of events. You have an audience demographics that informs you what is most popular amongst fans and what their expectations are. They are looking for a unique experience, a once-in-a-lifetime experience that they can call a piece of memory. Most events share that unique goal.
Conferences share that unique goal as well. But what makes a conference different from a music event is the way that they are almost always driven towards informing and networking amongst a specific group of people. A conference’s target audience is usually people who are, for example, super fans, followers, or professionals of a specific genre of music, entertainment, and even business industry. These could look like EDM conferences, anime conventions/conferences, and mental health conferences.
What makes a conference different from an event like a music event is the way it’s a larger networking event that is designed to communicate information amongst a specific audience. Conferences have a specific agenda and it’s most likely always to hold larger conversations around a specific topic–its main goal is to inform their target audience about something new and exciting.
Marketing an event vs a conference
Now that we’ve identified the main differences between an event and a conference, it’s obvious how those differences impact the way you should market a conference as opposed to an event. Here are a couple of things that you should think about and do when marketing an event or conference.
Think about your target audience
A large part of marketing begins with audience planning and focusing on your target audiences. Both an event like a music event and a conference has a large demographic that they attract. What is important to understand here is how these audiences receive information from the marketing team. A conference is designed to attract an already interested and nuanced audience base that is more likely to go searching for these conferences.
Your audience for a conference is established through an active base–think about this like “industry people.” They are already clued in about what is happening around a specific subject matter and are ready to attend conferences about that subject matter. They are basically ready to receive information and gain more knowledge about what they are interested in.
Creating content
Content is a larger aspect of your marketing plan because it will be the way you inform your target audience about your conference or event. You’ve already designed a strong marketing plan that checks all the boxes of what you need to execute your plan–here is a great place to get started on creating strong and successful marketing plans. You now need to think about the content that you will use to market to your target audience and how it’s different between an event and a conference.
Most of your marketing content for a conference will be focused on dispersing the fact that there is a conference being held that will inform the attendees about something unique within an existing subject. For example, in an industry-based conference, one of the highlights would be “how to get into the music planning business.” A conference’s main goal is to usually share and disperse knowledge so your marketing content should reflect that. This will impact the way how most of your marketing will go and here is what you should think about:
- Posters and graphics
- Social media platforms
- Keynote speakers
- Venue of the event or conference
- Attractions like music or merchandise
- Special promotions for conferences
When marketing a conference, you have to think about what makes a conference unique and how you will best represent that through the content you create for it and how it will be received.
Marketing a conference is completely different from how you would market an event. It’s important to note the differences and plan your marketing tactics accordingly because this will be how you reach your greater target audience and make attendees out of them.
Often, audiences all over the world may not be able to physically attend conferences. You can consider setting up hybrid events, or even create different ticketing slabs for the various levels of access provided by the conference with Ticket Fairy.
14th March 2025