Event Marketing: How to Successfully Promote Events, Festivals, Conventions, and Expositions, Second Edition

Chapter 3

The Theory and Practice of Event Marketing

“The aim of marketing is to know and understand the customer so well the product or service fits him and sells itself.”

Peter F. Drucker, social ecologist (1909–2005)

When you have completed this chapter, you will be able to

• Define and apply event marketing interventions and strategies to maximize return on marketing investment,
• Apply and integrate general marketing concepts within the context of twenty-first-century event marketing principles,
• Synthesize traditional marketing models into a new comprehensive and definitive model for modern event marketing,
• Evaluate and effectively execute research, targeting, and positioning in event marketing strategy, and
• Assess and describe event marketing opportunities and potential in terms of feasibility, viability, and sustainability by using the SWOT analysis (strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats).

The Need for Strategy

This chapter is a guide to the activities that constitute event marketing, and as with all worthwhile endeavors we will begin with strategy. Strategy must precede any planned event if it is to be considered of importance to those involved, participating, or attending. Another way of putting it is to know beforehand that what you are doing is the best thing to do, under the circumstances. Perhaps you know this only too well, but refer to it as thinking something through rather than strategy, which sounds rather distant and formal. You would be right to ...