Many festival organisers are noticing the importance of mobile marketing and mobile interaction prior to and during events. Exhibition organisers and the many thousands of traders that attend these events are also benefiting from mobile marketing in the same fashion. As most people carry their mobiles with them to festivals and exhibitions this provides a unique platform for businesses in the event industry to promote their shows and products.
Purchasing of tickets can now be done via mobile phones and presenting a ticket in this way may also be more convenient for both festival promoter and attendee alike. There is a definite saving on paper and postal costs for the organiser, and this method provides greater security and lessens the chance of fraudulent tickets being offered too.
Event companies can use this great opportunity to add to their mobile database by getting customers to opt-in when completing on-line booking forms and the like. Whatever the promotion offered, this is a positive way to reach an engaging audience and respects people’s privacy rights. Clear opt-out text procedures help to provide customers with reassurance if they wish to discontinue a subscription.
Supporting all this with responsive sites, mobile sites and mobile apps enrich the user experience for attendees of an event and assist in the marketing and promotion for event organisers:
- Attendees can instantly access event details, timetables and announcements of special or unplanned gatherings
- A tap-to-map feature allows individuals to easily find event locations using GPS
- Links to Facebook and other social media sites for posts, reviews and sharing of information
- The uploading of photos to online galleries to share fun moments
- The scanning of QR codes, to direct people to mobile landing pages for event information, competitions and giveaways
Every time an event attendees interacts in this way organisers have a better opportunity to get people to opt-in for other subscriptions. This then adds to the size and effectiveness of the event organiser’s database for future SMS services and marketing opportunities. Also, by texting at regular intervals, customers are reminded of products or services which helps keep customers from straying to competitors.
Event organisers and exhibitors can make good use of text services to create dynamic campaigns to their willing subscribers to drive sales and reduce waste of perishable items such as stock and event tickets. And by utilising SMS services critical event information can be shared quickly, as well as creative lead generation via interactive texting which can only be of benefit to the attendee and event promoter alike:
- Using short codes to engage subscribers
- Mass messaging attendees with festival and event announcements
- Texting mobile coupons to promote products and services
- Creating mobile polls to gain customer feedback and opinion
- Text to win competitions and giveaways to attract subscribers and promote events
- Text service to thank attendees and announce future events and promotions
Like other marketing mediums it is important to measure performance and detail any areas that need improvement and to enhance future marketing campaigns. This can easily be done using an SMS service by tracking the click, keyword, call, coupon response rates and reply messages from your SMS campaign.
For more information on the range of TextAnywhere products, call our Customer Service Team on 08451 221 302 who will be happy to help you.