When it comes to marketing your event venue, there are a few best practices you should not ignore. In this guide, we’ll break down the top marketing best practices for any venue marketing strategy, so you can get more bookings and grow your venue’s online presence. 

#1. Market to both your audiences: event planners and clients

When creating your venue marketing strategy, it’s important to keep your target audience in mind. As an event venue, your target audience is made up of two groups: event planners and clients. By tailoring your marketing message and strategy to each group individually, you can create better-performing marketing campaigns that address each group’s needs. 

For example, event planners prefer venues that are easy to work with. Venues that offer onsite catering, a devoted event coordinator and top-notch communication are ones that event planners will choose to work with time and time again. 

Your messaging to this group should highlight the benefits of working with your venue and speak directly to event planners’ needs and wants. 

On the other hand, your event clients, such as a bride looking for a wedding venue, someone looking for their company’s next holiday party venue or someone looking to book a meeting space for an upcoming conference, have a different way of searching for venues. 

Your messaging to this group should highlight what makes your venue stand out from the rest. For example, your venue’s aesthetic, your indoor/outdoor options, your ample parking or your central location can all be important factors when someone is looking for a venue for their event. 

Creating a unique value proposition for both audiences can help you create the right messaging to capture each audience’s attention. 

#2: Create a stunning event venue website

Your event venue website is an essential piece of your marketing strategy. It’s where your paid and organic marketing efforts will lead and is often the first impression people will have of your venue. 

Make your website stand out by making sure it follows these web design best practices: 

Make it mobile-friendly: Your website design should be mobile-friendly and responsive so that people on mobile devices have the same great first impression that desktop users have. 

Images of your venue: Show off your venue by using professional photography throughout your website. Show the front of your venue, interior and exterior spaces, and photos of past events so people can see how your venue can be used.

Testimonials: Sprinkle past client testimonials throughout your website to improve your trustworthiness and to provide social proof to website visitors. You can also set up a testimonials page specifically for this purpose. 

Contact information: Make it easy for people to get in touch with your venue by displaying your contact information on your website. Include a contact page with information, like your address, hours, phone number, email and a contact form people can use to request more information. You can also include this information in the footer of your website so that it appears on every page. 

A clear call to action: Steer your website visitors in the direction you want them to take by providing a clear CTA (call to action). “Fill out our contact form today to request more information,” “Schedule a tour” or “Call now to learn about our rental options” are all examples of CTAs that tell website visitors what action to take next. 

Venue and service information: Make sure to include pertinent venue and service information, such as venue capacity, catering partners, event types, AV equipment details and more. Including this information will help draw in the most relevant leads, and let potential clients know the benefits of working with your venue. 

#3. Use social media marketing to your advantage

Social media marketing can be a great source of new clients and can help you build your venue’s presence in your area. Plus, it can strengthen your relationships with event planners and event businesses in your area, helping you secure more referral business from these relationships. 

A few social media best practices to keep in mind include: 

Follow proper image sizing: Make sure every image you post on social media is formated for that specific channel. This will help ensure the quality of your photos and make your venue appear more professional. Learn more about the proper photo and video sizing for Instagram, Facebook and TikTok.

Engage with your followers: Social media isn’t just about sharing on your news feed and posting stories. Engage with the accounts you follow by liking, commenting and interacting with their posts.  

Stay consistent: A post here and there isn’t going to build your community on social media. Staying consistent on your social platforms is key to growing engagement and seeing success from your social media marketing efforts. A social media post scheduler, like Marketing 360® Social, lets you schedule out posts in advance so you can stay active on social media, even when you’re busy. 

Learn more about how venues can use social media marketing to grow and see social post inspiration in our recent blog post, “How Event Venues Can Use Social Media Marketing.”

#4. Stay top of mind with email marketing

Earn repeat business and stay top of mind with past clients with email marketing. 

Sending out a regular newsletter, or creating one-time email blasts to promote upcoming events, promotions or business news, can keep past customers engaged with your venue and help you build relationships with your community. 

Some email marketing best practices to follow include: 

Only sending your subscribers relevant information: Sending too many emails, or emails with irrelevant information, can hurt your email marketing efforts by lowering your subscriber count. Only send useful, engaging emails to your followers. 

Have the right to opt-out: Always allow subscribers to opt-out of your emails following the CAN-SPAM act.

Optimize the email’s preview text: Give your email subscribers a reason to click and view your email by optimizing your email preview text. The headline and preview text of your emails should capture attention and entice people to click to see what you have to say. 

Personalize your email greeting: Make your subscribers feel special by personalizing your email greeting. Simply using their name in your email greeting can help make your emails appear more personal, and grab your reader’s attention. 

Grow your venue with Marketing 360®

Marketing 360 has the tools and talent you need to market your venue, get more bookings and grow your online presence. From email marketing tools to paid ad management, we have everything you need to run and market your venue. Learn more about our plans and pricing today.