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Regarding marketing, market research into the target audience (Acorn, 2017) indicated that Facebook and mobile social media were the predominant methods of consumption regarding advertising and events. And with over 550 million people using Facebook events each month (Eventbrite, 2017), it was decided that the social media site be the marketing method of choice by Radiation Events due to its higher levels of engagement and content sharing (Evans, 2010). Consistent imagery and materials were displayed across the website, Facebook page and posters to reinforce the message and maximize the chances of it being received, whilst the Eventbrite page was also interlinked in the hope that traffic to the ticket site would stem from Facebook. Eventbrite (2017) note that nearly 25% of traffic to ticketing pages comes from social media, however when evaluating G & Tea’s performance it highlighted that over 50% of the traffic did, proving the success of the Facebook page in generating sales.
It’s been noted that events and organizations that try to be all things to all people typically end up failing to satisfy the needs of any customer group very well (Dibb, 2006), which is why Radiation Events clearly defined a target market of young professionals. Nichols (2003) also highlighted the fact that each segment requires a different marketing strategy, which is why clear social media objectives were drawn up to enable a clear strategy to be executed (Amiando, 2012).
Radiation Events also conducted a competitor analysis of similar events around the area to analyse attendance and price, an important aspect of the marketing and sales planning process (Blythe, 2006). With this in mind, it enabled price effectiveness to occur due to the pricing being aligned with other aspects of the marketing strategy such as target market and the event objectives. Despite competitor events pricing tickets at £25 minimum, their target markets were older than that of Radiation’s and their event motivations were to maximise profits rather than to raise money for charity. This was reasoning behind tickets starting at £15 and ending at £25, as price and consumer behaviour are two of the most important areas of marketing and so the aim was to sell out tickets to the target market (Blythe, 2006; Solomon, 2013).
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Regarding actual sales, data analysis from Eventbrite indicated that the most sales were taken on 13th/14th March, which was the day before the tickets went up to £20. This suggests that the pricing and marketing strategy was successful, as this price increase was only communicated out via Facebook, proving the tool as an effective means of conveyance (Tuten and Solomon, 2015).
Despite doubt over the ability to sell all 24 tickets, it is known that people buy tickets for events at the last minute (Eventbrite, 2017), which was also the case with G & Tea as the event was sold out by 30th March.
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The mean price paid for a ticket however was £16.84, indicating that the starting price was correct for the audience in attendance as the price did have to be reduced from £25 back down to £20 the day before the event in order to gain more sales. However with the only other source of income being from the raffle, ticket sales could have been improved whether it be moving to a larger venue to accommodate more attendees, or to have produced a better sales plan.
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MARKETING. COMMUNICATIONS. SALES
With an events success largely depending on the use of promotion (Hoyle, 2002), a 3 week lead time meant that limited time was available to construct a complex marketing and promotion strategy. However with over half of event organizers deeming lack of time as their main hindrance of meeting social media marketing goals (Amiando, 2012), Radiation Events placed great importance on creating a social media schedule to ensure their goals were met. In order to do so, Hootsuite was used as a monitoring tool as recommended by industry experts (Amiando, 2012), as this platform allowed for in depth evaluation and analysis on all posts (Hoostuite, 2017).
​However with 1,000 people reached and only 31 people either ‘interested’ or ‘attending’ the event on Facebook, doubt is placed over the effectiveness of the content and strategy created, suggesting that more frequent and conversational content be post in future events (Evans, 2010).
A successful event evaluation also takes into consideration media content, sales figures and marketing results (Brown et al, 2015), which is reasoning for clear objectives being established from the outset for this aspect of the event planning, as shown to the left. Regarding sales, a sold out event meant that the sales objective was achieved, however the price did need to be lowered in order for this goal to be realised, which did negatively impact the 4:1 ratio. With over 50% of tickets being purchased on the 1st week of sales, this not only highlights success of this objective but also suggests successful promotion and event concept to encourage these attendees to buy tickets. Regarding marketing objectives, despite low levels of the target audience clicking attending or interesting on the Facebook event page, engagement levels totalled 395 with a reach of 948, again suggesting successful content creation and placement. However with 97% of emails sent out being clicked on or opened, Eventbrite did not detect any ticket sales being from this channel, supporting Mintel’s findings that young adults are not favouring emails as a means of marketing or advertising any more (Mintel, 2004). Overall the marketing and sales objectives were met, but room for improvement regarding frequency and relevance
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