If you're not exactly sure what event marketing is, think of Earth Day, the Renaissance Faire, Woodstock, Shop Rite's Can-Can Sale, President's Weekend at Macy's... and let's not forget Valentine's Day, that "Hallmark Holiday" disguised as a day of Love but really meant to boost candy, card, dinner and gift sales.

I'm going to be blunt with you here, hope you can handle it. ;) Event marketing is not just an excuse to cheer about something. Your motive in "inventing" and promoting a market-driven holiday or celebration is to gain new visibility in your niche, drum up excitement with your target audience, and ultimately increase profits for your business.

If you're still a little guy just yet, you may have to wait on those cash sales until next year when people know you better... but revenue earned by way of new customers who notice you during the event counts as profit and makes the event worth the effort in the long run.

Generally, your goal is this: Position yourself at the helm of the event and drive mass traffic to the event so that folks develop an association between the event and your brand.

Event planning is a highly effective networking strategy in itself. In promoting the event and encouraging participation, you will become acquainted with many, many new faces and forge more solid bonds with old faces. In coordinating the event, you will learn who the "ideal" colleagues are to work with, and how your strengths can best be leveraged while putting other people to work on the tasks you find more challenging.

You may wonder how on earth you could possibly execute an event "virtually." The truth is... with so many active online networks and Power Groups forming, the internet is possibly the simplest and least expensive venue for your "invented event." Instead of a convention center, you have a "home base" website. Instead of live public speakers standing on a rented out podium in a rented auditorium, you have virtual "spotlight guests" on your blog or website. Your event won't require costly shipping of hard goods and transportation, because your "trade show booth" can be managed from a website that's launched once and remains live all year to generate residual traffic and help you rank better for the following year.

Who might want to join you in promoting an event, and what type of holiday or celebration could work with your niche? Basically, the idea is to just zero in on what your audience would find most valuable and attractive, in the celebratory sense. Following are a few ideas off the top of my head, but I'm sure that you can come up with something fabulous to fit your market.

If you sell gourmet pies, you could invent "Pie in the Sky" or a Month-Long Virtual Bake-Off. Complimentary vendors who might join your celebration: gourmet coffee distributors, Longaberger reps, companies who sell baking and kitchen equipment, folks who run dessert websites, other pie sellers (sorry, in event planning, you often have to deal directly with "the competition" but it's so much fun that nobody ever seems to mind.)

If you normally target the "alternative health" or audience of herbalists, a health fair has the potential to lure potential buyers in droves and get them on your mailing list. If your website is focused around writing or design, you can hold a contest to attract fresh talent. I've come across websites where designers are encouraged to "submit entries" which are then posted and judged, with prizes handed out. The creations are often very funny and a great way to scope out up-and-comers. Don't forget: contestants should be encouraged to sign up for your paid memberships or at the very least get on your mailing list; otherwise the event is "virtually" pointless.

Planning an event on the internet requires someone with dynamic leadership skills, a good sense of timing, a solid "people network," the ability to mesh with a variety of personalities, strong organizational skills, and of course- an expert handle on all the traditional means of online marketing.

Skills needed for proper event execution: website design, copywriting, email and list management, blogging, publicity, brand-building. If you possess these skills yourself, wonderful, but know there is an incredible amount of work involved, so getting backup assistance is imperative.

Necessary resources: web hosting, FTP (file transfer protocol), blog hosting, word processing, a good graphics program, numerous article marketing directories, several memberships to major web PR sites, a pdf creation tool, an advanced email management program (such as Microsoft Outlook), an online discussion forum, a subscriber sign-up form, file backup.

Want to witness event planning live in action? Please join me and my marketing friends for the First Annual Web Content Awareness Day, scheduled to launch on February 9, 2006 at http://WebContentAwarenessDay.com.

Sneak Peek: Visit the Countdown to Web Content Awareness Day Blog and learn how you can ride our wave of high web traffic!

Paste in this link:

http://wordfeeder.typepad.com/web_content_awareness_day/

Copyright 2006 Dina Giolitto. All rights reserved.