In today's pulse:

• 🤓 Data Dive: Words Most Common In High-Performing Event Promotion

• 📣 Getting Event Sponsors

• 🏢 8 New Event Industry Marketing & Comms Jobs

🤓 Data Dive: Words Most Common In High-Performing Event Promotion

A few weeks ago we looked at 19,153 promotions that came through Event Vesta last year to find out what the types of events that reached the most people.

I decided to take another look at the same data and see what we could learn about event titles.

In addition to the image that represents an event, the title is one of the first thing an event-seeker will see. They often make split-second judgements about an event based on these two assets. So getting the image and title right are paramount.

Some brands can rely on the trust they’ve built in the market by including their venue name or the name of their company. We saw this helped for established local brands. AND, we found that some other established local brands were missing out because they weren’t mentioning their brand in their title or image.

In this analysis, we defined "High-Click" and "Low-Click" events based on the median number of clicks.

The median is a measure of central tendency that divides the data into two equal halves. So, in this case, "High-Click" events are those that received more than the median number of clicks, and "Low-Click" events are those that received less than or equal to the median number of clicks.

We also removed any brand names which is why the two lists are uneven.

You’ll notice that a lot of the same words appear in both the High-Click and Low-Click lists. These are common words across the board, like “night” and “live”… duh.

So, what happens when we remove words shared by both lists:

These lists become a little more useful. Let’s dig into some context around each one.

Words In High-Click Event Titles

Painting

Surprisingly, events with the word “painting” in the title performed very well when we divided the events this way.

It is surprising because 0 events with the word “painting” appeared in the top 100 events we looked at for our Top Event Types List. Most of these events landed just below that threshold, but there were A LOT of them.

421 to be exact.

Considering that the ticket price to these events average out at $35 per event, this is certainly a lucrative category of events.

Annual

The word “annual” showing up is not a surprise. Annual events tend to have a bigger marketing budget and build buzz throughout the year. They have the benefit of building on themselves year-after-year.

Crawl

Crawl events are popular and getting more popular as organizers figure out how to make them even more fun. They tend to a wide audience as well. We do have a big bar crawl event organizer that promotes through Vesta, but even when we remove their results, “crawl” still comes up near the top.

Turns out lots of organizers are figuring out how to put together multiple bars, restaurants, wineries, even coffee shops into a crawling experience that catches the eye of event-seekers.

Brewing

If there was any doubt that events work for breweries, they consistently were brining in hundreds if not thousands of clicks for events. Sometimes the use of the word “Brewing” was specific to the brand, but again we removed those to see if the word remained. It did.

So if you’re not a brewery, could you partner with one (or a few?). If you are, don’t be shy about promoting your events.

Words In Low-Click Event Titles

Tribute and Band

While there were some titles that included just the word “band,” most of the ones that didn’t perform well also included the word “tribute.”

There are some tribute bands that perform very well locally. It doesn’t seem to be enough, on its own however, to drive a lot of clicks.

2023

Don’t put the year in your event title, I guess. This one also surprised us. There were a lot of events that didn’t perform well that included a year (and notably did not include the word “annual”).

It is assumed that it is an annual event if you include the year, but there may be something psychological of putting the actual word “annual” in the title.

There were also quite a few events that put the date in the title.

Just don’t, please. It’s not necessary, as the data information is almost always displayed right next to your event. Plus, you could include much more valuable additional information with that space.

Dinner

There were plenty of events that performed well that included the word “dinner.” Most notably, there were a lot of mystery dinner theater events that performed well for multiple organizers that specialize on these types of events.

However, events that included “dinner” and did not perform well were often featured dinners at restaurants. It goes back to the “What is an event?” topic we’ve covered before.

Most people, when they’re looking for an event to attend, simply aren’t looking for a special dinner. The exception may be around Valentine’s Day.

New

New isn’t a bad word, but it might be unnecessary in an event title. A lot of the events that featured the word “new” were also promoting a product or menu item. These aren’t really events in the eyes of a consumer, so they aren’t likely to get clicks in the places where people are looking for things to do.

Takeaways

The key takeaway from all this is that there’s no hack to creating a great event title.

The type of event matters much more.

Your event title should describe the event concisely and can be fun.

If you have a strong brand in your community, use it in the title. Just don’t forget that not EVERYONE is going to know who you are. But they will after they click on that event with your name in the title and end up having a great time! You can bet they’ll be more likely to click when they see events with your name promoted somewhere next time they’re looking.

How to Sell Sponsorships for Your Event or Venue

Event sponsorships can be a powerful marketing tool for both event organizers and sponsors.

By aligning with the right event and creating a customized sponsorship package, sponsors can increase brand awareness, generate leads, drive sales, build relationships, and improve their reputation.

But how do you get sponsorships?

This comprehensive guide will help you align your efforts based on data from hundreds of successful event organizers and millions of $ in sponsorship sales.

🏢 Entertainment Industry Communications and Marketing Jobs

There are a lot of cool job openings for communications, marketing, touring, promotion out there that we come across while writing this newsletter.

So we decided to start sharing in case you’re looking or know someone that is:

Venue Operations Experience (VOX) Workforce Development Program @ National Independent Venue Foundation Online

Tour Marketing Manager @ Red Light Management in Los Angeles, CA

Director, Strategic Communications @ Monumental Sports & Entertainment in Washington, DC

Digital Content Communications Specialist @ Parrish Art Museum in Water Mill, New York

Director of Marketing @ La Jolla Music Society in La Jolla, California

Manager, Marketing (Classical and Opera) @ Wolf Trap Foundation for the Performing Arts in Vienna, Virginia

Online Marketing Specialist @ Smithsonian Institution in Washington, DC

Director of Performing Arts @ Paramount Center for the Arts in St. Cloud, Minnesota

That’s It!

If you have anything interesting you’d like to share, we’d love to hear it! You can respond to this email or send a DM on LinkedIn: Craig Heron.

Thanks for reading, and see you next time