Marketing Through Events Becoming Even More Popular

Ninety-six percent of corporate marketing executives utilize events in their marketing mix and 93% view the importance of event marketing to be constant or increasing, according to EventView ’05/’06, the fourth annual study of face-to-face marketing trends sponsored by The George P. Johnson Company and the Meeting Professionals International Foundation.

Additionally, more than 50% of survey respondents report the role of event marketing as a “lead tactic” or a “vital component” of the marketing mix.

EventView ’05/’06, formerly called the Global Event Trends Survey, is based upon interviews with more than 700 decision-making marketing executives and personnel in North American, European and Asia Pacific corporations with sales exceeding $250 million.

Respondents represented a range of industries including automotive, technology, healthcare, financial services, consumer, manufacturing and associations.

According to the survey, for the first time, “enhancing the customer relationship” rose to the top as event marketing’s predominant criteria for success, compared with brand preference, awareness, product knowledge and leads indicated in previous years.

When asked to rate on a scale of one (“not at all important”) to five (“very important”) the importance of customer or employee satisfaction to the success of an event, respondents reported a mean score of 4.2.

In North America and Europe, the percentages, per geography, of respondents indicating that event marketing would “increase in importance” significantly increased from 2004 findings.

In Europe, 52% of respondents report that event marketing will grow in importance (an increase from 45% in 2004).