Following the success of early bird marketing efforts for IFT FIRST 2023, the Institute of Food Technologists (IFT) set out to elevate the promotion strategy for IFT FIRST 2024, its annual flagship event.
Their goal? Build upon their previous strategy, creating more robust and sustained campaigns to capture potential attendees throughout the entire registration window.
The Strategy: Expanded Campaigns and Increased Touchpoints
Alongside IFT’s additional audience acquisition tactics, the IFT team expanded their use of Hum's Live Engagement capabilities for the 2024 event:
1. Extended Campaign Timeline: IFT ran a total of seven campaigns, including two early bird promotions and five additional campaigns spanning the full registration period.
2. Increased Touchpoints: The expanded campaign structure allowed for multiple interactions with potential attendees, particularly targeting those who had shown interest but hadn't yet registered.
3. Personalized Messaging: Utilizing Hum's first-party data capabilities, IFT continued to tailor messages based on membership status and content engagement, ensuring relevance to each viewer.
These campaigns were dynamically shown to readers actively consuming IFT content, capitalizing on moments of high engagement leading up to the event.
Results: 7% return on new attendees
Leveraging the power of Hum's Live Engagement campaigns, IFT not only met but exceeded the previous year's performance, showcasing the effectiveness of a well-executed, data-driven approach to event marketing.
Of the people who registered for IFT FIRST through campaigns distributed by Hum, over 7% were first-time attendees.
This contributed to an 80% increase in first-time registration revenue over the previous year, from first-time early bird Hum campaign registrations.
“Personalization has become a pillar of our event promotion strategy. Hum has empowered us to deliver tailored messages at the right time, significantly boosting engagement and helping us reach new, first-time attendees in meaningful ways,” said Randy Boyd, IFT Production Manager.
Key Takeaways
The success of this expanded strategy not only drove immediate results for IFT FIRST 2024 but also provided valuable insights for future event promotion efforts.
- Personalization Drives Conversions: Tailoring messages based on membership status and content preferences continued to be a winning strategy.
- Real-Time Marketing Effectiveness: The ability to reach engaged readers while they're actively consuming content proved highly effective in driving immediate registrations. More than a quarter of the attendees who engaged with the Hum campaigns converted and registered within the same day.
- Sustained Engagement Works: For those who didn't immediately register, having multiple touch points throughout the campaign period helped increase brand awareness and keep IFT FIRST top-of-mind for potential attendees. By extending the campaign period and increasing touchpoints, IFT captured more potential attendees throughout the registration window.
As the IFT team looks to future events, they plan to further refine campaign timing and messaging, explore additional personalization options to enhance the relevance of promotions, and investigate ways to integrate Hum-driven campaigns with other marketing channels for a truly omnichannel approach.