When you tap into the power of attendee personas for your event business, you can be more targeted with your marketing and event engagement. But there’s so much to explore when carving out each persona for each event you plan. And it’s challenging to build these target avatars when you’re already juggling a million tasks and event planning to-do lists.
But you’re in luck.
Keep reading because today, we’re helping you sift through the various types of event audiences so you can build great attendee personas quickly and efficiently. Soon, you’ll be a master at crafting mind-blowing events and NYC conferences that seem perfectly created just for your audiences!
What Is an Attendee Persona?
Whether you’re event planning a corporate conference, a private company event, a social celebration, or a fundraiser, you’re going to need to invite guests. And each event will appeal to different attendees. You’ll build out attendee personas or fictional characters to represent those target guests so you can target your event marketing with pinpoint precision. Personas will represent your attendees’ likes, demographics, and preferences that you can use as a foundation for all your social media, email, and PR marketing campaigns. It’s how today’s event planners make their event marketing efforts more effective.
Different Personas for Different Events
Eventbrite shared an analysis of the different types of event guest personas. These metrics represent demographics and preferences based on attendee surveys, capturing sentiments relevant to those attending events in 2023. And these categories of attendees can help you sort and decide how to build out your personas for each event.
- Connection-Seekers: Attendees who want to connect with others who share their interests and preferences to feel more included.
- Essentialists: Attendees who view your event as a must-attend engagement, making it a priority.
- Comfort-Zoners: Attendees who participate where they’re comfortable, in the groups, venues, and social settings where they know others.
- Onliners: Attendees who prefer to engage virtually with events.
- Experience-Chasers: Attendees who prioritize event experiences over things and gifts.
- Introverts: Attendees who prefer more intimate settings and familiar surroundings.
- Social-Savvy: Attendees who rely on social media for buzz and details about events, live experiences, and sentiments of others about your event.
How to Find Your Event Targets
When you’re looking for insights to drill down on the details of your specific event personas, use these methods to find and explore your target audience. This is how you discover your dream attendees for all your corporate and social events.
- Do your market research to understand who’s in your region.
- Analyze the metrics of past similar events.
- Study your competitors’ event attendees.
- Engage with event influencers who already have an audience.
- Refine and continuously test your messages to find who resonates with them the most.
- Leverage every social and online tool to target your audience.
Get to Know Your Guests to Develop Your Personas
Another pivotal step to better understanding your event audience is to connect with your current target attendees. Talk with them. Use surveys to learn more about their preferences. And answer these guest-specific questions to help you develop personas that identify with them.
Who is this event for, or intended to attract?
Recognize if you’re hosting a corporate event, appealing to business professionals, or attracting donors for a specific fundraising event.
What are the core demographics of these guests?
Discover where your guests live, work, and play, and create personas that represent generational data to help you target your event marketing.
Where do these guests prefer to hang out online?
Learn where these attendees spend their time online and how they prefer to receive communications and information to drill down on which channels are more effective for your event marketing.
Start leveraging these suggestions to streamline your event marketing efforts using attendee personas. It’s how you can become more effective in attracting guests to your New York events. And more guests or ticket sales result in more successful results!
Come back often for all kinds of event marketing suggestions, strategies, and best practices. Our ongoing blog series can be a ground-breaking resource for your event planning business. And keeping up here means staying on top of all the must-know details for next year’s Event Planner Expo!
