Definition, skills and tips for success in events marketing careers
What is events marketing?
Events create a fun, intimate and engaging experience with your audience – there’s nothing like being in a room of like-minded people with fresh ideas.
The purpose of events is to allow the offering and sharing of intellectual content and communicating information and practice in ways that engage attendees. Events facilitate networking and business opportunities and help businesses promote their brand or products.
Events marketers typically create campaigns to attract delegates and sponsors to the event and increase brand awareness. A huge part of events marketing is communicating why the event is important and what value it can offer; potential attendees, sponsors or exhibitors all need to understand what they can gain from getting involved.
Events marketing also goes beyond marketing for specific events and aims to engage the relevant audience with digital content throughout the year. This creates consistent value for industry professionals outside of the events calendar while increasing brand awareness. If you’re looking for a role that offers experience across several different channels and lots of variety, then events marketing is the sector for you.
What skills do you need?
Marketing technology is advancing more every day, and events marketing tends to be heavily oriented towards digital marketing. Skills that would be used on a day-to-day basis would be:
- email marketing skills with systems such as Mailchimp, HubSpot or any equivalent
- creating and scheduling social media posts with Hootsuite or any equivalent
- driving web traffic with marketing techniques such as Search Engine Optimisation (SEO), Pay-Per-Click (PPC), Paid Social
- data analysis for website and social media performance with systems such as Google Analytics, Google Search Console or any other equivalent
- copywriting for website, emails or social media content
- website design, either with builders such as WordPress or HTML/CMS coding
- graphic design with systems such as Canva, Adobe PhotoShop, etc.
Soft skills that are beneficial within events marketing roles include:
- strong attention to detail
- creativity with a proactive nature
- strong written and verbal communication skills
- organised and able to multi-task well
- teamworking skills
Looking at the number of technical skills and systems that can be used within digital marketing can be daunting when coming straight out of school or university, but a willingness to learn new systems and a positive attitude is a crucial quality to have, as many companies provide training on the necessary technology.
There are however many opportunities to complete free certifications in digital marketing in your spare time. Google Digital Garage and Google Analytics Academy offer many free courses on digital marketing that can be completed online at your own pace, and would be a great step towards showing initiative and gaining experience before you get into a role. HubSpot also offer a free Inbound Digital Marketing course, and for those in higher education, many universities have free access to LinkedIn Learning courses through your student account, so check with your university to see if this is available to you.
Job titles, salaries and progression
Job titles within events marketing can include the terms Digital Marketing, Events Marketing or just simply Marketing – the company it is with should provide context for whether the role is involved in campaigns for events.
- Marketing Assistant – £22k-25k
- Marketing Executive – £25k-28k
- Senior Marketing Executive – £28k – £33k
- Marketing Manager – £34k-£45k
- Senior Marketing Manager – £45k- £55k
- Head of Marketing/Director – > £55k
Have a look at our current vacancies to see what entry-level events marketing roles we’re working on right now, and follow us on LinkedIn to stay up-to-date with our job postings.
