For years, event industry accreditation has been based on mastery of logistics. However, corporations today are increasingly focused on marketing strategy, and no matter how well executed an event is, if there aren’t enough attendees and sponsors it will be deemed a failure. To ensure success, event managers need to become event marketers.

Eventbrite is making it easy for event marketers – or those who are interested in becoming event marketers – to take the first step. As the largest ticketing and event technology platform powering millions of events around the world each year, Eventbrite has a wealth of knowledge around maximizing the reach of an event and offers resources including Essential Guides for Event Creators.

The company’s mission statement is “To bring the world together through live experiences,” and a few months ago one of Eventbrite’s content marketing managers, Rachel Grate, had an idea for a new way to help make this happen.

Grate referenced data from a survey that Eventbrite recently conducted within their own customer base, which will be released later this month.  Out of more than a thousand event creators surveyed, eighty-three percent said that promoting events is one of their primary responsibilities and the area with the largest amount of budget allocation.

However, when it came to reporting on the effectiveness of their current promotions, including email and SEO strategies, the numbers dropped sharply. Attracting attendance, both repeat and new, was the number one challenge reported. 

In conversations with Eventbrite’s customer success team, Grate learned that customers often asked for marketing advice and training. These requests further drove home the survey data, adding a level of personalization and ad hoc details on the type of information for which clients were looking.    

Grate realized that while there was plenty of helpful content in other forms, there was no central resource available that met that need.  She envisioned an online course, leveraging the expertise of Eventbrite staff, that could provide that kind of cohesive training, and set out to make it happen. In December 2017, Eventbrite’s Event Marketing Course and Certification was launched.

“It’s meant to be a crash course in the event marketing strategies and tactics that every event marketer should know,” said Grate.

“When I say crash course, I don't necessarily mean the basics. I mean the most up-to-date strategies and what people should really be doing,” she added.

The five-part course is designed to help current and future event professionals master the essential elements of modern event promotion. Modules cover social media, paid advertising, event discovery, email marketing, and website conversion. While the training is self-paced, each of the five sections should take approximately one hour on average.

Each of the modules is taught by an Eventbrite marketing expert, and comprises short articles, exercises, videos and quizzes that will teach participants the best techniques for event marketing.  After completion of all five modules, there is a test (also approximately one hour in length).

Those who pass the test receive a special new Eventbrite event marketing certification. The certification is meant to help event professionals showcase their knowledge for personal career advancement and provide them with more confidence.

Grate is excited about helping people within the industry get better at their jobs, and get more recognition from their organizations.

“We wanted to make an easy way for all those people who have so much on their plate to keep up with the latest marketing trends, regardless of what percentage of their role is specifically event marketing. Even using just two new things that they learned from the course, they could see a really big improvement in sales and the effectiveness of their marketing,” she said.

Within one month of launch, more than 800 participants have enrolled in the free course. Eventbrite tentatively plans to roll out new content on a quarterly basis and update existing content yearly or as needed based on changes and innovations within the industry.

For more information, or to register for Eventbrite’s Event Marketing Course and Certification, go here.