When one thinks about iconic events such as Glastonbury or the London Marathon, so much more comes to mind than simply a generic festival or a marathon.

These are events that have built such strong brands and associated culture, that attendees can feel they are making a statement about themselves by their very participation.

If you are staging an event that you plan to make a regular or annual happening, or are building a portfolio of events, it’s important to start crafting a strong event brand that will help make them instantly recognisable.

Follow our 5-step guide to build a strong event brand for your events.

STEP 1

Define your target audience

The very first thing you should do, before you embark on any design or start writing copy, is put down on paper who you hope to appeal to – this will influence every decision.

Don’t just think about their genders and age ranges; consider everything from their socioeconomic status (education, income and occupation) to their lifestyles, tastes, preferences and hobbies.

What sort of music do they like? Where do they shop? What are their favourite brands? Identifying other brands that your target demographic consume will help you understand how to create an image that will appeal to them.

Related: Launch your event in a month – lesson 3: Understanding your audience

STEP 2

Define your brand characteristics

Now you know who your attendees are, it’s time to decide what you stand for. Are you all about having fun and silliness? Do you aim to provide life-enriching experiences? Do you have a mandate to make a difference in your community?

What is your vision or your mission statement? What are your core values? If your attendees were to use one word to describe your event, what would you want that word to be?

Be clear about your brand’s characteristics and ensure they are reflected in your content, writing style, design and imagery.

Related: Launch your event in a month – lesson 17: Event branding

STEP 3

Design a logo

The importance of your logo should not be underestimated. This is your identity badge, a visual marker that should enable your fans to immediately pick you out in a crowd.

It should be distinctive, appealing and sum up everything you’re about. Your logo will define your brand for years to come so don’t scrimp and invest in professional design.

You should also decide on a colour scheme and fonts to represent your brand and provide a distinctive visual identity across all your marketing collateral.

Related: 10 Great examples of beautiful design

STEP 4

Set up your event page

It’s important that all your marketing has a distinctive look and feel, including your website and event pages, banner ads, print ads and email marketing, so be sure to choose a ticket sales and registration platform that supports custom design, and looks good on mobile devices as well as desktop.

Eventbrite event pages offer customisable HTML headers and footers, backgrounds, themes and colours and the ability to upload brand assets like logos, flyers and videos. (Learn how to do all this.)

Eventbrite also boasts customisable widgets to integrate ticket sales functionality into your website, while maintaining a seamless appearance.

What’s more, we’ve updated the layout on event listings to ensure they always look beautiful, regardless of what device they’re displayed on, be it smartphone, tablet or computer.

Take time writing the copy for your event page to make sure it matches the tone and style of your other communications. Don’t be afraid to inject a bit of personality to help potential attendees get to know you better.

Related: 20 Great examples of customised event pages on Eventbrite

STEP 5

Commence promotion and outreach marketing

Now you’ve established your event’s look and personality, it’s time to start shouting about it. Blogging and social media can provide you with outlets to build on your event brand’s foundations, fleshing out who you are and what you’re about.

Craft social activity in advance, month-by-month, to ensure you stay on-topic and follow a strategy rather than posting without purpose.

Create compelling content that you can share, and identify and engage with key influencers, bloggers and journalists who can help you spread your message.

Look for opportunities to guest blog, be interviewed or join a podcast, which will help build your event’s reputation, following and online presence.

Eventbrite makes it easy to gain SEO traction by generating a URL that’s indexed by major search engines like Google, Yahoo! and Bing. You can also publish your event directly to Facebook widening your promotional reach. Read more about Eventbrite’s promotional tools.

Related: Launch your event in a month – lesson 20: Social media and influencers

Conclusion

Try to show your unique personality in all that you do and always aim to be recognisable.

Make use of Eventbrite’s customisation capabilities to create event pages with a strong visual identity and our promotional tools to raise awareness of your event brand far and wide.