No matter who your audience is, the new rules of marketing can be leveraged to enhance your storytelling and overall success when preparing for an event. To ensure you have a great chance at success at the military veterans-focused event, you need to put some time in during the months and weeks prior to the event.
Do Your Homework!
Do you know who your audience is? Who are you expecting to see at the upcoming event? Will specific veterans be there? Maybe, the attendees will be family members of veterans or even caregivers. Knowing the audience ahead of arrival is KEY! Who are you wanting to attract during your time at the event? Does your resource, product, or service help a specific age range? Maybe, your offering is hyper specific to a select audience within the veterans community; maybe, your offering helps the great majority of veterans. Knowing who is most likely to be at the event allows you to tailor your and your brand’s story accordingly. You likely would not want to sell a bowling ball to a tennis player. If you know the audience expected at the event and/or who you are wanting to encourage to come to the event, your are more likely to enjoy success at the event. Once you understand who might be attending or who you are wanting to reach, do you know what those veterans, family members, or caregivers are seeking? What problems or challenges do they currently have? What opportunities do you offer that might appeal to them? What is your story?
Go Where The Audience Is
Many within your target audience are actively online; this includes military veterans across numerous generations in addition to their loving family members and caregivers. If your target market is a veteran above the age of 75 years old, for example, and you think the majority of those warriors are not tech savvy or online, know that their family and friends could be online. They might be on Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn, or elsewhere. Most are on those three popular social media platforms, but how they react and when they are online are areas you need to understand better. Understanding where they spend most of their online time can help you communicate with them; understanding why they might use a specific social media platform.
Consistent Content Creation and Curation
Consistency is KEY! As you create and publish content for online consumption by today’s veterans, family, and friends, you teach your audience about you and your brand, and you teach them when you plan to put out new content. As you share your story online and capture the attention of your audience, they will learn when they should be able to come back to consume more of your story and when to learn more about your brand or services. Don’t leave them guessing! If you start posting on Facebook each morning and on Instagram each afternoon, be consistent; it is easy to begin posting with gusto, posting once or twice per day only to either burn out or run out of content. Be sure to find a pace that you can maintain – your audiences will appreciate it.
The important part is to begin somewhere and experiment now. Don’t be afraid to try out social media. If you have not yet done so, start TODAY! Don’t wait until just before your veterans event, fair, or expo is about to take place. The sooner you learn your patriotic audience, navigate to the channels where your specific audience is, and commence a consistent conversation, the better your chances of expanding your success at the upcoming veterans event.
