Insights
Marketing Your Fair to Today's Audience
“We have no trouble reaching our tried and true attendees year after year, but it’s been an uphill battle reaching new people and growing our fair.”
Does this sound familiar? Perhaps, like most fairs, you face challenges in attracting new attendees or resonating with a younger demographic. As audience behaviors shift dramatically towards digital platforms, and the winning against competing entertainment and educational events for the patrons for your fair. tapping into a broader audience pool becomes absolutely necessary to ensure the continued success of your fair year after year. A digital-first marketing approach is not just beneficial; it’s essential. The truth is, people plan their weekends in advance and often choose which events to attend based on what they see on social media. Here at Fairs.com, we are dedicated to helping you bridge that gap. By building a social-first marketing plan, we ensure your fair isn’t merely a memory of the past, but a vibrant, must-visit event for all ages.
Consider this striking statistic: the percentage of people in the US using social media has skyrocketed from 44% in 2010 to over 90% today. Has your marketing budget evolved to match this shift? Are you effectively meeting your potential fairgoers where they spend a significant amount of their time—on social media?
Today, 58% of consumers visit a brand’s social media accounts before its website. Additionally, 9 out of every 10 Americans are active on platforms like Facebook, Instagram, TikTok, and YouTube. Having an active social media presence is no longer a luxury; it's a requirement to survive and thrive. These platforms offer the chance to reach a broad demographic from ages 18 to 65+, providing a dynamic space to engage with them directly and vibrantly.
Digital marketing offers clear advantages over traditional methods, especially in terms of cost-efficiency and targeting precision:
With advanced machine learning, platforms like Meta’s Ads Manager enable precise targeting to identify and engage potential fair-goers. This ensures that your marketing efforts are not only more efficient but also cost-effective, typically achieving CPMs between $1.90 and $2.15. Another advantage of digital marketing is its measurability. Unlike traditional advertising where reach and impact are estimated, digital marketing provides exact data on how many times your ad was seen, clicked on, and converted into ticket sales, enabling you to make informed decisions to maximize your budget.
Maintaining an organic social media presence is essential for building an engaging community, acting as a dynamic showcase of what attendees can expect at your fair. However, considering that only about 5-10% of your organic followers see your posts, supplementing with a paid strategy ensures your fair captures the broadest audience possible.
Email marketing provides a direct line of communication to past attendees through digital ticketing, allowing you to engage them at a very low cost. This approach is not only cost-effective—it’s necessary, given that it costs five times more to attract a new customer than to retain an existing one.
At Fairs.com, we understand that many fairs are hesitant to allocate 18%-22% of their budget to agency fees for social media management. That's why we offer a different model: high-quality marketing management at no charge. We measure our success by the success of the fairs we support, focusing on providing the tools and strategies to modernize your marketing efforts and connect effectively with today's digital-first audience, charging only minimal platform fees when absolutely necessary.
Ready to transform your fair’s marketing strategy without the hefty fees? Visit us at Fairs.com—where we can help forge your fair’s digital future.
