The aim of this whitepaper is to get an adequate overview of the current situation in the Estonian event marketing area, also to highlight the trends, changes and future directions.
The research will give a good overview and is a practical tool for people working in event marketing. It offers them background information and a wide overview of the area. For companies not working in the event marketing field, the paper offers inspiration on how to implement event marketing beneficially in their company by studying from others’ experience and work.
The research also helps to improve event marketing in companies by giving input on how to be more effective and making it easier to choose partners for execution.
After choosing the topics of the research, some of the questions in the questionnaire were reformulated for better comparison to match the questions of the research made in 2005 by Turu-Uuringute AS “Market research of the event marketing”.
The questionnaire was web-based and it was spread online via e-mail. The questionnaire was aimed at entrepreneurs and people working in marketing. The target group was created with the aim of reaching a variety of companies of different sizes and fields of business.
The research was conducted in October 2012 among Estonian companies. 75 people answered the questionnaire.
The research showed that the biggest trends which influenced the event marketing area in the last seven years, and that probably also influence the field in the future, are Internet and Internet marketing, financial crisis, growing knowledge on goal setting for events, and enterprises’ growing interest on creating and ensuring a positive image of themselves.
The report concluded that the big and influential changes that have happened in the area within the last seven years have, in the longer term, have been rather positive – companies have become more flexible, but also more confident than before, additionally, they have become more transparent and grown their self-awareness.
The event marketing area has become clearer after the complicated economic times. Clients and event marketers know better what they need and why they are organizing the events.