If you’re an event planner or marketer feeling the heat of rising expectations, you’re not alone. Attendees want flawless, inclusive, and inspiring events, and the pressure is on to deliver. Luckily, AI tools like ChatGPT can help alleviate some of the stress and help you speed up time-consuming tasks.
But what exactly is ChatGPT, and how can it help you promote and deliver better events? Read on to learn creative ways to use ChatGPT, risks to consider, and how to get the most from the tool.
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What is ChatGPT?
ChatGPT is a sophisticated AI language model created by OpenAI.
Trained on a vast amount of information, ChatGPT understands context and generates human-like responses. It's useful for answering questions, offering explanations, and giving suggestions.
Many event marketers and planners are using ChatGPT as a tool to save time, speed up the research process, carry out tedious tasks and help them create events with real impact.
If it isn’t already, ChatGPT could become an essential part of your daily event marketing toolkit.
13 Creative ways to use ChatGPT for event marketing
Here are some ways to use ChatGPT as your event planning and marketing assistant.
1. Craft engaging emails
Use ChatGPT as your copywriting assistant when you need to write email copy quickly. It's great at producing emails that entice and excite potential attendees to want to know more about your event. From welcome emails to special offers, ChatGPT can help you craft compelling messages in no time.
2. Brainstorm ideas
Stuck for ideas? There’s no need to worry. Use this handy AI assistant as a brainstorming partner. Simply ask ChatGPT to suggest options and use this as a basis to get your creative juices flowing. Whether you need help brainstorming themes, session topics, or unique event formats, ChatGPT can help you come up with fresh ideas you may not have thought of.
3. Personalise invitations
Craft tailored event invitations by using ChatGPT to analyse your existing database of delegates to identify what they are interested in. Use that info to fine-tune your email invites to pique recipients' interest and boost attendance.
4. Write social media copy
Constantly writing fresh social media messages can be a time-sucking chore. Leverage ChatGPT to suggest ideas for intriguing social media copy across all your channels. For example, you can use ChatGPT to help you craft different messages on channels like LinkedIn and Facebook based on your event's themes.
Or you could go one step further and ask it to help you produce a brief social media strategy to maximise the impact of your posts.
5. Highlight your event programme
Before committing to your event, attendees need to know what’s on offer. ChatGPT can help you organise and present your event's programme in fresh, easily digestible ways.
Try asking it to write a script for a video based on your programme. Or simply ask it to suggest unique ways to highlight your event programme, and you'll be impressed by the number of ideas it comes up with.
6. Create compelling speaker introductions
Speakers are integral to events, but writing inspiring, exciting intros for a whole list of speakers is hard. Get ChatGPT to craft impressive speaker introductions that precisely match each speaker's unique qualities. Wave goodbye to generic bios.
7. Provide speaker Q&A teasers
Get ChatGPT to generate teaser questions that offer a sneak peek into what your speakers will address. Share these teasers across your platforms and take the opportunity to create curiosity and reinforce value for attendees.
8. Increase attendee engagement
Engaging your audience is crucial for success. With ChatGPT, you can create fun and interactive experiences that keep attendees engaged and excited.
For example, use ChatGPT to brainstorm and design engaging contests and polls encouraging participants to interact with your event's content.
Or develop trivia competitions where attendees answer AI-generated questions relevant to your event.
9. Countdown your event with time travel
Want to create a fun and unique countdown to your event? The beauty of working with AI is that your imagination can be inspired by the unexpected. Here’s a way to craft a captivating countdown to your event with a twist.
Use ChatGPT to imagine time-travel scenarios where attendees embark on a journey through time to witness historical events related to your theme. Each day brings a new snippet, whetting attendees' appetite as your event gets closer.
10. Maximise FAQs
Making sure your attendees are well-informed is an essential part of the event experience. Use ChatGPT to help you generate FAQs and comprehensive answers to queries about event specifics, speakers, and logistics.
11. Write copy for real-time updates
When last-minute changes occur, ChatGPT can quickly help you draft messages to disseminate across platforms, ensuring you keep attendees up to speed and manage their expectations.
12. Increase inclusivity
Diversity and inclusion are key considerations for event planners and marketers. It means looking after the requirements of all your attendees.
If your event attracts an international audience, use ChatGPT to facilitate real-time language translations and cultural exchanges among attendees.
ChatGPT can help when it comes to carefully crafting copy for neurodiverse audiences by enabling you to create communications that are clear and inclusive.
13. Maximise post-event engagement
Attendee engagement doesn’t stop when the event ends. Use ChatGPT to do a lot of the heavy lifting by getting it to assist with devising survey questions, collating responses and creating content summaries.
In addition, ask it to analyse any key points or trends buried in data you collected during the event and put it into a summary document.
If you’re getting started with ChatGPT, use these 13 creative tips as a starting point for your ideas. By incorporating ChatGPT into your event marketing processes, you can streamline your workflow and focus on what matters – creating meaningful and memorable experiences for your attendees.
Top tips for writing great ChatGPT prompts
It's one thing to understand what ChatGPT is capable of and how it can help you. But writing a good prompt is the secret to getting the most from ChatGPT.
This involves crafting well-structured and specific instructions that guide the AI model to generate accurate and relevant responses. It’s a good idea to set some time aside for you to develop that skill, it's not as simple as it sounds. The better prompts you write, the more you will be able to rely on it as an assistant.
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Be clear and specific
Make sure your prompt is clear and concise. Use complete sentences and avoid ambiguous language. Specify the topic you want the AI to focus on.
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Provide context
Provide background information at the beginning to help the model understand the context. For example, including the type of attendee, industry sector, event location, etc., will help paint a more complete picture for the AI to generate accurate responses.
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Experiment
If the initial response is not what you want, experiment with different phrasings or rephrase your prompt. Refine your prompts based on the AI's responses to obtain the information needed.
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Break down complex questions
Rather than ask a complex question, break it down into smaller, more digestible parts. This will help the AI focus on each component and provide more accurate answers.
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Use examples and clarifications
Provide examples or clarify your request with additional information when necessary. This can help the AI better understand your intent.
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Avoid Yes/No questions
Avoid asking questions that can be answered with a simple "yes" or "no." It’s better to ask open-ended questions that encourage detailed responses.
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Guide the output length
Unless you specify the length of response you want, you’ll end up with either too much information or too little. It’s best to mention word count, the number of sentences, etc., required in your prompt. And when it has given you a response, check that it’s what you asked for.
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Review and edit
After receiving a response, review it for accuracy, relevance, and alignment with your goals. You shouldn’t use what ChatGPT gives you verbatim. Make sure you always edit and put your spin on it, especially when creating content.
Risks to consider when using ChatGPT - and how to overcome them
Because ChatGPT's responses are so quick and confident, it feels like it can create copy and answer any questions you ask. But don't fall for the “I’ll just tweak the content it produces” fallacy. Developing a dependency on ChatGPT could mean you sound the same as your competitors.
Things to keep in mind include:
- Your company branding and tone of voice can easily be lost. Check everything to ensure it resonates in the same way as your usual copy.
- The content produced comes from what’s available on the internet, which is often not up to date. For example, a speaker's introduction could easily be out of date unless you have checked it’s accurate.
- The free version of ChatGPT only goes up to 2021. For more recent data, you will need to subscribe to the paid version.
- Sources need to be cited so as not to infringe copyright. This is easily addressed by asking for the references from which ChatGPT has provided responses.
- Sometimes, ChatGPT's responses are invented rather than sourced. For example, testimonials need to be double-checked as there are times when the AI may offer what it thinks delegates would have said.
Other AI tools for event planners and marketers
Looking for specific AI event-centric content? The Cvent AI Writing Assistant is a powerful tool for generating such content.
It’s tailored specifically for event marketers and planners. It offers templates and suggestions for event invitations, emails, and other event-related materials. Its strength is in providing content for the meetings and events industry, helping event professionals streamline their communication.
Get the best results from ChatGPT
The emergence of ChatGPT for event marketing brings a wave of innovation to the industry. Its versatility empowers event planners and marketers to reimagine their strategies, craft engaging content, foster collaboration, and heighten attendee experiences.
But whilst ChatGPT offers a lot of possibilities, it’s important to take a balanced approach. You need to be mindful of risks like straying from your brand's tone of voice, inaccurate information, and potential copyright issues. Also, to achieve optimal results, it’s important to experiment with writing prompts – a skill in itself.
Looking for more ways to use ChatGPT? Check out our on-demand webinar, Building a Webinar with ChatGPT, to learn how we used ChatGPT to build our own webinar, from content to promotion, and key takeaways for your webinars.
