Developing and managing brand communities through event marketing strategies

As the market landscape keeps evolving with a blistering pace and traditional marketing approaches are no longer effective in delivering competitive advantage there is a need for new marketing strategies to be implemented. The concept of brand communities has been attracting increasing attention as it provides a platform upon which various kinds of strong relationships centered around a brand can be established, providing a multitude of positive outcomes for brands. The purpose of this study is to explore the role of event marketing strategies in developing and managing brand communities. The focus of the present study was placed on the higher education sector and the role of event marketing in building alumni associations. The chosen research methodology was qualitative as the primary data for this study was collected through semi-structured interviews with both alumni officers and alumni members whichallowed the researcher to gain an in-depth understanding of the investigated phenomenon. This research revealed a number of significant findings that add to previous literature and contribute to managerial practice as well. The findings indicate that event marketing strategies reinforce overall community feelings within alumni associations and can have a positive impact on alumni’s referral and contributing behaviour towards the institution, on their intention to return to the institution for further education as well as on their involvement with the institution. Based on the findings of the primary research a number of managerial recommendations were also made to enhance the effectiveness of event marketing strategies in building alumni associations