Susie’s 10 tips to properly promote your event
Most event organizers spend all their time organizing the event themselves. The thing is, with Susie’s 10 Tips to Properly Promote Your Event, you could arrange the best event in the history of mankind, but people will not attend it unless they know about it. Thus, it is extremely important to get the word out about your event to the right people. Events are judged by how the attendees feel and how many people became attendees. It is normal to not know how to attract attendees if this is your first event. We have experience from hundreds of such events and if you follow the following tips you will be attracting attendees in no time.
1) Create a website
Here’s the deal: Everyone searches on the internet now for anything they want to know about. If someone hears about your event they are going to want to know some details about it before they commit to spending their day at the event. They will want to know what activities are at the event. For example, a father might want to see if there is any entertainment for his kids before going to the event. If you do not have a website, you may turn many people away. People who do not know about you are unsure if your event will be good. You need to have a website that assures them that coming to your event will be time well spent. If you have a great website then you get the chance to control the conversation about your event.
2) Social Media
Social media is extremely important for any event these days. There are several reasons social media is great, such as:
It’s great marketing
A lot of people spend hours on social media every day. If they read about your event on Facebook or Twitter, they might be interested in going to it.
It results in referrals
When someone says they are going on your event page on Facebook, it is also shown on their profile. This then propagates information about your event to all of their friends, who may also be interested in coming. It also makes going to events a social activity, as multiple friends can discover that they are all interested in the event and plan to come together.
It helps reinforce the message
Once someone likes your event page or follows your Twitter account, they will then see all the updates you post on the event page. This allows you to keep them updated regarding any changes at the event and also allows you to keep people interested with new announcements
It’s free
Running a social media page will not cost you anything but you can potentially gain most of your attendees. All you need to do is commit to the project and give it the time it needs.
3) Media
The media can provide you with a lot of free promotion by covering your event. You need to make sure that as many publications mention your upcoming event as possible. This is easier said and done with big media mediums but local publications and channels are perfect for this sort of marketing.
Press Releases
You need to make a press release available to every local publication. Local publications are starved for content; they will be glad to have a local story to write about and something to update their readers with. Make sure you mention the best parts of your event in the press release to generate buzz.
Invites
One of the best ways to promote the event among locals is to invite local media to your event. The media loves human interest stories and reporting on local event so they may provide you a lot of free promotion.
4) Professional PR
If your budget allows for it, you need to get a PR person. PR is one of those jobs which people don’t respect as much as they should. PR seems like a very easy job but it is anything but easy. It is very hard to network professionally and you will be amazed at how effective professional PR can be to get the word out there about your event. PR people know the higher ups in all the publications and companies. They will help you get coverage, publicity, sponsors, vendors, and much more. Getting a professional PR is like using a cheat code; everything happens easily.
5) Sponsors
Getting a sponsor is a huge victory for any event. Sponsors are beneficial in multiple ways; not only do they pay you money to sponsor your event, they also do a lot of marketing on behalf of your event. So not only do you get free publicity, you actually get paid to promote your own event. The number and size of sponsors depends on the size of your event. If the event is large then you can get sponsorships from big corporations. If the event is small you can target local companies who will be glad to get a chance to increase their local exposure.
6) Promote Children’s Activities
If you are running a community event then families are going to be your main target audience. You need to set up a proper children’s play area with mobile rock climbing walls, inflatable obstacle courses, bouncing castles, slides, clowns, balloon entertainers, face painting, and all similar activities which kids love. The easiest way to market your event is to convince parents that their kids will have fun and the parents will get to enjoy the event themselves. People who rent inflatable obstacle courses from us also take images from us to post on their social media pages; they know that showing people how the event is geared towards the kids is a great marketing strategy.
7) Host a pre-event meet and greet
This is a guaranteed way to promote your event within the community. Host a meet and greet for the important people in the community and the community organizers. Both of these groups involve people who like participating in the community activities and thus build a name for themselves among the people. These people will also thus love the meet and greet and they will tell other people about your event. Since they are positions of authority in the community, people will listen to them as well.
8) Promote your event at other events
Do you know who is likely to come to your event? People who like going to events. Do you what is a great place to meet people who go to events? At other events! If you want to increase the exposure of your event in the community then make sure you visit other events. The organizers of those events will be glad as well and you’ll be able to recruit their help in promoting your own event.
9) Newsletters
There’s one philosophy you might have noticed in our tips. We aren’t just focusing on getting the word out, but also on getting the word out to people who are likely to show up at your event. You want people who are involved in the community to know about your event. People who aren’t interested in the community are liable to be similarly disinterested in community events as well. People who receive newsletters have shown that they are interested in local happenings and are thus the perfect audience for your promotion.
10) Engage People
No matter what your marketing venue or medium, you need to engage people. This is especially relevant in today’s world of social media. You need to reply to any questions you have and you also need to foster communication between the attendees. People will have many different questions about your event; they may ask about safety, food, directions to the venue, and much more. You need to be active on your social media accounts and quick at answering their questions.
These are just some of the steps you can take to promote your community event. There are many other ways to promote the event as well depending on how much of a budget you have. Getting billboards is always great but it may be expensive. Another great option is to have activities which will end up promoting themselves. When we go to install our inflatable obstacle courses and slides, we see many different types of promotional activities. One of our favorite ideas is to have a battle of the bands for school aged children.
The children love having a chance to play in front of a lot of people. It is also a win-win situation; if the bands are good, the adults are entertained, and if they aren’t good, the adults are still entertained. You need to think out of the box and make your event seem like a happening and fun day that people will not regret coming to.
If you have the budget for prizes then holding a raffle is also a great way to increase interest in your event. You can also have sponsors provide the prizes; it provides exposure to their products while decreasing your costs. Remember, budget isn’t the only limit for the event; you also have to be creative enough.