Without effective event marketing, all of the tender loving care, hours, and sweat you spend putting together the best event can easily be wasted. This is so because if you fail to get enough of your target audience through the doors then all of the time and expense that went into putting the event together will usually fail to generate the revenue, sales, or experience that you wanted to make happen. For that reason event marketing must be a priority.

1. Invitation / Flyer

The first step to get your potential guests to your event is to make the invitations look great. Depending on your event, that invitation might be a high quality .jpg flyer that you post to social media. Or, it could be an elegant double enveloped wedding-styled invitation to a high class fundraiser. Whichever the case, use your invitations to get them excited about coming and give them some sense of what they can expect when they come to your event. Also be sure to get the invitation out with plenty of lead time so that they can plan to attend it.  

2. Advertising

Another way to get your guests to come is to advertise the event. If it is an office holiday party or something within your organization then advertise it with flyers in break rooms. Also advertise it in any email staff newsletters. Post it on your employee-only web site. If it is an event open to the general public, then consider paid advertising. Facebook allows you to target a verfy specific audience that matches up with your target audience. People don’t pay as much attention to print media any more so consider advertising on web sites that your target audience would visit. Depending on the communing patterns in your city and your budget, buying ad space inside of and/or on the side of commuter busses and trains may be worth considering.

3. eMail

Effective event marketing for you may also sending invitations via email about your event. You can use the email list that you or your client has been building over time. Alternatively, you can rent a targeted mailing list but those are generally not as effective. The advantage of email is that the announcement is delivered quickly and email can reach large groups with lower expense and effort.

4. Word-of-mouth

Depending on the type of event you are promoting, looking a person in the eye and telling them about your event is likely to have the strongest impact of all of your event marketing efforts. You want to share not just the date and time, but share the benefits they’ll get from coming. Great food, awesome speakers, off the chain DJ, select networking opportunities, etc. As you hype up the event and let others hear the excitement in your voice, then that will influence them to come.  To make sure that they don’t forget, hand them a professionially created flyer promoting the event (remember, that was step #1). If you’re really on your game, ask for they business card and permission to email them more information about the event. Then do it.

 

5. Leveraging Your Contacts

Of course, you can only be in one place at a time and time is limited. As such you can’t talk to everyone. Even so, ask your friends and acquaintances to help you spread the word. Have them bring some friends too. Give them a few talking points on why this will be such a good experience for everyone. You may want to see if you can give your true connector friends a complementary ticket, back stage pass, special seating, or some other benefit if they bring a certain number of people.

 

 

 

6. Event marketing in social media.

We already touched on you posting your event to your personal profile in Facebook and maybe buying FB ads, but there is so much more. Create an event in Facebook and then share it with everyone (Public post). Ask your friends to help you “share it”. Do the same in Twitter. Remember that flyer you created? Use it.

Create a notice about your event at EventBrite.com Do the same in Meetup.com When people google to search for local events, then the events in these sites will appear in the search results. In Meetup, you can find the organizers of various special interest groups. These groups may have just a few dozen or even hundreds of members. You might be able to get the organizer to create a Meetup event to publisize invite her/his group members to your special event. Maybe you choose to attend some of the networking meetup groups. There you can announce to their group what you are planning and hand out the “you know what” that you created in step #1. Offer a discount or a surprize party favor if they return the flyer to you at the door of the event.

7. Special Announcements

Oh yeah…remember that flyer you created? Let’s get people who are in charge of announcing upcoming events to share the info over their microphone. Who would those people be? Of course, it will vary according to what sort of event you are promoting. But, what about the person who makes the weekly announcements your (and your friends) church, or other house of worship? Know any DJ’s? The ones that I know all announce upcoming events. They may need some incentive though. See the one mentioned in #6 above. Or maybe you scratch each others back and you announce his or her event at your event.

8. Media Releases

Create a press release and post it online. There are a number of community weekly newspapers that have an events section in their paper and/or on their website. You can sometimes get listed for free if your event benefits the public interest.

9. Bloggers

Are their any local bloggers with a focus on the industry you are serving? They all write about stuff. They all hit writers block at times and need something to write about. Maybe your event will help them. Some of them publish a monthly list of local events related to the subject of their blog. Go to their sites and use their contact me page. Submit the info about your event. Tell them why you think it will benefit their audience. Offer them something at your event if they will publicise it on their blog.

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Hopefully you found one or two things here that will help with your event marketing. The key is to take action. Do it now! 

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