If you put on an event but don’t promote it, will it even happen? Without promotion, you probably won’t get any attendees because no one will know it’s happening. There are many ways to promote your event for free. Consider some new ways of expanding your reach by following these ideas below.
- Place a sign outside your business.
Old-fashioned banners and signs are a great way to increase local awareness of your event. If you don’t have a business building, then you can post banners around the local area where you’ll be holding the event.
2. Produce a creative landing page.
Whether you are planning a wedding or corporate event, creating a website for the event will help attendees and guests find information about your event. You should post all the details about the event — the day, time, location, topic, goals, etc. You can also use this page to post about speakers or influencers you have attending. It is also a great idea to link your social media pages to your website to promote your business and event!
3. Participate in content marketing and use social media platforms.
Before your event, it’s a good idea to start posting about it throughout your content marketing channels. Social media posts, challenges, live streams, and takeovers are excellent ways to promote your event. You can run social media contests to help you promote the event in a creative and interactive way. Post pre-event behind-the-scenes posts while using an event hashtag. This hashtag will help get the event trending and increase the number of people who are aware of and see your event.
4. Use email marketing to reach your audience.
You should promote your event via email to different segmented audiences. This is most common for a public or corporate event and will help let everyone who knows about your company know about the event. Plus, you can offer email subscriber discounts to incentivize current fans of your company to attend. Constant Contact is a popular online marketing company that helps you create automated emails.
5. Targeted ads on social media.
We all know that social media is where people spend a lot of their time. Launching targeted ads through social media will make it easier for more people to find upcoming events. You also want people to come across your brand continuously and to remind them about the event by retargeting ads. Even if someone thinks an event is a good idea, they might not buy a ticket right away. Retargeting is a great way to get those customers at a later date.
6. Work with keynote speakers, influencers, other brands, and sponsors.
Collaboration is one of the best ways to promote your event. Consider having event sponsors that will want to promote the event for you. You can also have brand partnerships where you work with other companies who will tell their audience about your event. Additionally, promote your keynote speakers or any influencers that you’re working with. This is a great way to tap into their audiences to get the word out about your event even more. It’s important to take advantage of other people’s following so people outside of your audience hear about your events.
Every event is different and will need different promotions to send a message out to people. Promoting an event is a lot like juggling. There are a lot of moving parts to manage. These ideas should help you get started brainstorming about the best ways to promote your event. Check out these 10 actionable tips for promoting your event to learn more about event promotion!
What tips would you like to share with others on how you successfully promoted your event? How does event promotion differ from types of events? Comment your thoughts and experience below.
Thanks for reading!
Shannon Bryant // Event Management 