After all the hard months of planning the logistics and fine details of ensuring your event goes off without a hitch, now it’s time to market it. Having an effective strategy for marketing your event in the weeks leading up to it will not only get people to attend, but get them excited to!
Taking the average duration of an event’s promotion cycle, roughly eight weeks, we can start to outline a marketing plan. Of course this is dependent on the size of your event; larger events may require planning and marketing year-round, while a smaller or significantly shorter event may only need to be promoted for a few weeks. No matter how much (or how little) time you have planned for marketing, be sure to cover these phases:
Launch event:
- Plan with Partners: Is your event working with any businesses or partners in the community? Work out final sponsorship details and provide them with marketing assets, like branded social media graphics.
- Make an Announcement: Announce the dates, times, and location details on your major channels. Create social media posts, launch a press release, and send out email invitations.
- Sell advance tickets: Start building the hype by offering discounted tickets for attendees who purchase early!
Pre-event
Your marketing efforts should really ramp up in the months and weeks leading up to your event. During this time you may choose to send out reminder emails, create a sense of urgency by hosting a flash sale, and get people excited that they will see you soon. You will want to create a timeline of exactly what messages are being sent out, what platform is being used, and when posts will go live.
During the Event
- Send out updates: Keep attendees updated on changes with the event as it’s happening. Whether it’s a delay due to weather or a change in attractions, attendees will value their event experience when they feel kept in the loop.
- Keep selling tickets: Keeping tickets on-sale during your fair or festival is a huge way to drive revenue but is often overlooked. Remind potential attendees tickets are still on sale and how they can purchase them.
- Promote a hashtag specific to your event! South by Southwest uses the hashtag #SXSW year-round, Indiana State Fair uses the evergreen #IndyStateFair, and recently the Rose Parade used the hashtag #2022roseparade to tag their photos from this year’s parade. Be sure to use your hashtag in posts and encourage attendees to do the same. This can be a simple way to drive more visibility to your event.
Following the Event
Just because your event ends doesn’t mean your marketing should too! Post pictures on Facebook or Instagram of the event and be sure to send out emails to attendees thanking them for attending. In this email you could also send a survey and gather responses about satisfaction with the event for when you begin planning for your next fair, festival or concert.
The most important part of successfully marketing your event is creating a plan and sticking to it! Schedule out social media posts, compose emails or newsletters ahead of time, and get people excited to show up.