James Richardson

Promotion is one of the hardest parts of creating a successful event. You need to ensure you hit the right audience, at the right time, to ensure they buy a ticket and attend your event.

If you are low on budget, or looking for that competitive edge, the following are some great methods I have personally used with great success, that won’t cost you a cent (almost…)

Social Media
Social media is a no brainer. In this medium, the only cost is time, and the reach is amazing.
Social media allows you to target and interact with people who have interests relevant to your event, and allows current and potential attendees to spread and share your message, and there is nothing better than hands off marketing!
My preferred social media platforms for this purpose are Twitter and Facebook.

Twitter is great for building a great list of interested individuals, to which you can use 140 characters to connect with them.
By pushing out a variety of direct event promotions, insights on topic articles, and engaging banter with your followers or potential followers, you will start to build up a reputation as an authority figure within your community.

If you have a personal Twitter account and are involved in the industry, leverage that to push more followers towards your ‘event’ account.
Facebook is another great social media platform to reach the masses. Although it is a little dependent on the event type, it provides a wide variety of options including creating an event, and creating a page, both of which I recommend.

Email marketing
If you build it, they will come. Was Kevin Costner really talking about email lists in the classic movie ‘Field of Dreams’?
An email list is invaluable. If you don’t have one, build one. If you do have one, use it! With all the talk about social media, we often forget that email is a more personal form of communication, and let’s be honest, EVERYONE has email, and only a fraction have a Twitter account.
Use the emails to inform people about the event, but make sure you have a strong call to action.
Some great tips on email marketing can be found:

• 5 crucial Email marketing tips
• How to build a list
• Is Email Marketing worth your time?

Referrals
Anyone in business knows it’s expensive to get new customers. The same goes for targeting brand new potential attendees for your event.
By utilizing the contacts you already have, you will have an easier time reaching new people, and will not have to go to great lengths yourself, it just happens naturally.
The best referral techniques I have found are Linkedin and leveraging existing ticket holders.

Linkedin is an often overlooked online networking tool. It will help you find the right contacts within organisations, and give you the right people to ask for when you email, phone or contact these organisations.
Search for a business that might be relevant to your event, and find employees at that company. Go through and select those which you would like to contact and either a) Call them on the phone b) Buy an ‘In mail’ package form Linkedin which allows you to send them an email directly through the system.

Existing ticket holders should be contacted throughout the lead up to the event. By offering an incentive for referring their friends or colleagues, such discounted referral tickets, and prizes for the most referrals, you will get some great results.

Running an event is a stressful pursuit. It takes alot of careful planning, marketing, and budgeting. With some clever marketing efforts like I have mentioned, you will not only save time and money, you will go a along way to helping your event be just that little more successful.


Good luck!