Event Marketing: How to Promote an Event

The biggest night in South Dakota American Advertising takes place on Friday (Feb 28th), when the 54th ADDY Awards honors the best creatives and talent of the year. An event like this doesn’t just magically come together though. Here’s a look behind the scenes to learn how an event is organized from its conception.

1.) CONCEPTUALIZE

Deciding on your theme, brand, and purpose is the first step in figuring out your marketing plan. How will visual aspects dictate the vibe of the event? Why should people attend? How can you make your event unique and memorable? These questions will guide the decision-making process.

Remember: This step will determine your branding and marketing materials you will need down the road.

For the ADDYs, we curated a mood board to help set the vibe of the event. This process included brainstorming appropriate colors, textures, and fonts and sharing photo inspiration between the team. A mood board gets everyone on the same page and really hones in on a vibe everyone loves. In this mood board, we included items like wallpaper, logos, brand style guides, color palettes, and stationery inspiration.

Pro tip: An easy way to start is to create a Pinterest account and invite your team members for collaboration.

After multiple mood boards and event concepts, we landed on LIFE IS... a surrealist, feminine, creepy, European, production of timeless old-world blended with modern design. 

LIFE IS . . .

The marketing world at times can seem like a circus production. Part acting, part performing, part talent, and part sheer luck.

Black, white and neutrals are timeless colors that will never go out of style. If done properly, they create stunning contrast. Besides the clean, minimal and sophisticated vibe, we also wanted to bring our feminine charm to the award-show. With Vogue as our inspiration, we stirred in the beauty, culture, and confidence of owning your catwalk. 

Branding Font

It was crucial to nail down a typography that mixed styles of old-world and modern. The main header font is an obvious choice being a high-contrast modern serif font. The secondary font was a little harder to choose, but a sans serif font was the goal. We landed on the perfect match with a font inspired by the period of a French port and luxurious passenger ocean liners of the Roaring Twenties and Thirties.

2.) CREATE A MARKETING PLAN

Now that you have a themed concept of your event, you can start building your game plan by answering these questions.

What are your goal and budget?

Using SMART (specific, measurable, attainable, relevant, and timely) will give you direction for event planning and to help you determine its success.

Our ADDY goal was to have 200 attendees by the time of the event.

Knowing your budget will help you allocate your resources and come up with best-fit marketing strategy.

Who are you promoting your event to?

Define your target audience. Who would benefit most from attending your event? What kinds of people would enjoy your event and engage your sponsors? Which media they are using? Which interest them most?

What’s your promotion timeline?

Getting the word out in the weeks and months leading up to D-Day will ensure at least 30% of your local audience plan on attending(Lifting the Curtain on Live Events, 2014). It helps to create a master plan with a promotion timeline so your creative team know what marketing materials to produce/release and when to publish them.

Pro-tip: Asana or Gantt Chart are both great project management tools.

How will you reach your audience?

Your target audience will help you determine which tools/platforms/materials you should use. Using a multi-touch promotion will maximize your reach of the audience. Newsletters, social media (IG, Facebook), and your website are the most popular and powerful channels to utilize in today’s Gen C’s saturated market. If your event is local, consider utilizing more traditional methods like print advertisements, radio, or podcasts. Sending invites directly to your guests’ door is another option if you have a list of loyal audiences.

Inspired by how the Fyre Festival used social media influencers to help get the buzz going (don’t worry, we didn’t model their actual event follow-through), we wanted a big build-up on social media for the ADDYS. We used local partners and student ambassadors to promote on their page to generate hype for the event.

3.) EXECUTE PROMOTION

Since event details don’t come together all at once and we wanted to pique our audience’s curiosity, we created a unique website to release new information, images, and updates. We know having a website is essential for a business, but they’re beneficial for events too! Visitors could subscribe to newsletters or buy tickets online there and it was another source for information on the event.

This video was put onto the website and socials as another way to pique the viewer’s curiosity.

Another tool for event promotion is email marketing. Here’s a few ideas on how you can use email marketing to spread the word:

• Announce promotion for when special tickets (early bird, last-chance, group tickets) go on sale

• Giveaway & Event Reminders

• Exclusive entrance for giveaway

• Exclusive previews of activities and special guests

A well-thought out social media strategy was also key for promoting the ADDYs. Starting in October, months before the actual event, we teased the theme with a series of branded content on South Dakota Advertising Federation and The Sampson House’s Instagram. The posts were mysterious and intriguing while also creating a cohesive aesthetic. Small campaigns like this contribute greatly to your overall promotional plan.

Planning and promoting successful events don’t just happen. But it happens to be our business.

Let’s chat and see how we can bring your event to life!