Promoting and marketing an event can be challenging and expensive. The usual ways of doing so—namely print, radio, and TV ads—are often too expensive and onerous to actually take up, especially if you’re from a small startup trying to cut overhead costs. However, with just a bit of out-of-the-box thinking and a healthy dose of creativity, you too can promote your event without breaking your bank. To help you with this, we’ve organized a convenient list of some of the most creative and cost-effective ways to promote your event. Check it out below.
Utilize customized wristbands and other wearable merchandise. When it comes to creative and effective ways to promoting your event, nothing comes quite close than to hand out free wearable merchandise that’s branded with your event’s name and date. Everyone loves free stuff, after all, and more so if it’s something attractive or cute that they can wear on their person. By giving these items away for free, you create a wholesome sense of goodwill around your event, while also using the recipients as walking adverts for your event’s time and place. No matter how you slice it, it’s an unbeatable one-two punch combination that’s worth the expense of having these free giveaways made. You can make use of customized wristbands, caps, pins, pens, spirit bands, and visors as prime examples of premium giveaways.
Make an engaging infographic. Marketing and promoting your event on social media is pretty commonplace nowadays and hardly registers as something creative. However, what does count as creative is running your promotion in a completely different and eye-catching way. Instead of posting or linking to a text-heavy press release on Facebook or Twitter, why not create a colorful and dynamic infographic instead? Doing so will not only garner more attention due to the visual spectacle of it, but also encourage your followers to share your content with their friends and family. This easily expands the reach of your promotional efforts while also increasing the chances of it going viral.
Launch a YouTube channel to promote the event. Another creative and off-beat way to promote your event is to launch an entire YouTube channel full of videos to drive up hype. Video is one the more compelling types of content ever posted on the internet today, something that’s proven with the sustained runaway success of YouTube, the video-sharing website that runs completely on user-created video content. This means that if your social media post promoting your event contains video in any capacity, then there’s a higher chance that it’ll be getting the attention you want it to have. It will also increase the likelihood of it being shared around en-masse, i.e going viral. Just remember to shoot your video professionally and clearly—or, failing that, shoot it in the most sincere way possible. Viewers will get more enjoyment out of flawed yet sincere video content rather than slick but vapid-feeling content.
Make a promotional podcast. If you’ve got a great speaking voice and not a whole lot of video editing skills, you can always launch your very own podcast. A podcast takes considerably less effort and resources to produce than a video, while also having the same entertainment value and viral potential. Just remember to be engaging and talk about other useful and compelling topics rather than just your event, so as to not completely bore your audience out. However, if that sounds too much work, then you can always just sponsor a popular podcaster and have them plug your event every so often.
Connect with your target audience rather than selling them something. When it comes to creating marketing copy for your event, it’s always tempting to stick to what you know—i.e. writing in the type of prose and style designed to sell someone something. Why not switch to a more conversational tone instead, especially when it comes to social media posts? By doing so, you can actually form a rapport with your target audience, turning the communication process into a two-way street rather than being strictly one-way. You become something more than just someone selling them something, you become a trusted and friendly acquaintance on the internet. You can then deepen this rapport by sharing informative articles made by other content creators as well as your own or telling stories that can lead back to your own content.
Conclusion
Don’t get stuck in the old, traditional ways of event promotion and marketing, no matter how easy or tempting it is. By adopting an out-of-the-box, customer-first approach and taking the above creative ways in mind, you can spread word about your event more efficiently and quickly, while also forming strong and lasting bonds with your target audience.
