The Compete-At Blog

Promotion is one of the most imperative aspects of planning an event. Without promotion, no one will know about your event and you will have no registrants, athletes or attendees. This article will cover promotion, and the first topic we will cover will be the top five ways to promote your event.

LinkedIn.com has many discussions about the best ways to promote your event, and after viewing a couple, I have put together the top five ways to promote your event. There are many others, and I suggest viewing the discussions to get a more detailed idea of all of the promotion tactics that are available to you: http://www.linkedin.com/answers/conferences-event-planning/event-marketing-promotions/CEP_MAP/238507-7365049?searchIdx=1&sik=1212419344236&goback=%2Easr_1_1212419344236.

1: Word of Mouth

Simply put, talk about your event with others. Information spreads easily through people talking with each other. I don't mean pick up the phone and run down your address book, I'm talking Twitter, Facebook, etc. Individuals are more likely to attend an event if their friend is going and speaks highly of it. It is important to make your event sound interesting and unique when talking about it with others so that they will in turn pass the information along and get more people to want to come to the competition. Update your status across all social media sites with posts to keep your network engaged. "Planning for XYZ event, it should be great!", "Just lined up sponsors for XYZ event", "Final touches on XYZ event almost done", etc. All of these quick posts will help with traditional "word of mouth" marketing.

2: Press Releases

Writing press releases and sending them to television and radio stations, websites, specialized magazines, and newspapers is a great way to get your event promoted to a larger audience. Depending on whether or not your event is more localized or on a national or international level will determine which media to contact, but regardless of who it is it is a great way to have people read about your event. In addition to sending out press releases to the media, it is also a good idea to invite journalists to the event so that they can report on it and your event can receive publicity afterward. Check out www.prweb.com, it's an inexpensive distribution channel. When your press release is posted, don't forget to refer to #1 above, and tweet about it.

3: Social Networking Sites

As previously discussed in the event website installment, social networking websites are one of the best ways to promote to people. YouTube.com, Twitter.com, Facebook.com, Gather.com amongst hundreds of other sites are easy ways to generate a lot of buzz quickly. Plus, promoting your event via this outlet is generally free or low cost, so not only will you be able to publicize your event quickly, but cheaply as well. We'll have a full article on this soon, but in brief run down this quick list; 1. Make sure your event is on your event calendar on all of your social sites. 2. Create a group and join existing related groups to promote your event. 3. Leverage your network to get the word out (refer to step #1) 4. Try social media advertising to target your demographic.

4: Listing in Community Newspapers and Websites

In addition to writing press releases and contacting media for publicity, simply listing your event in the "Community Events" section of newspapers and on community websites is a simple and effective way to reach your audience. Many people tend to read the "Events" section to quickly see what is going on and so this tactic works very well. Church bulletins, grocery store bulletin boards, and other "old school" tactics may work better for your event than new media tactics. If you event is a senior golf outing or senior walk/run, you will probably get more exposure on the community papers than Facebook. So, don't forget about them.

5: Sponsors

As it has been stated previously, the relationship with your sponsors is incredibly vital in organizing a good event. While you help your sponsors by promoting them to your event attendees, they can also assist in promoting your event. This can be done on their website, in store by displaying fliers and posters, and even through their newsletters and mailings. Sponsorship is a two way street and can be very effective in promoting your event to people that would be interested in attending.

It is important to remember that while these all are very effective ways to advertise for your events, it is usually necessary to mix these tactics to reach your target audience.

Also be sure your event software has promotion tools like email marketing to previous attendees.