Identify the Amount of Marketing Required

If you’re putting on a training course with a dozen places and you know plenty of people are interested in coming, there’s virtually no marketing required. Just make sure they know where and when it is and the job’s done.

If you’re arranging an event where lots of children will be performing you’ll have a ready-made audience from their families – so again, you might not need to do any marketing.

However, your might be hosting a concert. This time you’ll need lots of marketing, because if you don’t tell people it’s happening there’ll be no one there.

Plan Your Marketing Well in Advance

You need to start your marketing effort well before the event. Diaries fill up so give your audience lots of notice. For many events give at least 2-3 months notice, and more if the event spans multiple days or is going involve several hundred people. You also need to plan the timing of your marketing. For example – if you want to put posters up three months before the event, allow time for the artwork to be designed, agreed and the posters printed. If you’re going to include a link to a website on the marketing material, the website needs to be ready before the material goes out.

Plan Your Marketing Content

Your marketing needs to convey a number of different messages. It needs to tell people:

What the event is.

Why they should be there.

Where it’s being held.

When it’s happening.

How much it will cost.

How to book, if booking is required.

Not every piece of marketing needs to carry all this information. But think of who will be reading each message your deliver – what will their questions be? Make it easy for them to find an answer.

The second piece of information on the list – why they should be there – is very important. This might be expressed in words, such as “Get new insights into Old Testament history”, or in pictures, such as a photo of young people having a great time at a concert. Or a combination of the two. Find a way to create a compelling message.

Choose the Right Marketing Materials

There are a wide selection of materials available. You need to decide what’s right for your audience. They include:

Posters and flyers

Emails.

Verbal and printed notices

Text messages.

Facebook, Twitter and other social media.

Websites, including local ‘What’s On’ pages.

Radio adverts – can be free on local radio stations.

Television adverts, if you’re budget is big enough!

Local newspapers or magazines.

Word of mouth.

You’ll probably choose a combination of these. If you plan to use visual materials, such as posters or flyers, it’s important to make sure they’re attractive. Their presentation will give a message about the professionalism of the event.

Use the Right Marketing channels

Once you’ve prepared your message you need to make sure it reaches the right people. This is not as simple as you might think. Not all older people read posters and Facebook is not simply the preserve of the young. A word of mouth marketing campaign is great because it’s free, and if people are talking about it they must be interested.

YadahFresh Source to find or promote business, networking and other events Events to Edify, Educate and Empower http://www.yadahfresh.co.uk Tel: 0208 133 6685 Twitter: @yadahfresh

event. Not that your event is not relevant or of interest to people.

But, it may be the simple fact that with the current information

overload; people may either place less value on your event or you

might be one of many competitors.

Email marketing is an invaluable tool that can be used to build

customers’ loyalty. It is an extremely effective way of reminding your

contacts of your important events.

Marketing your events shouldn’tbe a one off or even a short term

attempt. Instead it should be a continuous process, one designed to

unveil the values that your eventis designed to deliver.

What I’m I saying? I am saying that each attempt to advertise your

event should be a sneak preview of what the actual event will deliver.

The simple fact is this- if you don’t place value to your event. No

One else will!

For instance- word youradvertising lines to be short and you must

make them very informative. So,include quotes and facts relevant to your

topics and areas to be covered.

You must always aim to bringvalue to people’s life and of course, is

why email marketing is such a greatopportunity to leverage your

marketing campaign.

Building your list on anautopilot email marketing system makes your

effort more futile. Here are afew systems that you

can try to get started.

Constant Contact- Gives users 60days free trial and it is brilliant as by then, you can tell if running acampaign is for you or not. It’s quite affordable and very easy to use.

Get Response- I personally find Aweberto be quite good for one of my own project. Like Constant contact, it is not expensive and it’s quite easy to setup and use. I prefer Get Response over constant contact though in terms of design capabilities.

As you can probably tell, I useboth and so it depends on the features that you

would like for your particular campaigns.

Here is a list of ways to collect email address for those of interest.

1.      Direct sign up to through form provided by email marketing provider

2.      Create signup sheets for  your events

3.      Encourage your subscribers toforward their own copy the email that you send them

4.      You can boost your list byoffering an incentive to sign up such as a free report, prize draw and other things of value

The bottom line is that once youhave people on your list, you can send reminders about your

upcoming events, at regular interval leading up to the date. One word of warning though is that you should never spam! Spamming is against the law and will defeat your marketing purpose. Nothing sucks credibility from your event like spamming! I promise…

Email marketing is a sure way to attract command and keep the attentionto your event. The bottom-line is that email marketing is an ideal wayto highlight the values of your event.

Needless to say, building anemail list is not always easy or desirable and there are two main reasons forthis.

1.      People are getting mega cautious due the information overload and spam.

2.      Secondly, it may not becost-effective for you if you’re not sending out email on a regular basis thatdelivers value and brings back profit.

Another option in this case is tocontact a reputable company that can run a campaign for you. The aim of this isbring your event before qualified leads that have opted to receive events likeyour own.

A few good email marketingsolution for events are as follows

1.      Christian events- Yadah Christian event network

2.      General one across the UK- events366

3.      Business, networking events etc-Yadah  Fresh

In some instances, you can evenrequest exact details of the campaign. Such information includes frequency of mailshot, no of subscribers and so on.

Bringing your events to themailbox of qualified leads is definitely the way forward and I wish you all thebest in making attempts to boost your numbers!

How to Conduct a Post Event Review

If a number of people were involved in organising and running the event you should arrange a meeting to discuss how it went.

This doesn’t need to be very formal – just gather for coffee and share your experiences. It’s essential that someone records the issues discussed. If you come to run another event a few months later you’ll find the feedback invaluable. It would be great if you could get some input from someone who attended the event. They can tell you how it went from their perspective and that might reveal good and bad points that you weren’t aware of. If the event was small and you were the only organiser you can still make a note of how it went and of the lessons that you learned.

Suggested Approach

Here’s a one way of looking at your event; it’s called a SWOT analysis. This stands for Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats.

Strengths - make a list of all the things that you before and during the event which went really well. Perhaps you supplied pastries with coffee as people arrived for a course, and lots of them commented how it made them feel welcome.

Remember to include last-minute changes that were made in a hurry, but which helped the event to be more successful. Sometimes volunteer helpers make adjustments to the way they do things during the event and these can provide surprising and unexpected benefits.

Strengths are to built upon next time.

Weaknesses - now list everything that you did at the event and which should be done better, or not done at all. Perhaps you didn’t hire a data-projector to show slides and tried to rely on a large computer screen that a lot of people could not see very well. There will be plenty of these issues, particularly the first time around. This is not about apportioning blame, it’s about learning from mistakes. If something went wrong, identify why it went wrong and action is required to stop it from happening again.

Weaknesses are chances to do better.

Opportunities - these are things that, with hindsight, you wish you’d done because they would have made the event more successful. Perhaps you’d planned to talk to the pub across the road about using their car park but never got around to it, and on the day parking was a real problem.

There’s some overlap here with ‘weaknesses’, but don’t worry. It’s better to write something down twice than not at all.

Threats - these are problems that might affect future events. Perhaps one of your key volunteer organisers will be moving away soon, or certain facilities won’t be available in the future. Most problems can be overcome with planning and preparation, but the sooner you plan the easier it will be. Threats are challenges that you can predict.

How to Record Your Review

Having done your SWOT analysis you need to write it down somewheree. Having written it down, you need to make sure you read it again before your next event. You’ll be amazed how much is forgotten in just a few months. Reading a post-event review will refresh your memory and gets your planning off to a great start. You can also include other useful information in the review, such as the number of people who attended, the quantity of refreshments sold, and other information that will be useful next time around.

Here are the 10 things

• You are a time conscious individuals that understands that you time is the most valuable resource that you have
• You are self-confident and not afraid of a challenge. In fact many people nay even think that you are crazy to take on your challenges
• You set your own targets and schedule and would rather that  circumstances work around them instead of you working around what happening around you
• You rely on the Internet or other convinient and up to-date means of information on a daily basis
• You are trusted as an effective referrers of products and services and  many people seek your advice on what’s the best product and services on the market
• You are always looking for new learning opportunities to advance you  in your area of interest normally business, life skills and so on
• You don’t like to follow the crowd and in fact you have leaders, instinct that says that others should follow your trend
• You remain hopeful even when things aren’t going as planned and is  very persistent and tenacious. You never give up on your dreams
• You are appreciative of great skills and talents but you are not committed to singing the praises of others for the rest of your life
• The office issues that triggers a debate among your colleagues is normally considered a waste if your precious time

Let’s look at 10 facts that are associated with internet radio

1. Internet radio is the fastest growing medium of today
2. 40% of people tune in to internet radio at work
3. As listening to conventional radio advertising while driving is associated with billboard advertising so is online radio advertising is associated with surfing the internet.

(Everyone is on the internet these days!)

1. Audience for internet radio is (not within a 5 miles radius) Global
2. Reasonable advertising cost even for a tight budget- provides a leverage for everyone and so an excellent place for even small organisation to command attention
3. Internet radio attracts upper-income audience- great for businesses!
4. Loyal listeners’- if listeners likes your programme, they are more likely to log on and listen again
5. Listeners at their computers pay attention as it’s not background noise
6. More actionable- Listeners are just a click away from your programme
7. Advertising is multi-faceted and normally associated with banner ads and other additional adverts.

Contributed by Victory Sound Radio

There is a new generation of people who have unveiled the potential to network with like-minded people and who have realised that knowledge and information goes beyond the conventional classroom, and in fact is best learnt from experts who have already gone through the experience.

The gravitation towards these events continue to soar and we see seminar rooms, conference centres, webinar platforms and church buildings packed with people who yearns to learn more.

With the current economic down-turn, many people have taken their financial future into their own hands and are thriving to develop their business ideas and entrepreneurial skills. Let’s not forget those with a call to ministry and community work that must be equipped with the practical know-how to carry out their required assignments.