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How to Organize a Non-Profit Art Show: 5 Tips

Creating good working relationships with everyone involved is the key to ensuring a successful non-profit art show. This includes the artists, donors, benefactors, volunteers, public and media. Even before you think about funds and how much money is being raised, think about your team members and the individuals involved. Make sure everyone's on the same page and united in their desire to make your non-profit art show a success. How? Read on for five tips for organizing your own non-profit art show, plus a bonus tip because we like you.

1. Your Theme Is Essential

The first thing you need to establish is your theme, or story. In order to have a good show, a great turnout and even better sales, your first priority must be your theme. This will determine how your press releases are written and what angles to take when accepting media interviews.

When organizing a non-profit event, the focus must be on the charity or organization benefiting from the proceeds. First, why is this cause special to you? What makes it different from all the other non-profits out there?

Second, why are you showcasing this particular collection of art, and what's going to make people want to buy it? Make sure you know the story you're going to be telling.

2. Build a Good Committee

Look at the people on your committee. They should not only bring creative focus, great ideas and solutions to your art show, but also be individuals with good connections. Those whose networks include art patrons, media professionals and journalists will be able to bring more attention and a wider audience.

Allot enough time in advance for the committee planning. Make sure everyone understands the financial goals, and how to present the event to each of their networks. Then establish the responsibilities of each of your committee members. Do they know their particular role in the art show? Do they know the story of the non-profit and how to answer any questions that the public may ask?

If necessary, assign one or two people on the committee to be your public representatives. These individuals should know all the necessary details and be responsible for the handling of any media queries.

3. Make Sure the Artists and Their Art Are a Good Fit for Your Non-Profit

Just as big corporations choose their brand ambassadors carefully -- according to values and public interest -- you should also take a close look at the artists representing your non-profit, and especially their art that will be on display at your event. Regardless of what medium is used, art always has a message. This message should align with the vision and goals of your non-profit.

Another note on your artists: They may be giving away their art in exchange for recognition at a non-profit event, and to broaden their clientele base. Still treat them as artists whom you'd be paying--with every bit of respect they deserve.

If you're having other entertainment at the event, such as musical performers, you might have an exchange deal with them, offering a venue for both performance and promotion. If not, then organize monetary payment for everyone who's contributing -- unless you've previously agreed that they'll be donating their services. This will show that you value the artists and support their creative causes as well.

4. Start a Blog to Promote the Upcoming Event

There are many online platforms for getting your event out to a wider audience, but an easy and simple way to keep the public and supporters updated is by blogging about the event. You could periodically write about the behind-the-scenes preparations, or even hire a content writer to craft interesting articles that relate to your event. For example, interviews with the artists involved, stories about the beneficiaries, or photos from the production process (artists in their studios, etc.). This will create more awareness for your cause.

Compile an email list of subscribers to your blog, as some of them may eventually become your patrons and support your work.

5. Get Media Coverage

Art shows have the advantage of reaching a wide audience. Get on radio talk shows or schedule TV interviews if you have an able spokesperson. Invite journalists to listen to your story and run the articles in the weeks leading up to your event.

You need to use caution when communicating with media outlets because, in the end, they decide on what's published, not you. Prepare good press releases, artist statements and a clear vision about your work.

When inviting journalists, remember to include those from the lifestyle sections of magazines and newspapers, art magazine editors, and even bloggers who focus on local art and events. If you don't have a website up and running, get one.

Optional Tip: How to Raise More Funds During the Actual Event

Here are several ways to raise more funds for your non-profit during the actual event, besides selling original art pieces.

Auction off one or two special pieces at the end of the event. Announce the auction continually during the event to create hype for your grand finale.

Organize a raffle (also usually at the end of the evening) where guests can buy as many raffle tickets as they'd like. The prize could either be sponsored gifts, or the art itself.

Make packs of autographed art prints or cards to sell at a lower price point for anyone who likes the art, but can't afford to buy the originals.

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Hiring Help: 5 Ways to Set Your Event Temp Up For Success

If you're responsible for planning a big event for your organization, you know that coordinating all the details is sometimes too much work for one person. You're managing vendor contracts and payments, promoting the event and keeping tabs on attendees. That means the number of spreadsheets open on your desktop at any given time is enough to make any savvy planner want to clock out before five. Often, the best solution seems to be hiring someone to help out as a temp in the weeks or months leading up to the event. An extra set of hands will mean less work, less stress and more time to focus on big-picture event management, right?

The good news is, the answer can be "Yes!" Unfortunately, hiring a temp can just as easily turn into a supervisory nightmare, causing more stress and decreasing efficiency as you navigate through correcting their mistakes from unclear expectations or misunderstandings. Here are some tips to make hiring a temp a great experience for everyone involved:

1. Start the Process Sooner than You Think You Should

It's usually too late to bring on a temp after you're in the thick of planning your event and panicking about the number of hours a day you'll need to do everything. If you try, you're bound to feel disappointed. Rushed hiring processes can lead to a candidate who initially seems organized -- until you find out they have no basic Excel skills once they start tackling your to-do list. Even if you find the right candidate, it requires more time to hand off tasks that someone's already started than to keep one person in charge of certain tasks from the beginning.

Plan to spend at least two months in the hiring process. Writing up a job description, promoting the position, reviewing applications and interviewing candidates all take time, which is something you don't have in the busy months before the big event.

2. Set Up a Shared Organization System

One of the most challenging aspects of planning and promoting an event is keeping track of all of the constantly changing details. Adding another person to the mix can mean catastrophe if you don't stay on the same page by using shared trackers, databases and other organization systems like Excel or Google Docs.

For example, let's say you and your temp are both working to promote the event online. Agree to track your media contacts, event-coverage requests and status updates in one spreadsheet to avoid reaching out to the same person twice or following up for an update when the outlet has already sent you a link to cover your event. Two heads are only better than one when they share information effectively! Also, if a last-minute emergency causes you or the temp to be away from the office before your event, the show can go on if you've documented and organized your work.

3. Encourage Creativity

Temps often do the grunt work that full-time employees want to get off their plates. While it's advantageous to you to reduce the work on your plate, you may actually be missing out on your temp's talents that can take your event to another level. Spend time finding out what excites a temp about event planning or your organization in general. Then encourage them to make some elements of the event their own as long as they complete their primary responsibilities. For example, does the temp have a portfolio full of impressive writing clips? Encourage them to write a series of guest posts on your organization's blog promoting the event.

4. Tap into Your Temp's Social Network for More Publicity

Also encourage your temp to involve their own networks when relevant to publicize the event. Since they're not a full-time employee at your organization, their contacts are likely to be significantly different from yours. Are you hoping more youth will come to diversify your non-profit gala? Perhaps the temp can brainstorm some creative ways to reach out to the alumni from their university or acquaintances from their volunteer network.

5. Focus on the Positive

With stress building as the event nears, it's easy to get caught up in deadlines, registration numbers, budgets and other important details. You forget to slow down and put people first, including your temp. Your emails may be terse, or frustration shows on your face when the temp pops in your office to ask another question you thought they should be able to answer on their own. While a temp's spelling mistake in an outreach email may seem disastrous, it can also be an excellent learning moment that better prepares them for proofreading future promotional materials.

A temp may not always do things exactly as you would, but remember that you hired them because you couldn't do everything on your own. If you want a temp to provide meaningful assistance, you'll have to invest some of your own time into being a responsible supervisor. If they make a mistake, then have a conversation to discuss how they might approach it better next time. Most importantly, take time to offer them praise and acknowledgment in group settings.

You'll never know what your temp is capable of unless you give them the opportunity to surprise you! A temporary gig can feel demotivating for some, and productivity can decline as temps often have no financial incentive to go above and beyond. Still, the money you pay them will certainly be a wise investment if you don't rush the process. Get the most value out of your temp by providing systems for organization, giving space for creativity and showing appreciation for the temp's hard work.

(Photo Credit: WOCinTech Chat)

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Site Visit 101: How to Get the Most Out of Your In-Person Planning

"Location, location, location!" -- it's the catchphrase of the real estate industry, and it's no different for event planning. The setting you choose is a defining factor in your ability to successfully promote and market your event. From the moment an attendee sees the venue listed on the invitation or on social media, she begins setting up expectations, for better or for worse. Choosing a standout site for your event is an important step in the planning process, so don't rush it.

There are many ways technology can make event planning and promotion easier, such as marketing your event and generating buzz online. However, when selecting your venue, it's important to conduct business the old-fashioned way. We've all seen the limitations of Web-based venue shopping: a hotel website photo of a pristine Caribbean paradise matched up next to the neglected, unkempt real-life photo taken during a disappointing vacation. For your important event, the stakes are even higher -- don't be a victim of false or misleading advertising! Once you have a venue or two in mind, be sure to follow these steps for a productive, efficient site visit.

Before the Site Visit:

1. Schedule Wisely

There's nothing worse than arriving at a site visit to find you've been matched with a staff member who can't answer your questions and needs to check with his supervisor about every little request. Before scheduling an appointment, make a few inquiries to ensure you're meeting with someone who will work with you during the planning process and can advocate on your behalf to higher management as needed. A quick decision maker is critical; the sooner you lock down details, the earlier you can begin promoting your event publicly!

Also, consider the day, time and even season when scheduling your visit. It's best to visit a site in conditions closest to your expected event. For example, you might visit as the sun is setting and twilight casts a romantic glow on a restaurant, but things appear a bit grimy or worn when you show up to host a brunch in the light of day. Or, the venue seems quaint and peaceful, but when you show up three weeks later, school is out and kids are running the place. If you can't visit in similar conditions, be sure to ask what might be different on your event date.

2. Arrive Prepared

While you may think you can rely on your host to tell you everything you need to know, in reality they are offering you a limited, rose-colored view. There are elements unique to your event that you need to ensure you cover, especially tough questions such as whether the venue can cater to vegan, pescetarian, halal and gluten-free eaters. Come prepared with a digital or physical notepad with sections for meals, accommodations, meeting space, staff service, etc. It's easy to get carried away by a sales pitch and forget to ask detailed questions, so this resource is critical to prompt detailed note taking.When promoting your event, be sure to look back at your site visit notes in case there are any important details to mention to guests (for example, where to park or which signs to follow).

3. Plan Your Route

Imagine this: The evening of your event, everyone shows up an hour late because you scheduled it during the area's notorious rush hour. Or, no one shows up at all because the GPS location for the venue is incorrect, and attendees unfamiliar with the area are driving in circles, lost. Think of your site visit as a test run for transportation to the event. This way, you'll iron out any kinks, set your own expectations for arrival time, and be better prepared to offer transportation route suggestions to attendees during the promotion of your event.

During the Site Visit:

1. Befriend the Staff

First impressions are everything. Being positive, gracious and friendly with everyone you interact with -- from your main contact to the kitchen staff -- can go a long way. Chances are, at some point during the planning process and even on the day of the event, you'll need them to go above and beyond to ensure success. Building great relationships from the beginning is key to financial negotiation as well as influencing the level of service you receive.

2. Take Photos of Everything

Site visits can be very distracting. You're maintaining a conversation with your host, taking in new information, recording notes and anticipating how the space will look during your event. Next thing you know, you're sitting in a debriefing session with your team, and someone asks what type of banners will fit in the front of the room or whether there is room in the hallway to set up a participant marketplace. Having photos as reference guides throughout the planning process is infinitely useful, and your team will thank you. In addition, having high-resolution, well-lit, and up-to-date photos of the venue will be important when conducting outreach to promote your event. You don't want to be caught relying on grainy websites photos from 1996 on the event invite, do you?

3. Say 'Yes!' to Lunch

Often, if you're visiting a venue that offers meals, such as a hotel or restaurant, the staff will want to woo you with a free meal. Not only is it a free lunch for you, it's an important opportunity to evaluate the quality and presentation of event participants' favorite thing: the food! If your contact doesn't offer, don't be shy -- ask if you can try some samples. Plus, sitting down and sharing food is an excellent way to build your relationship with the venue contact and an opportunity to go over any questions you didn't get a chance to ask during the tour.

After the Site Visit:

1. Set Agreements in Stone

During site visits, venue staff often make quick concessions, telling you what you want to hear in order to secure the contract. Either the day of or the day after the site visit, follow up to thank your contact as well as record agreements and next steps. While permission to adjust the thermostat during the event may not be important enough to make it into the official signed contract, having it in writing will be a useful reference as you get closer to the event.

2. Share Your Findings With Your Team

When planning an event, it's important for everyone involved to be on the same page. Promptly report back to your team so that colleagues responsible for different portions of the event have a proper understanding of the venue, including both its special features and its limitations. You don't want someone planning an elaborate slide show to later discover the room is not compatible with audio/video equipment, or the marketing department advertising a party atmosphere when there is no room for a dance floor and noise restrictions are in place.

By devoting time upfront to a successful site visit, you'll save yourself time (and sleepless nights) in the long run. Your team will thank you, the venue staff will appreciate it, and you'll probably even get a delicious free lunch.

Photo by Unique Hotels

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3 Actionable Content Marketing Strategies to Build Intrigue at Your Event

Content marketing gets a lot of attention for product and services marketing, but it's also an excellent way to build interest and excitement in your event before, during and after it's held. The Content Marketing Institute found 88 percent of B2B companies leverage content marketing strategies as part of their overall marketing efforts, so incorporating these tactics into your event promotion plan also helps you keep up with the competition. Indeed, content marketing helps build interest in your events among attendees, improves your event's reputation and can help you improve your event ROI.

Content Marketing Before Your Event

Your ideal content marketing strategies change based on whether you're in the pre-event phase, the event phase or the post-event phase. Your pre-event content marketing tactics should focus on building awareness and trust with your potential attendees. You want to position yourself as a thought leader in your industry to build your reputation.

In this stage, you stay away from overtly advertising your event. Instead, you want to provide educational and valuable information for your attendees. Create blog posts, white papers, e-books and other educational content covering topics impacting your attendees. Focus on specific pain points, infographics, in-depth guides, interesting high-level topics and relevant industry news.

Utilize email marketing to create a list of potential attendees you can market to directly. Some ways to build your email list with content includes providing an e-course covering topics that your event focuses on or giving away a valuable content asset, such as an exclusive song.

Tip: Provide educational and valuable information for your attendees.

As you get closer to your event, you can shift to more promotional content. Your content should still focus on value for the attendee, but you can bring in performers for guest posting, show videos from last year's event and create topics based on event activities.

Use an editorial calendar to control content creation and distribution during the pre-event phase. Curata reports 69 percent of companies use an editorial calendar to plan out their content marketing strategies. The primary benefit of this calendar is to slowly ramp up interest and excitement in your event, with a shift over time from educational content to more promotional content. Scheduling also prevents you from posting all your content months before the event and having nothing left when you're a few weeks out.

Content Marketing Strategies During Your Event

Your content marketing job doesn't stop once the event is underway. EMarketer reports 55 percent of companies utilized real-time marketing as part of their event promotion strategies. One of the most common content marketing tactics used during the event is to utilize your social media profiles, particularly Twitter, and create hashtags specifically for your event and workshops. While you seed these hashtags with live updates on your event activities, the primary goal is to create a platform for your attendees to share their content. The content you create directly should focus on shareable content so you can create a broad reach, such as the best quotes from a keynote presentation or funny behind-the-scenes outtakes.

Econsultancy reports 70 percent of people place a heavy influence on the social proof created by user-generated content. This social proof can influence more attendees to come to your event, especially if industry leaders are posting about it. Engage with social media users on these hashtags to build relationships with attendees and prospects, and pay close attention to people with questions or concerns about your event.

Tip: Create hashtags specifically for your event and workshops.

The South by Southwest festival uses the hashtag #SXSW along with creating specialty hashtags for popular seminars and activities. This hashtag gets hundreds of thousands of tweets from each of its target audiences, which include music, tech, and game lovers. Another event attracting significant hashtag activity is INBOUND, an inbound marketing conference. Hubspot reported a peak of over 4,500 tweets per hour during the event.

Content Marketing After Your Event

Once you recover from your event, you need to get your post-event content marketing ready. Thankfully, a lot of the content creation part of this process is already handled for you. You can use videos from your event to form the basis of your content creation. Let your target audience see what they missed out on by not attending your event, invite attendees to share their stories and send out a post-event survey to get information directly from your attendees.

The post-event survey data can be repurposed into an in-depth white paper on the concerns of your attendees or a visually appealing infographic. Look at the attendee responses to adapt your content marketing voice to match their language. Each industry has its own terminology, slang and language style, so incorporating this into your event promotion content helps you relate to your target audience better.

Tip: Adapt your content marketing voice to match your attendees' language.

Pay attention to the blog posts, articles and social media posts your attendees create about your event. Curate a list of the top posts so you put less of a content creation load on yourself, strengthen relationships with your attendees and provide prospective attendees with third-party opinions of how awesome your event is.

You handle a lot when it comes to event promotion, but content marketing can fit neatly into your existing workflow. Your content sources can be pulled from your industry expertise, current event marketing materials and the contributions of your performers and attendees. You can move potential attendees from the awareness phase to the attending phase smoothly and seamlessly when you match the event promotion phase to your content. It takes a bit more time and resources, but the increased ROI and trust from your content marketing efforts are well worth it.

(Photo by Cydcor)

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7 Tricks to Become an Event Organization Jedi

Awesome, memorable events don't just magically fall into place. Putting together and promoting an event, in any industry, takes a lot of organizing, planning and attention to detail -- but the payoff can be huge. Whether you're putting together your first event or are a seasoned event promoter, there are some tricks you can keep in mind throughout the process that can significantly increase your efficiency, organization, reach and more. Check out these Jedi tricks for event promotion.

Start with Your Audience

You might be tempted to get some of the logistical stuff, like booking a space and setting a date, out of the way right from the get go, but this can be a big mistake. The very first thing you should do is to decide exactly who your audience is. When you know your audience, you'll be able to make all of your other decisions in a much more informed and efficient manner. It will help you figure out your budget, location, content and more.

Make a List

Some promoters tackle events by assigning different tasks to different teams or people, but before you do that, get everyone on the same page by making a list of absolutely everything you need to take care of for the event. This should include items like buying light bulbs, obtaining tickets, hiring a shuttle service, booking performers and so on. That way you can see at a glance how big the scope of the event will be. There are various software platforms that can help you outline the event and track your progress as you plan.

Be Smart About Budgeting

You want an event that's going to pay off, not one that is going to cost you money for no purpose. While you may not be able to predict the success of the event, you can still be smart about budgeting. Decide how much money you realistically want to put into the event, then stick to that plan. Make a list of your expenditures and include every possible cost, all the way down to pens and security badges. Then do the same for your income, including tickets, money from sponsors and anything else. You will now be able to see the full scope of what you're dealing with, allowing you to set more achievable goals for how much to spend and how much you're hoping to make.

Have Backups

Working with one supplier that you can trust is always the best case scenario. But you should always have a few backups in your pocket in case you have to deal with the worst case scenarios, such as last minute cancellations. Contact companies to find out who can do last minute AV, catering and other services, and keep those numbers on hand.

Apply the KISS Principle

The KISS principle stands for Keep It Simple, Stupid. Pretty self-explanatory. Don't get caught up in complicated and convoluted marketing campaigns -- people need to know exactly what your event is and why they should be there. It doesn't matter how pretty your marketing materials are or how expensive and awesome the event space is if people don't know what you're doing! Make your marketing campaign to-the-point with a clear message, and make it super easy to buy tickets and get to the event space.

Use Event Management Software

There is way too much awesome technology out there to not be taking advantage of it. Regpack, for instance, helps walk you through the whole life cycle of your event, from registration to gathering data and sending out automated emails after the fact. It's no wonder the NFL uses it! Etouches is another great program that gives you plenty of options for registration, event websites, survey, email marketing, mobile apps and more. If you're trying to keep costs down, Eventbrite is one of the most cost-effective management programs to use for events of all sizes. It can also help with online ticket sales.

Meanwhile, tools like Speecheo can help attendees view presentations, as well as interact and take notes while at the event, all of which will help boost engagement both during and afterward. And apps like Pathable and Goombal can help you curate smaller programs based on data segmentation, letting you create truly personalized experiences for your attendees.

Build Steam

Contrary to the way that many people do it, you should put the most work and effort into your event in the final 24 to 48 hours before it takes place. People have a tendency to get all of the organizing out of the way early on and then sit back and relax. In reality, those are the crucial hours that you should be working round the clock to make sure there are no hiccups in the execution. Take this time to confirm venue arrangements, staff, performers, décor, volunteers, guests and anything else. Assume that if something can go wrong, it will, and use these few days to get everything polished and perfect.

Planning and executing an event is all about creating the most unique and awesome experience for your attendees. By doing some expert planning and organizing, and by putting some awesome new tech tools to use, you can increase your chances of pulling off an event that your guests will be sure to remember.

Have any Jedi mind tricks of your own? Email us and we'll include them in our next post on Event Organization. You'll also be entered to win a month of unlimited SceneSquid for free!

(Photo by godwin d.)

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What Your Ticket Price Says About Your Event

When planning an event, one of the decisions you'll need to make is how much to charge for tickets. You should investigate other events taking place in your area to find out a good ballpark estimate for ticket prices but, in the end, you'll likely find that there's a wide range of prices. Here are some of the considerations to keep in mind as you decide on a price for your event tickets.

Higher Prices

Most people subconsciously believe that value is tied to price: They expect to get what they pay for. Whether this is true or not, if you price your tickets high, your attendees will likely have high expectations for the event. Consider what your guests will be expecting versus what you'll be providing.

If you'll be serving a nice, catered dinner with a band or professional DJ, you can definitely get away with asking for (and getting) a higher price per ticket. On the other hand, the last thing you want is for people to wonder why they paid so much for the event. Choosing the right price point is essential to meeting your guests' expectations without going overboard (and limiting your profit unnecessarily) or disappointing them.

Lower Prices

You might think you're offering a great value when you price your tickets low. While this may be true, think about expectations. If value is tied to cost, your attendees might not have high hopes when you ask for too low a price per ticket. You may also be seen as inexperienced if you're not charging enough to both cover costs and make a profit.

If you're only having light refreshments and your speaker or artist is not commanding a high fee, then you do have the option of pricing your event lower than the average in your area. Just keep in mind that people might come in with low expectations. (Although, this also allows you to impress them by far exceeding those expectations.)

What You Should Do

It's best to consider what others in your area are charging. Check out local blogs and the local event calendar to find events similar to yours, and price your tickets accordingly. Depending on whether you need to pay an artist or speaker, what type of venue you're using and what type of refreshments you're serving, you can choose to price a bit above or a bit below the norm.

If you're ready to submit your event online and work on your event promotion, SceneSquid can save you time with your event marketing. Just upload the details and we'll promote your event to various listing services.

This is the sixth post in our series on how to promote a great event online. Check out the previous post: How to Write an Event Description That People Will Actually Read.

(Photo by Dave Rosenblum)

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Write an Event Description That People Will Actually Read

Your event is planned: The musicians have been booked and the caterer is all set to go. All you have left to do is write and post your event description so people will know what to expect and get excited about coming. However, before you post your description to your local event calendar and local blogs, make sure you're writing it in a way that guarantees people will actually read it.

Include Important Information Early

If someone doesn't have a lot of time to read a lengthy description of your event, they may just read the beginning of it before deciding to read more or click away. For the busy scanners and skimmers in your audience, ensure that the most important details (what the event is, where it will be held, and what time it begins) are toward the beginning of the event description.

Make Facts Stand Out

Rather than writing several long paragraphs, it's best to use subheadings or bullet points to make the event facts stand out. This gives people the basics so they can read the relevant details if they need them. Those who just skim will catch the drift by reading over the bolded text.

Mention Any Incentives

If the event benefits a local charity or if you'll be giving away a prize (like a ticket to the next event or even a new car), make sure those details are highlighted. Will there be a well-known speaker or great networking opportunities? Mention that, too. People love to know that their attendance has more than one purpose, especially if they can help somebody else while also helping themselves.

Add Some Visuals

Your event marketing material shouldn't be filled with cartoonish clip art or photos of cute cats, but a well-placed graphic or two is essential to make your event stand out. Include your logo and perhaps a photo or drawing. If there's no room for that, consider using a border around important details or a small image of something relevant.

Check Your Grammar

Finally, before you submit your event online, proofread it! Many people are turned off by typographical errors and misspellings. Since it's difficult to see your own mistakes, ask someone else to give it a once-over to be sure that you didn't spell the name of your business wrong, transpose digits in your telephone number, or use "your" instead of "you're."

Your event should be a rousing success if you promote it well. Save time and energy by using SceneSquid to help you with your event promotion.

This is the fifth post in our series on how to promote a great event online. Check out the previous post: Why you Should Promote Your Event On Local Blogs.

(Photo by Moyan Brenn)

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Why You Should Promote Your Event on Local Blogs

Marketing an event inherently means marketing something local. Even if it's televised the world over, that special show or exhibition can only happen in one place at a time. Finding the right audience for that event online means leveraging the power of local searches.

After all, what's the use of promoting your show to an audience thousands of miles from your venue? You list shows in a local event calendar because it's a sure-fire way to reach people who might actually buy tickets. Like many event promoters, you probably use social media marketing, too.

Those are both great strategies, but not everyone in your local area is into digging through event calendars. There are people out there who want more qualitative information about events. And nothing does better than spotlighting an upcoming show, gallery opening or concert in a local blog.

Turning the Focus to Local Blogs

At its heart, event marketing isn't about communicating the details. It's about exciting your audience and letting them in on the bigger picture. Yes, your audience needs to know the time and place of the event and the price of tickets, but they also need to know why they should go in the first place.

A blog provides the perfect place to:

communicate casually with your audience,

build hype for your event,

introduce new artists or shows,

talk more about your venue,

provide a behind-the-scenes look at your event, and

get exposure from local readers who share the blog on their social media profiles.

Working with Local Bloggers

Identifying the right local blogs for event promotion is essential to the success of your campaign. Start by thinking about the types of bloggers who would be interested in your event. For example, if you're hosting a wine tasting, you'd do well to tap into foodie blogs. It's all about knowing your audience and what's likely to catch their interest.

You can build links from a local blog to your venue's website, too, which is a great way to attract customers who are interested in what you do on the whole, even if they're not interested in a particular show. Of course, you should still submit an event online and link to local calendar entries.

If it seems overwhelming to create local event listings and reach out to bloggers, consider using SceneSquid. We offer an elegant and easy-to-use listing solution for event promoters that's designed to save you time while enhancing your local marketing reach. Let us submit events to local blogs for you so that you can focus on making your event as successful as possible.

This is the fourth post in our series on how to promote a great event online. Check out the previous post: Tools to Help Make Event Promotion Easier.

(Photo by Vincent Brown)

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Tools to Help Make Event Promotion Easier

Promoting events effectively means mastering an array of media channels, many of which didn't even exist 15 years ago. Event promotion today takes place on TVs and billboards, in the streets, over the radio, on social media sites and in local publications. There's a lot to do, and getting the word out about your event might seem like an exhausting and ceaseless task.

Why Turn to Event Marketing Tools?

You can handle these seemingly endless tasks by choosing tools that help you do your job more efficiently. There are many tools out there, so it's easy for event promoters in different types of venues to find utilities that meet their needs. You'll find tools that can handle an array of tasks including:

ticketing,

social media marketing,

invitations and RSVPs,

video marketing and live broadcasting, and

event photo hosting and sharing.

Must-Have Event Promotion Tools

Invitations

Sending invitations to people who've visited your venue before is one of the easiest ways to promote your event. Thanks to tools such as Eventbrite and Anyvite, getting these invites out doesn't even require knowing how to do a mail merge. If you're not already using a tool that rolls invitations, RSVPs and ticket sales into one, it's time to get on board.

Video

These tools intrinsically support local aims, but you might need to find an audience outside of your neighborhood, too. If there's value in reaching out to a remote audience, you can use a tool such as UStream to promote your event with video. With UStream, you can even broadcast your event to those who can't watch it in person. YouTube, Vimeo and Viddler are also great places to post interviews and other content designed to build hype before your event.

Photos & Visuals

Using rich visual to promote your event is an absolute must, so it makes sense to look for a tool that can help you manage photos and graphics--Flickr is widely considered the best around. In addition to hosting photos that can be used on your venue website, event pages and local blogs, Flickr also allows you to create groups to facilitate live posting of photos by attendees at your event. Other social media sites including Instagram and Facebook also support live photo posting.

Event Listings

Getting your event listed in local event calendars also matters. To make this easier, use SceneSquid. You create one event profile, and it's sent out to relevant local publishers including event calendars, online newspapers and blogs. Much like other event promotion tools, it's an efficient way to work that maximizes the success of your marketing efforts.

This is the third post in our series on how to promote a great event online. Check out the previous post: Why You Need to Include a Photo When you Post an Event.

(Photo by jobstop11)

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Why You Need to Include a Photo When you Post an Event

Listing upcoming events on local blogs and websites is a fast, inexpensive way to reach your target audience. It's a tried-and-true strategy, and your competitors are likely doing it, too. That means you're competing for attention online as much as you're competing for ticket sales offline.

Why Event Visuals Matter

Doing online event promotion well in a heavily saturated market means standing out. One of the easiest ways is by including a photo, whether you're listing with a local event calendar or online. Think of online event postings as the 21st century equivalent of Woodstock-era concert posters. Capturing the attention of social influencers means being visually compelling, and that means using photos.

Using a photo when you submit an event online:

Communicates the spirit of the event.

Builds excitement.

Makes your content more shareable.

Prevents websites from assigning a generic avatar to your event.

Provides context for viewers who aren't familiar with your venue.

Increases the chances that viewers will share your event on their social networks.

Helps your audience make a human connection with your event.

Leveraging Photos for Event Postings

Visuals are a great way to strengthen brand loyalty. The right photo for an event posting should correspond to who you are and what you do. That can be as subtle as using images with brand-centric colors or as straightforward as using a photo that incorporate the venue's facade.

The beauty of it is that you don't have to find a different photo every time you post an event. In fact, it's not even a good idea to do that. Instead, aim to create consistency across channels by using the same event photo on your event website, in emails and in social media ads. It builds memorability while sending a consistent message about your event.

Nailing the Event Photo

Set yourself up for future success by planning proactively for your photo needs. After your event, upload photos that you have the right to post online to Flickr. If you hold an annual event, people will be able to look at photos from previous years when they search for your event online. You'll also be building a pool of images to use with event postings.

The ROI is high here. If you work with a pro photographer regularly, you already have photos you can use. If you don't, snap some high-quality shots or read up on using images with Creative Commons licenses. Enter event details and upload your photo on SceneSquid, and then send it to local event publishers. With the right photo, your event will get maximum exposure with a minimal time investment.

This is the second post in our series on how to promote a great event online. Continue on to Tools to Help Make Event Promotion Easier or start at the beginning: How to Write a Compelling Tagline for your Next Event

(Photo by Sam Howzit)

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How to Write a Compelling Tagline for Your Next Event

As an event promoter, your job is to get people to attend the grand openings, exhibitions, shows and other special events sponsored by your business. An event slogan or tagline--a short and snappy description of what's to come--is an essential part of your overall marketing strategy.

Consider the following:

"Melts in your mouth, not in your hand."

"Just do it."

"It does a body good."

Can you identify the brands mentioned just by their taglines? (If not, they are, in order, M&Ms, Nike and milk.)

Why Do You Need a Tagline?

Having a tagline for your event helps people to understand what your brand (and event) is all about. It also functions to remind you (or the group organizing the event) what is being promised. As decisions are made about the event marketing, the organizers can keep the tagline in mind to fulfill those promises. As you promote your event to local calendars and blogs, a tagline makes it more likely that people will sit up and take notice.

A memorable tagline also helps people remember the event after it's over. Even if you haven't had M&Ms in years, when you hear, "melts in your mouth, not in your hand," you know exactly what's being sold. You might even develop a sudden craving for the candy!

How Do You Write a Compelling Tagline?

Coming up with an effective, simple tagline can be difficult. Here are a few tips on putting the words together:

Start with your brand. Your event should be furthering the goals of your brand. Whether it's a special guest at a nightclub, a new festival in town or a controversial exhibit at a museum, the event should be attached to your brand. Make a list of what your brand stands for.

Think about what makes your event different. What is your event offering guests that others are not? Jot down some phrases.

Consider the story behind your event. What transpired to make this event possible? Write down some of the verbs and adjectives that you'd use to describe the back story.

Once you have a list of words and phrases down, it's time to try to put something together. There's no real science behind it: just see what sounds catchy and conveys the essence of the event. Don't go for cutesy: it doesn't have to rhyme or allude to anything other than what you're trying to sell (if it does rhyme, that's okay).

Event promotion is a difficult, but essential organizational task. SceneSquid can help. Visit our website to find out how we can help you get the people you want at your event.

This is the first post in our series about how to promote a great event online. Check out the next post Why You Need to Include a Photo When you Post an Event.

(Image Credit: Cydcor)

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BRAIN DOWNLOAD: Christine Healy talks events and the publishing industry

Christine Healy is an alum of GWU’s Events and Marketing major and is now the Events Manager for InTheCapital, a local media outlet that’s quickly taken an active role in creating and covering events in the Washington, DC area. Their large-format events such as DCFest and 50 on Fire are aimed at DC’s business and innovation communities and have helped put their publication on the map. We met with Christine to better understand the intersection of media and events.

SceneSquid: What was the first event you were ever involved with?

Christine Healy: I have always been "the planner". Even as a little kid, I would organize play dates with friends and pick over-the-top themes for my birthday parties. Planning bigger events started during high school with school meetings, pep rallys, and dances. I knew early on that event planning was something I loved and wanted to make into my career, so I went to The George Washington University specifically to major in Events and Marketing.

SceneSquid: Can you describe the GWU’s Events program? How has it helped you?

CH: Completing the Event Management and Marketing program at GWU has been one of the best choices to give me a strong foundation in events. The program focuses on teaching practical skills and getting students experience early on through internships. GWU opened my eyes to the wide range of specialties within the event field and scale of events. One of the highlights was traveling to the London Olympics with Professor Delpy Neirotti (she's taken groups of students to 12 Olympic Games) for a behind the scenes look at everything that goes into producing the mega event.

SceneSquid: What’s the biggest challenge facing events and the publishing industry?

CH: DC has so much event "noise" with several meetups, happy hours, and panels every night of the week. It can be difficult to tell a compelling story that draws attendees. Event planners, especially in DC, will have to continue coming up with new concepts that stand out to their target market. Promoting an event is challenging – you need to secure media coverage, get your event on all of the local calendars (shout out to Scenesquid for fixing that!), and drive early ticket sales. Fortunately, that's one of the benefits of planning events for a publication – we already have a loyal audience that we are in constant contact with.

SceneSquid: You plan a variety of events with ITC. How do you design your events? Why do you pick that theme? How do you choose a name, a location, etc?

CH: At InTheCapital our goal is always to continue to build community whether that's through our site or our events. We like to take traditional event concepts and flip them on their head. We know our audience and what they want out of an event – a new experience, an opportunity to meet other forward thinkers, and it doesn't hurt to have a few good cocktails! Our national Streetwise Media team creates event concepts that we can produce across markets at our publications in DC, Boston, and Chicago

As for the look of the events, I'm always on the hunt for the coolest venues that will provide a bold backdrop. There are so many hidden gems in DC just waiting to hold your next event. It's fun to think outside the box when designing an event. We've held a fitness event in an art gallery, an award show at an old power house, and an innovation conference at a historic theater.

SceneSquid: In your experience, where is an event most likely to go wrong?

CH: Planners could probably rattle off 10 things that could easily go wrong at an event. By thinking through those potential problems in advance, choosing reliable vendors to work with, and thinking on your toes you can usually avoid many problems or at least bounce back from the little inevitable challenges that pop up. Bad "event flow" can ruin an otherwise well-planned event. It's important to think through the entire event from a guest's point of view. When they walk in who will they be greeted by? Where will they walk to get food and drinks? At what points will they interact with your event sponsors? Thinking about the event through the eyes of an attendee can help avoid bottlenecking at your event.

SceneSquid: What was your biggest oh shit moment?

CH: One of the first events I planned on my own in high school was a small benefit concert with a bunch of friends' bands. The night before the event, the fire sprinklers went off in the venue and flooded the entire space. At that point, I struggled to come up with a plan B and ultimately ended up canceling the event. Not my best moment. I definitely learned from that experience that the show must go on and you have to do whatever it takes to deal with unexpected problems.

SceneSquid: Getting sponsorships is always hard. Do you have any tips for the rest of us that you’re willing to share?

CH: When selling an event sponsorships it's so important to think about what your potential sponsor's goals are and how your event can be a solution. Coming up with standard sponsorship packages can help give sponsors an idea of ways their brand will be incorporated into the event but stay open to opportunities to create custom activations for sponsors so they walk away from your event having had meaningful interactions.

SceneSquid: In many cases, events are a tool. A means to an end. In your opinion, which industry (or company) is utilizing events the best?

CH: Event marketing is going to continue to grow as big brands look for new ways to connect with consumers beyond a banner ad or a commercial. There are several brands that are creating one-of-a-kind events. I'm a huge fan of what Red Bull and Veuve Clicquot are doing with their events.

SceneSquid: You’re in a unique position where you both create events for a publication to market itself and bring in revenue, but also where you cover others’ events to bring in more readers. That gives you perspective from both sides of the table. What advice would you offer the rest of us about bridging that divide and garnering coverage, attention, or anything else you think we should know?

CH: Tell a unique story with your event that can be easily retold by a writer. It's key to do personal outreach and think about the small details that make each guest (especially public figures and media) feel special. You don't want to reinvent the wheel every time you produce an event but you have to find ways to keep things fresh and interesting. Consider a media outlet and the different angles they could take when covering your event. Don't be afraid to share your ideas about coverage in addition to sending a press release.

SceneSquid: What questions should I have asked you?

CH: When I meet people in the industry who I admire, I try to ask how are they continuing to elevate their career and their events. What do they read? How do they network? What gives them inspiration for new event ideas? I read BizBash all of the time and like the Social Tables Insider newsletter. I try to go out to a couple events a week to learn from other planners. There are also some great networking groups for event professionals to take advantage of from WISE (Women in Sports and Events), to MES (Metro Event Specialists), to ISES (International Special Events Society).

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BRAIN DOWNLOAD: Chad Bauman unpacks the theater industry and his time at Arena

Chad Bauman – Managing Director at Milwaukee Repertory Theater, Associate Professor of Marketing at Drexel, and the voice behind a well-respected arts marketing blog – is modernizing the theater industry. Prior to Milwaukee, Chad was a rising star in the DC arts and culture scene spending time as Arena’s Associate Executive Director and leading Marketing and Communications for several major arts organizations. We caught up with Chad to download some of his expertise.

  SceneSquid: You’ve seen quite a variety of productions by this point. What was the first event you were seriously involved with?

Chad Bauman: I was in my final year of grad school and it was the opening of REDCAT in Walt Disney Concert Hall in Los Angeles. They needed someone to work on managing the event, so I volunteered. Four event managers, we all reported to the primary. Remarkable experience.

It was a 24 hour event. We were on almost all 24 hours. It started at 4 o’clock with a dinner for high-level VIPs. This segwayed into late-night performances by Jason Mraz and Polyphonic Spree, followed by an overnight party for young people under 30. Come 8am Sunday, we kicked off the open community day for families. It was sort of amazing because it was very well thought out for all the stakeholder groups that REDCAT wanted to hit. High level donors, young professionals, families. Each aspect was laid out perfectly, and resonated with the target demographics. 

SceneSquid: That’s a sizable event to run. What’s your biggest?  

CB: The opening of the Mead Center at Arena Stage in DC was the biggest I ever did. I was asked to produce the opening of the building as separate from my responsibilities under marketing and communications. As part of the opening, we brought in 30 different acts from all over the world. There were multiple Tony award winners, events all day, all weekend. The President and First Lady were honorary co-chairs, and it was also the 60-year anniversary of the company.

Of course, there were tons of moving parts. We started the planning process for opening the building 18 months in advance and towards the end it became a full-time job. And you only have one shot to launch this brand-new $135M building, so it’s incredibly nerve racking. Thankfully, with the help from a phenomenal team, it came off perfectly. It was big, even meaty at times. And incredibly moving as it took a team of hundreds of staff and volunteers

SceneSquid: You mentioned you were in California for your MFA, and have since built yourself a serious career in theater. So why theater? What do you love most about it?

CB: From a working perspective, anything that’s highly successful in theater is the work of a large group of people. It’s impossible to do theater by yourself. Very different from writing and other areas of the arts...if you’re going to do something spectacular in theater, you have to work with 20, 30, 40, 150 people on a major project. All those people working to make something magical is truly magical. That’s really only found in performing arts.

SceneSquid: Not only are you a practitioner but you also teach. Given all your time in DC, how’d you wind up being a professor of marketing at Drexel up in Philly?

CB: Right after grad school, I went to Virginia State Company, then made my way to DC as the Director of Communications at Americans for the Arts. I loved their mission but I was missing the theatrical side of things. Around that time, Arena happened to need a new marketing director. That was in 2007. While at Arena, I started a robust consulting practice on the side where I worked with theaters in New York, Philly, Minneapolis, Canada, St. Louis...and built connections to a ton of cities. We worked especially closely with the Pew Center for the Arts in Philly and the Greater Philadelphia Cultural Alliance...which led to the opportunity at Drexel. I’ve also had the pleasure of creating the Technology in Arts Management program at American University and teaching MFA Producing students for my alma mater – CalArts.

SceneSquid: What attracts you to the teaching component?

CB: As you go higher in management, it becomes easier to detach and stop learning. All too often, in the executive director position, you’re expected to teach and mentor which is really important. But at the same time, I have 30 years left in my career. If I don’t continue to seek my own personal growth and experiment, then in 10 years I’ll be 45 and washed up, completely disconnected from the frontlines of the industry. So as a professor, while I do teach, it also keeps me grounded with the frontlines of the industry as I’m learning a lot from my students.

SceneSquid: You spent a good bit of time in DC and on the East Coast. How is it different running events in Milwaukee?

CB: Every city has a heartbeat, you must find the personality of the city. This is just my opinion, but I think DC is about access to power and exclusivity. Did you get an invite or not? Who’s there? Who are the organizers and who’s not? How close can I sit to so and so versus how many tables away am I? DC is also transitional. Every 4 years, a significant portion of city turns over with a new president and congress. It’s one of the most amazing places on earth, but it’s always in transition.

Milwaukee is not like that. The city is very, very rooted. We’re talking five generations deep in some families. You’re literally going back to the founding of the state. It’s remarkable. In Milwaukee, there’s not a sense of exclusivity and access as much as a sense of coming together as a community to support the city.

SceneSquid: You’ve got Chicago just down the road. In some ways with DC, NY wasn’t far away. But Chicago is much closer. How do you see that impacting the arts in Milwaukee?

CB: I think the Milwaukee / Chicago relationship is very similar to the Baltimore / DC relationship. When I first moved to DC, I knew the Baltimore arts scene, knew Center Stage and its stunning reputation. But in the seven years I was in DC, I only went to one or two performances at Center Stage. Life just gets busy. At the end of the day there is tons to do in DC and it takes an extraordinary effort to go to Baltimore. I think it’s the same thing here in Milwaukee. While we’re the flagship theater in Wisconsin with historic roots in the state, it takes something extraordinary to get someone from Chicago to come up. That said, residents from northern Chicago suburbs attend quite frequently as the costs for a night out are significantly less in Milwaukee than Chicago, and it is easy to get here from there.   

SceneSquid: How do you measure success as a theater?  

CB: It depends. Nonprofit theaters measure success against their mission statements and strategic plans. We have to operate in a prudent manner financially, but we must meet strategic goals. For profit theater is very different; most for profit producers are interested in creating good art. But at end of the day they measure success by returns to their investors.

SceneSquid: Where is an event or show most likely to go wrong?   

CB:If you’re producing a new work and it isn’t ready to go. Maybe the script isn’t ready, you haven’t workshopped it, or you’re not confident about the plan to get it to stage. In this scenario, you either pull it last minute or produce a work that isn’t ready and piss off audiences...and it gets ugly. You must have a methodical plan on how you prepare the work to get it produced.

SceneSquid: What was your biggest ‘oh shit’ moment?   

CB:One of the biggest mistakes I’ve made in my career was when I was on the job for four months as the new communications director for Arena. Around that time, we we’re announcing we had to leave our location in DC and would have to produce for a couple years at satellite venues. And as we all know, many DC folks think that crossing the river to Virginia requires a passport.

So to make this announcement, I made the decision to give an exclusive to the Washington Post in order to get great placement and coverage. But in order to ensure that exclusivity, we didn’t inform our subscribers or donors in advance.

That was a big mistake. When our supporters read the paper that morning, it was the equivalent to getting served divorce papers and not expecting it. We had to do a lot of apologizing and backpedaling. My takeaway lesson was that you always give the exclusive story to your best customer.

Nowadays, arts organizations are their own content distribution centers. Even 4-5 years ago, we’d send out a press release, someone covers it, and that’s how we communicated with our audience. Today, we communicate not through press but with emails, social media, hand written letters even, social media, etc. That adds a lot of complexity to our job, and ultimately we are responsible.

SceneSquid: What do you think isn’t talked about enough in the theater or arts industries?

CB: So putting my hat on as a managing director, we have an under-capitalization problem in the theater world. Most aspects of the nonprofit arts industry struggle with this. During 2008, ‘09, ’10 -- lots of companies burned through their cash reserves in order to balance operations in the middle of the recession. We’ve emerged – ticket sales are going up – but contributed revenue is still challenging. Theaters are more on the precipice today than at any point in the last two decades...there is VERY little room for error because everyone is out of cash reserves. This puts many of us in a quandary, because theaters are in the business of risk taking. Yet at the same time, there’s very little room to take risk.

SceneSquid: Who’s still on your list to collaborate with?

CB: There are tons of people I’d love to work with. From a theater / co-production perspective, Berkeley Rep comes to mind, what they’re doing is pretty phenomenal. The Goodman in Chicago. And Cornerstone Theater Company in LA does great community outreach, I think the best in the nation. And of course, I’d love the opportunity to work with Molly Smith and Edgar Dobie at Arena Stage again. With artists, definitely Todd Rosenthal. He’s a set designer and a phenomenal artist with strong ties to Arena and Milwaukee. As for Directors that personally I just love -- Anne Bogart, Robert Lepage, Robert Wilson to name a few. There are groups more on cutting edge like Builders Association and the Wooster Group that I’d love to work with as well. Too many to name!   

SceneSquid: It’s always a ton of work to get up to speed at a new place. Have you enjoyed a Wisconsin vacation yet?    

CB: I’m actually a bad Wisconsin resident. While most people are going to Door County, I recently flew back to DC and went to Rehoboth Beach. Looking forward to my first Door County trip this summer though!

SceneSquid: What would you want to learn about other people in the events space in our future interviews?      

CB: I would love to see what other arts organizations are doing to create outstanding events. How are they evolving their revenue streams, reaching millenials, etc. I know museums are ahead of the curve on this. I’d like to see you guys talk to some of the people who are doing this stuff really really well.

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BRAIN DOWNLOAD: Evan Juda talks best practices for events and directing fun at Penn Social

Brain Download is a new series where we interview event experts. We intend these interviews to range a wide gamut of personalities and event spaces, with an eye towards bringing you awesome, valuable advice from some of the best in the industry. Our first download is with Evan Juda...

Evan Juda, Director of Fun at Penn Social, has brought the venue to the forefront of the Washington, DC social scene over the last 18 months. His unique events and creative partnerships have helped build a nightlife anchor in downtown DC. We sat down with Evan to learn a little bit more about his past and what goes in to a great event. 

SceneSquid: You’ve orchestrated quite a few events at this point, but let’s start from the beginning – can you tell us about the very first event you organized?    

Evan Juda: The earliest I recall was a house party in high school. My parents left, invites went out, great times were had by all. This laid some groundwork for college, which I’d say were my true early days of organizing. A group of friends and I lived off campus, we had the biggest house on the block. This house was iconic. So of course we had tons of parties. In 3 years, we had at least 50 parties -- 10 parties per semester, and at least a party every other weekend. We’d book DJs, bands, sometimes we’d charge $5 for a cup.

10 of those 50 would be absolute blowout ragers, the kind where the cops ultimately showed. In those instances we were able to clear the house in minutes. With six or seven entrances, everyone would stream out. 

SceneSquid: After college, what was next?

EJ: I actually took a hiatus from events. I helped found a web development company called Squiid.com. We eventually built the website for the DC-based Riot Act comedy club, after which I switched over to help Riot Act and found myself back working with events.

SceneSquid: Can you tell me more about the comedy days and how that evolved into Penn Social?

EJ: Riot Act opened in August 2011, and it was strictly boring comedy events. From an organizing standpoint, it’s book, sell and promote. Not a lot of variety. So by June 2012 Riot Act was caput and we reopened as Penn Social. What we do here now is strictly fun. We take the natural cycle of a crowded corner in downtown DC, and leverage holidays, days off, the federal government, and anything thematic in the city or pop culture to hold awesome events. For example, this past February we held our first noondance – a dance party at noon on a workday – as well as a singles soiree on Valentines Day a la Singled Out, where comedians MC’d. So there’s a tremendous amount of variety. 

SceneSquid: Can you talk about the evolution of an event?

EJ: It’s really about iterating. We’d done Singled Out here four times in the run-up to the Valentines event. Sometimes it was a great crowd, sometimes not. But we got the logistics down, thought we knew what worked, and finally pitched it to Washingtonian as an anti-valentines day singles party on a Friday. Perfect timing, and the event went down extremely well.

In other cases, we start in-house or form tight partnerships with folks like District Games. In a lot of these instances, it comes down to collaborating and having an eye for picking your partners. You need to recognize what is a good collaboration and why in order to make the business money. 

SceneSquid: Where is an event most likely to go wrong?

EJ: Communication. It comes down to communication between the venue and person planning the event. Things can and do go “wrong” all the time. Unless people notice, it’s not really a problem. Sure, you need to make sure you’re ready to handle volume, but everything else can be handled. Now if something goes wrong, like really wrong, that’s generally due to communication.

SceneSquid: What was your biggest ‘oh shit’ moment?

EJ: Presidential Inuguration, 2012. Booking a band and throwing a big party on inauguration day was a big fail for us. We misdiagnosed what would happen here in Washington. What we heard about the first inauguration – constant, raucous celebration and droves of people downtown – did not apply to the second inauguration and resulted in a major learning experience for us.

SceneSquid: What’s the biggest challenge facing your industry right now?

EJ: I think the biggest challenge is making the right decision about which events you do. Once you make the right decision, everything falls in place and things go smoothly. But it feels like I’m always working overtime for the wrong events, and to me that’s a sign I made the wrong decision.

SceneSquid: As event organizers, all too often we don’t get to enjoy ourselves during the event. What are you doing during your events?

EJ: My job is to prepare the event, not be the manager on the floor. The sound crew, the partners, the bar – they’re the people running the show once it actually goes down. So sometimes I’m like Billy Beane, who was notorious for not watching his team’s games live. I put people in place to make the events work. Me being there should not be the guarantee that it happens successfully. If an event doesn’t work when I’m not there, then I don’t think I’m doing my job. 

SceneSquid: So how do you measure success?

EJ: There are multiple ways. Money in the pocket is one. For us, it’s really rare that we don’t make our “nut” (costs back), everything on top of what we do is fun. So of course I consider a measure of success to be fun. That’s why, at this point, I’m very particular about what events we do. 

SceneSquid: For yourself, what is your favorite event you’ve been a part of?

EJ: Two events. First is the record fair which we did this past January. We were home to the DC Record Fair. I loved that my bar could be the spot where music lovers come to trade and have fun on a Sunday afternoon. Personally, I’m a vinyl collector. I’ve probably spent $5k on that nonsense. But I’m proud of my blues, jazz, funk, classic rock collections. So I loved the vibe that day.

The second was the Donut Fest. It was wildly fun and worked super well. We featured donuts from all the local artisans and bakers around DC. We judged the donuts, had live music, a donut eating contest, and beer pairings with the donuts.

SceneSquid: Thanks again for joining us and offering up your thoughts. One last question – what would you want to learn about other people in the events space?

EJ: I want to know the normal pitfalls that everyone else encounters. 

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Six ways to get publications to cover your event

At SceneSquid, we interact with a lot of event bloggers and calendar editors. Over the last couple years, we’ve been privy to their pet peeves and frustrations in dealing with event PR.

These bloggers and editors are the gatekeepers of consumer access, the thought-leaders of your potential attendees. And all of them want to know about local events…but only events relevant to their editorial taste and readers.

The thing to remember is that most of these curators are slammed with 100+ emails and press releases a day (with some seeing more than 400 per day). Many of these emails are irrelevant because promoters and marketers don’t have the time, and more specifically, don’t have efficient ways to target outreach. For an editor, your inbox = terror. It not only feeds you leads, but stuffs them down your throat. Even if an event is a perfect match for a paper’s readers, it’s questionable whether the correspondence will be noticed, since curators and editors must prioritize efficiency and filtering just to survive the day. So to help both parties, we compiled a list of some of the best practices you can use when promoting your event to local media:

Write clear and compelling headlines: Curators scan their inbox for a few things -- a unique subject line, someone they know, a venue / area they like, and/or keywords that relate to their interests. Having the date always helps too, as the writer may be like “oh wow, that times perfectly for next week, and I don’t have anything cool for that Thursday” and fit you in. Example: “Hopscotch and human jenga during Super Bowl pre-party in downtown DC, Feb 2”.

Start with the hook: The last thing an editor wants to do is read your lengthy boring press release. Close them in the first two sentences of your email by telling them “why someone should attend this event,” and be straight up. Avoid the marketing lingo. Example: “This is a wine-tasting event held in an up-and-coming gallery after hours, and will have funk musicians performing in the background. The event will have a relaxed vibe and should appeal to late 20s and 30s urbanites, music and wine fans, and the occasional hipster. Great for date nights.”  

Write from the third person: Editors and writers are crunched for time, so make their job easy. Don’t make them have to rewrite your content! Write descriptions from the 3rd person...no I’s, you’s, or we’s. Use formal pronouns -- the names of the artists, the venues, etc. This saves bloggers time, which makes them like you.

Avoid spray and pray: Yes, you should absolutely submit your event to as many relevant publications as possible. But the key word here is relevant. If your events vary in content or theme, be mindful of copy and pasting an old PR email list. This type of behavior invariably sends your event to irrelevant publications or writers, who may start to see you as spam. The last thing you want is to damage your name with a publication because you were too lazy to do some targeting around where your eblast goes. There’s a time and place for every event.

The earlier you promote, the better: A lot of publications have deadlines. Do not wait until the last minute to promote when ticket sales are lagging. It sounds like common sense, but time and again we see organizations wait until its too late. A good rule is two months out. That’s early enough to fit into most editorial timelines (many print deadlines fall between 3 and 6 weeks out), but not so far out that you’ll be forgotten.

Followup: While some publications need events far in advance, others only decide to cover you a week beforehand or the week of. So don’t forget to followup! Use a tool like SceneSquid or Boomerang to manage your outreach and follow up with writers automatically. When following up, if you’ve had a cool development with your event (a new speaker, musician, exclusive sponsor, etc), use it as a brief update to reinforce your event’s awesomeness with the writer.

Lastly, don't forget the details! Time and again, publications tell us that when they do find an event that interests them, it's often missing key information like price, start times, the address or a photo. Don't be that promoter. 

[scenesquid]

The Blueprints to Event Marketing

Event marketing is a challenging endeavor. Whether you’re a full-time marketer with dedicated staff; a one-person shop getting your theatre, band, venue, restaurant, or other experience off the ground; or a hobbyist who organizes events out of passion and fun…marketing events is complex, underappreciated, and conducted with tight budgets.

With this post, I’ll outline a blueprint for approaching event marketing – going deeper on individual points in future posts. From a broad perspective, there are really two facets to event marketing that can be balanced in hundreds of ways: 1) leverage an existing fan base (retention) and 2) grow your audience (lead-generation).

Retention 

Existing fan bases are your safety net. They’re the staple of your attendees. They can be easily reached (relatively), have expressed interest and value in what you do, and are usually willing to give you cash, eyes, ears or smiles at your future events. If fostered and leveraged correctly, existing fans will bring their friends and spread word-of-mouth – the best kind of marketing there is. But word-of-mouth isn’t easy and does not guarantee profitability. Moreover, marketers must always be cognizant of list-fatigue. This virus can spread quickly and cause irreversible damage to your fanbase. Fundamentally, your fanbase must be managed and this takes time. Lists don’t grow themselves. People move. And interests change. Yet through careful experimentation and balanced execution of email, twitter, facebook (and pinterest, and instagram, and…) campaigns, you can achieve an avid fanbase that evangelizes your brand and provides a baseline of repeat attendees for your events. The best part of retention is the return-on-investment: retention strategies have high ROI but are of limited volume. 

Lead-generation

To counteract the limited volume of retention, you should focus on lead-generation and audience growth. Fanbases don’t grow themselves and we all start at zero. With effective audience growth, your organization or venue can evolve from survival -> to profitability -> to expansion. The key tenets are staying prevalent and relevant, and being in the right place at the right time.

Across event marketing, tactics generally consist of infinite flavors in a few different categories:

Offline and experiential: this ranges from handouts and stickers to flashmobs and viral stunts. Hit the streets in high-traffic areas where your potential attendee is likely to lurk. Some tactics are better for one-time gigs, while others have more impact with repeat experiences (i.e. theatre performances). Requires a lot of sweat equity.

Discounts and promotions: From Groupons to student rush to limited radio giveaways, these tactics can be powerful but dangerous...eating into your bottomline if you don’t set limitations. Be wary of turning your brand into a “Macy’s”, where consumers start expecting discounts from you.

Advertising: Eyeballs matter but ads aren’t cheap. As simple as a banner on your local blog or as complex as event retargeting on ad platforms.  While ads can be very powerful, especially if you have a higher profit margin and a pricier event, it can be hard to identify the right advertising partner / publication. There are a number of tools and services we might eventually offer here at SceneSquid to help on this front (so stay involved and let us know what you need!).

Calendar listings and earned media: Whether it’s article coverage from a respected writer in your scene, a tweet from a nightlife guru, or a calendar listing on a popular blog...this stuff works because people consuming this content have intent. Intent to experience. When reading a local events blog or arts section of a paper, people are approaching with an open mind, looking for something to do. They’re giving the publication (and you) the permission to market a unique, awesome experience and convince them to attend. Earned media -- for the events industry -- is powerful, implicit permission marketing. Listings and articles get your event in front of relevant audiences, both niche and broad. The challenge is this marketing can be complex, opaque, and extremely monotonous. Which is why SceneSquid is working to make it better. Our service makes it easy to identify relevant publications in your area and submit your event to them with minimal effort. No more press releases lost in inboxes, or being unsure whether you’re wasting hours spamming addresses with your event. 20 minutes and done.

Put another way, imagine your marketing strategy is like constructing a skyscraper. To begin, you dig your foundation: your core value proposition to potential attendees, and marketing plans and experiments you want to try. To go up, you need pillars and pylons: this is your audience growth:

Pillars can be combined in various combinations to add height to your building (offline, ads, listings, etc). With every event you conduct, you create a floor -- or a fanbase. The more floors, the bigger your fanbase. The more audience growth, the higher your building. Floors give you security, while pillars give you height. Particularly strong events create strong floors, which gives you security to grow bigger and taller. Over time, you can build bridges and tunnels to nearby buildings: these signify strategic partnerships, allowing you to leverage each others’ fanbases (floors) and growth strategies (pillars) to grow together.