Driving Attendance to your Marketing Events - Part 3 of a 3 part series
Part 3 of a 3 part series Also Check out Part I and Part 2
Promoting your events requires a plan. Sending out an invitation is not enough, you must leverage all of your resources and promote the event from all angles. Following are 10 areas tI encourage you to your promotion planning.
1. Use the Microsoft Partner Events and Click to Attend Tools for event registration
2. Add the event to a prominent place on your Website and link to your registration page
3. Add a promotion of the event via your email tagline, not just you, everyone in the company!
4. Add a promotional blurb to all of your invoices to promote the event to your existing customers
5. Send an email blast(s) to your database
6. Publicize your event in your customer newsletter and via your event partners newsletters
7. Seek out local publications – both online and print that you can use to publicize your event for free
· Local Newspapers – call the papers directly and ask for submission requirements
· Business Journals – Example - Chicago Business Online
8. Issue a Press Release
· PR.com is a revolutionary Free Press Release Distribution Service where each business also has a full company profile to promote everything about its business. Submit news and press releases via our global online news and press release distribution service with powerful distribution points such as AskJeeves News, Excite News, Topix.net, MSN News,
9. Network and promote your events via local area user groups and organizations related to the event topic - remember what we talked about in Part 1 of the series, ask them to be part of your event!
· Business Focused: Chamber Networking Groups, Small Business Networking Groups, Associations
· Technology Focused: (Chicago Examples) CWUG (Chicago Windows Users Group), CNUG (Chicago.net users group)
10. Pick up the phone and call, call, call… Consider holding an internal sales contest, and the employee driving the most attendance wins a prize, such as a $100 Gift card or a Zune! Reach out to you Local Engagement Business Development Manager to discuss support of an internal sales contest - tied to your marketing efforts!
For additional support of your event marketing programs, reach out to your Local E