EP 09: How to Promote Your Event and Get More People to Attend

- "you really need to know your audience" → "one of the most important starting points is knowing your audience"

- "you really want to hit all avenues" → "it's worth trying to hit as many avenues as you can"

- "I really don't recommend doing it in-house on your own" → "from what I've seen, it's really tough to do in-house on your own"

- "you have to repeat the message over and over" → "in our experience, repeating the message over and over tends to be what actually moves the needle"

- "You should always be posting there. You should consider Twitter, LinkedIn. You should always have a LinkedIn profile" → "It's a good idea to be posting regularly on Facebook. Twitter and LinkedIn are worth considering too — having a LinkedIn profile for your nonprofit can go a long way"

- "you really want to pay attention to color schemes and font pairings because those things are important" → "it's worth paying attention to color schemes and font pairings because those things can make a real difference"

- "Really give them...give people that sense of urgency. Give them deadlines" → "Creating that sense of urgency tends to work — countdowns, deadlines when you can"

Intro: Welcome to the Elevate Your Event Podcast, where we talk about how to plan and execute an unforgettable event that will dazzle your guests and generate more income for your organization. From fundraising and securing trendy auction items to event production and logistics, get the best tips and advice from seasoned fundraising and event professionals who have been in your shoes.

Jeff: Welcome back to Elevate Your Event. I've got Kristen Wheeler here. Kristen works in the marketing department at Handbid, but she also has a tremendous amount of experience with events and event promotions — and that's what we're going to talk about today. My name is Jeff Porter, CEO of Handbid. What we try to do in this podcast is give you different ways that you can take your event to the next level. And obviously, the more people you can get there, the better place to start. That all comes down to event promotion. There are some other things to think about too — like, am I charging the right price for my tickets? Did I pick a good date? A good day of the week? We'll cover that stuff another time, because it's also important to making sure people show up. But today, let's talk about how we promote it.

Kristen: I think one of the most important starting points is knowing your audience. Know your guests — what types of guests are coming to your event, or what types of guests do you want to attract? That's going to determine your marketing strategy. Is it an older crowd? A younger crowd? An outdoors crowd? An artsy crowd? All of those factor into how you market your event.

Jeff: I would like to attract a wealthy crowd.

Kristen: Wouldn't we all? So maybe advertising on TikTok is not the place to start.

Jeff: I don't know. There are plenty of wealthy people on TikTok.

Kristen: TikTok is a little bit more long term. I think TikTok is good for attracting people to your organization. I haven't seen a ton of benefit for that short-term "come to my event" push, because people may see your video long after your event has ended.

Jeff: And I am kind of dating myself because I still don't get TikTok. But obviously, I can talk all day.

Kristen: I know you could. And my teenage daughters have definitely mastered it.

Jeff: Oh, good. So I'm young enough to be eighteen — is that what you're saying?

Kristen: I think you're just way more in tune with what those folks are interested in.

Jeff: Anyway, let's talk about the different types of channels. As you mentioned, you've got to know who your audience is. And then from there, you can figure out how to reach them — where are they going to see your promotion?

Kristen: Right. Where are they hanging out? Direct mail is not dead. Door hangers are not dead.

Jeff: I think snail mail, as they say, still has that effectiveness. But it's really about the nostalgia, because everyone gets so much junk mail that we still look forward to that piece of meaningful mail. I still get invited to one or two galas a year where I look forward to getting the big fat envelope with the overlay and the return envelope — even though I'm going to go online and RSVP. I like hanging it on the refrigerator, opening it up, seeing what the event is all about. Even as a digital person.

Kristen: A digital person who obviously understands TikTok is still recommending that you send things out. I still love getting mail.

Jeff: Postcards are good too. But at some point, there's still got to be a digital element. What else do you think people should be looking at in terms of promoting their event online?

Kristen: I think you want to be diverse. Even if you have an audience that, like me, loves getting mail, you still want to supplement with digital. On the flip side, if digital is your main course, you can still supplement with postcards and flyers. In terms of digital, it's worth trying to hit as many avenues as you can. Facebook events are still a very effective way to get people's attention. You create a Facebook event and it essentially creates a group where people can RSVP, comment, and get notifications about the event. When I throw a party, I still do a Facebook event because it's a great way to reach people. Instagram stories and posting day after day — really hitting people with that repetition — is going to be important with your digital marketing.

Jeff: Let's come back to stories, because I think there are probably a lot of folks listening who are like, "A what? An Instagram story versus an Instagram post?" I'm sure there's a big difference there that we should discuss. But let's go back to the Facebook event. We did that for a concert fundraiser not too long ago — we brought in a national act from Nashville, and our goal was to promote it. The very first thing we did was put up a Facebook event. We put it on our website, and obviously when we had our event page up on our mobile bidding platform, that was promoted too. But we also went to Facebook. And the very first thing I noticed was, well, I don't have the assets for this. I didn't have the graphic header. So you've got to make sure you have some tools, or a designer, or somebody who can help you set that up, because Facebook doesn't do it for you.

Kristen: Right. Any certain tools that you'd recommend?

Jeff: So there are tools. If you have artwork that your graphic designer has sent you, sometimes they'll send it in different formats so you can use it on Facebook and Instagram. It's pretty easy to ask, "Hey, can you give this to me in several different sizes?" But as far as tools, there are things like Canva or Adobe Express that will resize images for you and spread your content out to fit whatever asset you're using.

Kristen: And we used Canva. I also had a designer for this event, so that was kind of nice. I felt a little spoiled because I could just say, "Hey Kelly, I need a Facebook event cover photo," and then a day later it came in the exact format I needed. But if you don't have that luxury, I found Canva to be really helpful and easy. I haven't tried Adobe Express yet, but I imagine they're similar.

Jeff: Adobe Express is trying really hard to look, feel, and operate like Canva, just in Adobe's way. It does look a lot like Canva. And if you already have an Adobe subscription, you can use Adobe Express. They're not scary — even if you're not super tech savvy, there are lots of templates out there. What's nice is that you can build all those assets you need, because if you're going to promote your event online, you're going to need some images and graphics.

Kristen: That's a really good point. And if you are creating it yourself, it's worth paying attention to color schemes and font pairings because those things can make a real difference. If it's hard to read, people will skip right over it. They'll keep scrolling. They won't read it at all. They'll miss information. Tools like Canva and Adobe Express provide those templates for you, so don't try to reinvent the wheel. There are lots of free resources out there to help with your design process.

Jeff: I agree. And lime green on white does not look good, by the way.

Kristen: Exactly. Yellow on orange is a big no.

Jeff: When you look for these templates, you'll find they're really nicely designed and pretty easy to edit. So now we've got our assets and we've created our Facebook event, which I think is a great idea. The other thing we thought about was going back to the classic Evite. Have you used that recently?

Kristen: Since COVID, not so much because I haven't been having as many gatherings. But don't overlook an Evite, a Punchbowl invitation — get everybody's email addresses and send them out. A lot of those platforms do the work for you. And in looking at what I've been invited to — weddings recently as well — I like the ones that open up pretty easily. There was one I got invited to recently, and it was one of those where I clicked it, this whole webpage loaded, and it was just a graphic of an envelope animating itself open. I was like, okay, this is taking way too long.

Jeff: I actually like those. It feels like I'm actually opening mail.

Kristen: They have all kinds of things you can use to your advantage. But here's the disadvantage — you have to know who these people are that you're going to invite. So how do we go beyond that? If you're having an event, hopefully you have a CRM and a donor database and you're sending emails to them regularly so you know how to invite them. But how do you go beyond that reach?

Jeff: You were talking about social media. Talk a little bit about Instagram or other ways to reach a bigger audience.

Kristen: Instagram is still an effective way to reach people. I think people can be intimidated by Instagram, or think it's on its way out, and it's very much not. Utilizing Instagram posts, telling people why you are hosting your event, the story behind it — whatever your cause is, whatever your objective is — it's really powerful when people can be invested in what's going on. To your point about wanting wealthy people, they get invited to a lot of events and probably attend a lot. Using that power of storytelling on social media, on Instagram, to show them why they should attend your event and why it will be meaningful for them to be there and spend their dollars and their attention — that's key.

Jeff: You mentioned the power of story. Describe the difference for our audience between an Instagram story and an Instagram post.

Kristen: Well, when I say the power of story, I do mean the power of storytelling, but it's a great segue. An Instagram post is something that stays on your feed or profile essentially forever. If I go to Jeff Porter's Instagram, I can see his profile and scroll down and see he was at a wedding, he had a kid graduate — that lives there. That's a permanent post. A story is usually only up for 24 hours. You post your stories, but they're only there for 24 hours and then they disappear. The thing about stories, though, is in this fast-paced, instant-gratification society, with stories you have a better chance of people actually seeing your information. So I recommend doing both.

Jeff: Now, with the story, is it a combination of photos you're putting together? Could you do some sort of thing about your event, or is it just one?

Kristen: You can do a photo collage or different slides. With a story, you can have people tap through different slides and see a progression of your event details. You can get really fancy — do a video with animations, add music that says "come to our event," maybe it's your envelope unfolding. Then you can have a series of slides with the information. You can get really creative with Instagram stories. And even Instagram's reels, which are similar to TikTok, are another option.

Jeff: You have Facebook, Instagram — is it all of them that you have to do, or do you pick and choose based on your audience?

Kristen: As a social media person, I think all of them is good. But again, it goes back to where your audience is hanging out. If you know your guests aren't on Twitter, maybe Twitter isn't a priority. If you're trying to get a celebrity's attention, or you're promoting a celebrity at your event — like if you had a headliner band — you might want to retweet or tag them on Twitter. But it really goes back to where your audience is going to be. Snapchat, if you're trying to reach a college or high school crowd.

Jeff: We're not here to pick on Snapchat. But okay, so you want to be where everybody's at. Or I think you made a good point — depending on the people connected to your event, where are they? For our event, we pulled in the Front Men of Country — the former lead singers of Restless Heart, Little Texas, and Lonestar — and they have a Twitter presence. So we had to be there because we wanted them to tweet about our event and then we wanted to retweet that. I'll be perfectly frank — we don't have a lot of Twitter followers for our small nonprofit. But they do. And sometimes it helps to get connected with people who have that reach.

Kristen: And if you have a local news anchor who's serving as your master of ceremonies, you'll want to put something on Twitter that they can retweet to generate exposure and attract a larger audience.

Jeff: Good point. So we've talked about organic social — Facebook, posting regularly, Twitter and LinkedIn are worth considering too. Having a LinkedIn profile for your nonprofit can go a long way. And then there's this idea of connecting with other people who might help promote your event through their social media channels. We did that with our country music concert — we reached out to the major country station and they said, "Send me three Facebook posts." Then there were some other assets they needed by end of the week. So you've got to have your stuff together. But it was amazing to see — really neat to see, "Wow, I'm up on their website now," underneath upcoming concerts. Or look, they just did an entire Instagram post about our event.

Kristen: And there's a benefit too — community websites are still very effective. A lot of TV and radio stations will let you post your event to their website for free. People can click into what's going on this weekend, and if you have 20 or 30 minutes to fill out their form, your event could be right there.

Jeff: And the worst it was going to cost us — it actually didn't cost anything — but the worst I think it would cost you is possibly a few tickets for that high-profile person, whether it's a news station personality or otherwise.

Kristen: Don't underestimate the power of influencers.

Jeff: So we've covered basic social media, email, and how you can leverage other people's social media to get out there. But even if you don't have access to a celebrity or local media presence on social media, there is this option of paid promotion. Have you ever explored that for an event?

Kristen: Not really, because that space is very noisy. From what I've seen, it's really tough to do in-house on your own if you are a one- or two-person operation — for instance, trying to boost a Facebook post. I think everybody can relate to what that is. It's so nuanced now with privacy laws and algorithms. Unless you have a very engaged, large audience, it's tough to get your paid media in front of people. Now, if you have an agency that's willing to donate their services and help you get your paid media out there, absolutely explore that opportunity. But I think you're going to have better luck with things like local radio stations and news outlets that will put it out there to their larger audiences.

Jeff: I agree. I think it can be really powerful, but it can be really expensive if you don't know what you're doing. Google does have a grants program — it's been a while since I've looked into it — but they will give charities ad budget. You have to apply, and it's quite an application process. Back when I was doing it, it was something like $500 a day in AdWords budget. But if you don't know how to do AdWords, what ironically happens is you get this budget and you still have to pay an agency to set up all your campaigns because it's hard. So it is a little tougher. For our event, we tried a variety of things — like newspaper ads. We did a Kentucky Derby fundraiser in the past, so we published some ads in newspapers and got a nonprofit rate just to see what would happen. The struggle was it did cost us money, we didn't have great control over who was seeing those ads, and let's be honest — you don't just want anybody coming to your fundraiser. You want people who have a propensity to donate. What we found through experimentation was that we could go out, do paid media, promote it, and get people to come, but some of those people were just there for the party. They'd buy their ticket, eat and drink and be merry, but maybe not raise their paddle at the end. It was a good experiment — we don't regret it — but I'd say you want to be a bit careful with that one.

Kristen: As a general rule, there are always exceptions, but paid media is getting harder and harder because it's just so noisy.

Jeff: So then let's talk about the power of repetition. What you've described is, okay, I'm making these posts, maybe I've sent out that one email — but is one email enough?

Kristen: One of nothing is enough. There's nothing that just takes one time and reaches the audience you want in an effective way. It takes repetition. By the end of it, you're going to feel like a broken record, saying the same thing over and over and thinking you've annoyed people to no end. Some of the best marketing advice I ever got is: just when you feel like no one is ever going to talk to you again because you've bothered them about it that much, that's when they're actually just starting to pay attention to your message. One and done does not exist, especially in social media and digital marketing. In our experience, repeating the message over and over tends to be what actually moves the needle. And there are tools out there that can help you rephrase the message so you're not just saying the same thing verbatim, but you're still reinforcing the same point.

Jeff: It's like with sales — sometimes you send five emails to somebody before they'll finally respond. It is absolutely true. You send that one email, no response. Send the second one, no response.

Kristen: I don't even respond to emails from my husband. He's like, "Have you read your email?" "Well, no — can you send that again?"

Jeff: I think you're filtered.

Kristen: Maybe. But it's so funny — you're ready to give up, and then you send that fifth "breakup email," and all of a sudden they're like, "Hey, sorry, I've been busy. I'll get back to you next week." So it does work. Repetition does work.

Jeff: As it relates to text messaging, with those high open rates — obviously you have to have access to people's phone numbers. What's nice about some of the mobile bidding platforms out there is if you stick with them, they keep that information for you and allow you to use it in subsequent years. You can go in, set up your next event, create an invite list, and populate it with everybody who donated to a prior event, everybody who registered last year. You can compile this list out of that data, which is why it's nice to have that information at your fingertips. Then you can send out a mass email or a mass text. We had a client — ironically, it's also the high school where my daughters go — and we were involved at a variety of levels with that one. I saw that invite list work in an amazing way.

Kristen: And even though you get a high open rate on texts, you still need that repetition.

Jeff: What was amazing was — okay, Monday I got a text about registering for this event. Tuesday I got another text. You don't want to overly annoy your folks, but again, the power of repetition: every time I logged in to see what was going on, I continued to see registrations come in as this auction manager, Kristen White — you're a rock star, there's no doubt — was consistently going in there and doing that. She was consistently driving more and more people to register.

Kristen: Which is what you want. And people need to be reminded a lot that it's time to go.

Jeff: The other problem — and I think Denver is not unique in this — we called Denver a "late city." It's really frustrating when you're promoting your event and people aren't buying tickets yet. At our event, our smaller table was $2,400 and the bigger tables were $5,000. Not a cheap event. And we were selling tables the morning of the event.

Kristen: Wow.

Jeff: Right? You're thinking, I've got to give the caterer a headcount. And we just know — sometimes you look at your list and think, "They come every year. Why haven't they bought a table yet?" And then all of a sudden, Friday night — the event's Saturday — you get a table sale. You wake up Saturday morning and they're like, "Hey, we were going to go out of town, but now we're not. Do you still have tickets?" That stuff happens. So don't give up. If you're out there promoting your event and you feel like it's not doing anything, that is not an invitation to stop.

Kristen: Don't stop. And again, that diversity in reaching people — even key sponsors. Maybe you sent them an invitation in the mail, then a follow-up email, then a follow-up phone call. Sometimes just a text — "Hey, haven't heard from you" — is the thing that does it. And they go, "Oh, I'm so sorry, I saw that." You think you're bothering them, but really people just have so much going on. I know people who check their phones the second they roll out of bed, and before that first cup of coffee, they've opened 15 more emails. It's not that they're ignoring you — they just forgot. It was part of their subconscious. You got starred. You got put into a folder.

Jeff: Depending on how people organize their lives. My wife — you're probably on page three by then, but she still knows about it and she's going to get back to you. Whatever you do, keep persistently reminding people, "Hey, we have an event this weekend." And you have to do that across all the channels you've set up.

Kristen: Creating that sense of urgency tends to work — countdowns, deadlines when you can. Five more days, three more days. "This is your last chance." Even if it's way in advance — "This is your last chance for early registration." Giving people those deadlines makes a real difference.

Jeff: Absolutely. And maybe an incentive. Those can work too — "Everybody who registers by the end of the month will be entered into a drawing for a gift card, or a free pair of tickets, or a meet and greet with the band."

Kristen: Those work.

Jeff: So I think this has been a helpful conversation. It was for me — really starting to understand, gosh, there's a lot you have to set up and prepare for. And you're also planning the event itself — dealing with the caterer, venue walkthroughs, and everything else. It's good to have either a dedicated resource or just some dedicated time in your plan. Start early — don't start promoting your event a week before it starts. When would you say to start?

Kristen: I usually start promoting — it depends on the size of the event. I like a save-the-date maybe as early as three months before. But that sweet spot is six to eight weeks — that's when it'll start getting on people's radar. And to your point about Denver, three to four weeks is when they even start thinking, "What are we doing?"

Jeff: So there's a range there for sure. Figure out your save-the-date about three months out. And if you're thinking, "Oh my gosh, it's too late, my event's in two months" — just start now. It's never too late.

Kristen: People will always jump in. And apparently we might do some moves or something — we'll do a TikTok.

Jeff: Yes. I like that. I've never seen that move on TikTok.

Kristen: Oh, I bet you haven't. You'll be a trendsetter.

Jeff: And then obviously get that email list up to date. Start emailing people through your CRM. Find some mobile bidding software that allows you to create text invites — I think that's a powerful way to do it. Any other last parting thoughts?

Kristen: The last thing — I'm all about working smarter and not harder. Most of the tools we mentioned allow you to schedule posts in advance. So you don't have to be at happy hour or jump out of bed in the middle of the night going, "I forgot to do a post." You can schedule them out in advance. There are always supplemental things you can add in, but having that plan ahead of time and scheduling things out will definitely make your job easier.

Jeff: Very good point. And it does take some discipline, but there are marketing tools, even here at Handbid. I've seen that and it's really cool — you can literally schedule all your Facebook posts or LinkedIn posts. That'll save you some heartache, because if you want that post to go out on Monday at 5 p.m., well, guess where you're going to have to be at Monday at 5 p.m. if you can't schedule it.

Kristen: Exactly.

Jeff: Awesome. Well, thank you for joining me today talking about event promotions. I'm definitely going to have to tap into more of your brain when we're ready to promote my next fundraiser.

Kristen: Happy to help. And I want a TikTok to be made. I'm going to make you do the dance.

Jeff: I'll get my high school daughters to do it. They're quite good at it. Or maybe I'll get the Handbid team to do it. We'll see.

Kristen: You get your high school daughters in the front and you in the back and it'll go viral every time. They love the dads in the videos.

Jeff: Well, my mother-in-law has participated in a number of TikToks and those go viral too.

Kristen: I'm sure they do.

Jeff: All right. Well, thanks guys for joining us today, and we'll be back pretty soon with another episode of Elevate Your Event.