Gaining Coverage of Your Event
Definition:
Promoting your event through traditional media, social media, and personalized channels.
What it is: Creating publicity, promotion, and buzz to make your event successful. Holding an event that no one attends or that nobody hears about will not constitute a successful event. Utilizing traditional media, social media, and key influencers, you can gain the coverage needed for your event to be successful.
What it does: If you gain the needed coverage of your event before and after the event, you can create the needed engagement and attendance from your target audience as well as the intended publicity for your company or cause.
Uses:
How is it used: By promoting your event through traditional media, social media, and key influencers, you can create the desired engagement necessary for your event to be a success.
Where: There are many kinds of events for which you can gain coverage. See the tool in this library titled Event Planning that will review the types of events that you might want to plan.
Why: If you do not have adequate coverage of your event you will not have the attendance or the publicity desired.
Limitations:
Where it shouldn't be used: If you have a private event, for which you want to avoid publicity, then you do not want to gain any coverage of your event.
Any restrictions: Be careful not to promise things you can not provide at the event or place the sponsoring organization in a bad light by the way you publicize the event.
Warnings: Promotion of your event can bring too many people, the wrong people, or be so non-specific that people cannot find your event. Be careful to follow the suggestions in the step-by-step process to avoid these situations.
Demonstrations:
Event Marketing: 17 Things Every Event Promotion Should Have
Event Marketing - strategies & social media for event marketing
How To Get 1000 People At Your Event [part 1] | How To Throw A Festival
How To Get 1000 People At Your Event [part 2] | How To Throw A Festival
Step-by-Step Process:
Event promotion strategy: The strategy for the promotion of the event must be consistent with the strategy laid out for the overall event. See the strategies for developing an event in the Event Planning section.
To attract media coverage, answer the following questions:
Will it be newsworthy and unique?
Will it be important to the target audience?
How will the target audience interact and engage with the event before, during, and after the event?
Target audience: The target audience for the event must be identified. Who are they, what are they interested in, and how will they engage with the event? How does the event relate to them and what they are looking for?
Unique event and content: What makes the event unique to this audience? Don't be the third fun run announced for that weekend; have an event that creates some "WOW" factor (If it is a fun run, does it have slime, mud, or leggo obstacles? What makes it original and creative?). How is your media content interesting and engaging for the target audience? How does your content link the audience to the event?
Where is it?
Why is it being held?
What time does it start, what events start at specific times during the event, and what time does it end?
Where is parking, how is it accessed, and what does it cost?
Is all of the logistical information well communicated and easily found?
Is there a special page on your website for the event?
Is there a special website for the event?
Is there a special app for the event?
Did you create fun and engaging content for the event, including video, images, games, and interactive content?
Connecting with local media: Start by connecting with local media, with the hope that it will get picked up in a larger geography. Connect with both traditional media and social media, and utilize the processes described in Pitching Media to find and leverage media influencers:
Traditional media includes TV, radio, newspapers, posters, flyers, etc. Find a way to align your event and its objectives with the past objectives of the targeted traditional media. This will require research and effort as described in Pitching Media.
Social media is best when it engages the target audience in activities before and during the event. An example would be to sponsor a scavenger hunt utilizing mobile devices to provide clues and record successes. You can also buy low-cost and effective promotional advertising on social media platforms like Facebook, X (Twitter), Instagram, etc.
Local organizations may have goals aligned with your event. Ask them to co-sponsor or promote the event to their organizations
Engaging key influencers: Key influencers are the gatekeepers to a special interest group. Engaging them in your events can be crucial to effective promotion.
Find influencers, bloggers, and gatekeepers to special interest groups that are part of your target audience. Work with the influencers and gatekeepers to become engaged in your event and have them promote it to their communities and followers. Key influencers may need to be paid or compensated in some way for their promotion of your event.
Utilize multiple channels: While having a viral video can be helpful, it is hard to predict what will go viral, and it may not meet the goals you have established for your event. Do not count on viral content doing your job for you. It is important that you become omnipresent to your target audience through multiple channels.
Utilize multiple channels so your target sees your event multiple times and adds credibility to the event. When they see the event on different media and in different settings, it appears that everyone is going to the event, and it becomes more credible and desirable.
Utilize multiple TV shows and networks, multiple social media platforms, multiple influencers, multiple bloggers, flyers, posters, etc.
Template for Capturing Data:
Output Representation and Recommendations:
Summarize the strategy, why you are holding the event, the target audience, what promotion you will have, the details of what the actual event will be, and its desired outcomes.