Event planners and publicist often wonder where to start in order to boost ticket sells and raise public awareness for their event. However, quite often many practitioners start too late. Planning for an event requires multiple levels of strategy. Publicist, Organizers, and Event Planners must think about the communication strategy pre-event, during the event and post event.
This year, April Communicates facilitated a marketing and public relations plan for the 19th Annual West 18th Street Fashion Show. In this article we will explain ways to facilitate the plan with ease. Check out this list of things to do when planning a communications strategy for your event.
Create the Pre-Event Strategy:
Consider the goal. Discuss the key elements that are important to the event organizers. This helps to create expectations and also to define reachable goals.
Prioritize key goals for the marketing and PR plan.
Identify key elements of the event. This helps practitioners or planners to dive into the small details of the plan in order to reach the end goal.
Discuss weaknesses within the prior plan or process. Planners can always learn from strategies that did not work. Discussing what the organizers have tried, or reviewing areas in your previous plan that did not work will aid practitioners in meeting the teams expectations.
Build a team! People want opportunity. Build a strong team to help facilitate the plan. Establish monthly meetings with your team. This helps to sure the team is on board and connecting with each other.
Discuss the on-site media plan.
Develop a list of potential on-site media guest and start making connections. Let the media know you are facilitating the plan so they know who to reach out to.
Create a Social Media Plan:
Create content. Plan to have a photographer at meetings, events, or other important gatherings that lead up to the event. Be sure to capture photos at some of the meetings. Behind the scenes footage helps to garner curiosity. Viewers wonder what the end product will look like. Sharing these photos helps the audience to connect with the event.
Work ahead: Gather the key-player‘s social media handles. This will help save time when it comes to sharing the post. Social media managers can save time because they will not have to search far and hard to properly credit individuals in social media post. Tagging guest in social media post from your public business page allows the subjects tagged to re-share the post to their audience, therefore extending your reach.
Use a social media tool or application to plan and schedule your social media post. There are many applications to help Social Media Managers and users post more efficiently. In an article titled," Top 25 Social Media Tools For Marketers," Forbes Contributor, Steve Olenski shares a full list of third-party apps designed to make sharing post easier.
Keep the conversation going:
Finally, don't forget about the guest/media experience at the actual event. Create an interactive space for the audience to engage. The photo below is from the 2017 Rightfully Sewn Golden Gala. Instead of a having a traditional red carpet, we personalized the media space to relate to the theme. Media and guest were able to capture footage for social media on the "Gold Carpet." For this event, April Dion facilitated an onsite communication strategy.
On the day of the Golden Gala 2017, event goers and media had the opportunity to take photos and complete interviews on the carpet. This extended the conversation because the attendees were able to share their photos and videos from the event.
Do you have an event this year? Please reach out to us to help you reach your audience for your event april@aprilcommunicates.com.