Event Marketing 101 for Not for Profits

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1 WHITEPAPER MARCH 2015 Event Marketing 101 for Not for Profits 8 tips to help you reach your event goals Presented by Pro Bono Australia and Eventbrite

2 CONTENTS Introduction... 2 Tip 1: Drive Brand Awareness... 3 Tip 2: Create a Marketing Plan... 4 Tip 3: Design Campaigns to Incentivise Early Purchases... 5 Tip 4: Emotionally Connecting with your Audience... 6 Tip 5: Use a Multi-Channel Approach... 8 Tip 6: Obsess Over your Conversion Rate... 8 Tip 7: Track & Evaluate Success... 8 Tip 8: Review and Re-evaluate... 8

3 INTRODUCTION Events are a popular and effective way to raise money and awareness for your cause. Whether you re a full-time marketing manager at a Not for Profit, or volunteering your time for a cause you care about, chances are you may be asked to organise an event. Promoting the event and achieving success can be daunting for first-time event organisers. Pro Bono Australia and Eventbrite have teamed up to provide best practices for Not for Profit event marketing. In this whitepaper, you ll learn: How to build a holistic marketing plan for your event from start to finish How to design campaigns to incentivise early purchases, and emotionally connect with your audience Best practices for creating awareness, driving conversion, and building engagement with your community When it comes to marketing your event, many organisers have the buffet approach--a little bit of marketing, a sprinkle of social media, a dash of offers and discounts--but not a coherent plan. This approach is inefficient, as organisers just test different tactics in the weeks leading up to the event, but ultimately don t know what drove success or understand how to optimise their efforts for the next event. Rather, our goal today is provide you with the tools to help you create the perfect dish--an event marketing recipe that will teach you how to develop a marketing plan, understand what works, and build a connection with your supporters that lasts long after the event is over.

4 TIP 1: DRIVE BRAND AWARENESS Event marketing is not just about the event itself. It s about creating engagement before, during, and after your event. In order to do that, we first need to take a couple steps back, and talk about brand. How do you define your brand? Driving brand awareness starts well before organising events, but your events (and your overall organisation) will be much more successful if you spend time defining your brand value and weaving this messaging in all points of external communication (your website, press releases, social media, promotional materials, and your event marketing). Think about your target audience. Who are they? What do they care about? What is your point of differentiation? Think about your cause and how your brand ties back to what your audience cares about. Include this positioning into your event marketing: your s, social media promotion, partner advertisement, your website, and certainly your event page. From there, remember to explain the value proposition of your event. Focus on how to answer this question: Why should I donate time or money to help you today? Tie back your marketing to this answer. Build interest and set expectations. Can your attendees learn, earn, or brag? (ie, Will they learn something new? Will they earn something exciting from attending? Will they have something to brag about to their friends after they attend?)

5 Develop multiple pieces of teaser content. Think about all of the different elements of your event: from speakers, partners, and sponsors, to content, prizes, and surprises! Think about how ticket sales tie back to supporting your cause. Create unique pieces of promotional content (including blog entries, social media posts, etc) in order to build excitement about your event. TIP 2: CREATE A MARKETING PLAN Before you start promoting for your event, create a promotional calendar. This calendar will be your guide--your marketing plan--for all of your marketing activities. First, identify all of the different channels you will use to market your event: your website your blog marketing partners and sponsors social media (Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, etc) SEM (search engine marketing) display advertising print advertising Then, create a calendar of the weeks leading up to your event. For a fundraiser, organisers typically start promotion 6-8 weeks ahead of the event. For a larger conference or seminar, promotion can start 3-6 months prior. Some event organisers start promotion a year prior. Next, set sales and registration goals for your entire event. Break this into registration goals per week, and per channel. If you ve organised an event before, and understand what channels drove your sales, then consider this as you build your plan. If you have not, then consider reaching out to partner organisations to find out what s worked best for them. Regardless, it s important to set a benchmark by week and by channel so that as you re promoting your event, you can see how you re tracking, and adjust as you go. Finally, align your promotional calendar with these registration goals so that you know exactly when you plan to send your first, second, third etc, and when you plan your first, second, third social media post etc. If you have an event committee or team helping with your marketing, then share this plan with your stakeholders and assign tasks to specific owners, so that there s accountability and transparency.

6 TIP 3: DESIGN CAMPAIGNS TO INCENTIVISE EARLY PURCHASES Once you ve developed your marketing plan, it s important to be realistic about your ticketing goals. Below is the average lifecycle of a fundraiser, showcasing tickets sales by the weeks of event promotion. Average lifecycle of a fundraiser Most event organisers see a few initial ticket sales in the first week, but the vast majority occur in the last couple weeks leading up to the event. People will still procrastinate, so it s all about first driving the awareness, and then incentivising them to convert early. Consider early bird discounts or a value-add for registering before a set period. Use limited early pricing to pull forward demand:

7 Or, provide limited value-adds, such as giveaways or experiences: Ultimately, remember to tie your event back to your organisation s outcomes. This method can help to drive a sense of urgency from your community, as well as provide a first-hand experience for the donors. Consider including a talk from someone who has benefited from donations, or a program with tangible outcomes that would not have come about were it not for the generosity of those in the room. A guided tour of facilities could be provided as well. TIP 4: EMOTIONALLY CONNECTING WITH YOUR AUDIENCE You have your audience, which is fantastic - but now what do you do with them? The last thing any Not for Profit wants to do is create a successfully attended event, only for the key messages or outcomes to fizzle out. Your audience has taken time out of their busy lives to attend your event. You need to consider the following points to connect with them while you have their attention:

8 Previous donors: Make sure your audience is made to feel a part of the cause. After all, they are the ones helping to fund your mission. Ensure that they know what projects your organisation is pursuing, what tangible outcomes have come about because of your work, and how much you appreciate their support. Bring in a guest. By far, the best way to connect with your audience is to bring in a guest speaker who has benefited directly from your organisation s work. Remember it s difficult for people to see the scale of a large problem and how they can help. By bringing it down to an individual level, donors connect emotionally much more. Take them on a tour. Your donors should feel like VIPs at your event. If you are having an event on-site (recommended as it enhances their connection to you and your organisation), then take them on a tour. Show them where change actually happens and how it is helping to achieve your goals Create a sense of urgency. After you have had a presentation from a guest speaker and taken your audience on a tour, it s time for the ask. This is when people are most likely to commit -- when they are emotionally invested in your cause. Make sure you tie the ask to the tangible outcomes they have just experienced for themselves. Nothing is more powerful than first-hand experience. Potential new donors: Excite them about your mission. There is nothing worse than going to a fundraising event and hearing about the organisation itself, rather than its purpose. You absolutely have to talk about your mission - how will your audience help you achieve this goal? How will they be part of the community affecting this change? Ask a current donor to speak. It s always inspiring to hear a testimonial from someone about their direct experience. Ask one of your donors to speak about the connection they have made with your organisation and how they have felt a part of the outcomes. You don t need to speak about dollar amounts at all - just how the experience made the donor feel empowered. Leave them with information. The initial meeting should be all about generating interest in your cause. Make sure you have plenty of information on hand to pass on to your audience and make your staff available to answer any questions that may arise. Avoid a direct ask. This is your first meeting and it would be pretty forward to ask for a donation straight up. Whilst you may receive some small donations, what you re after is long term donors. This involves a deeper level of engagement. Make sure you excite them about how they can help your organisation and secure their contact information for a follow-up. The ask should come later down the track.

9 TIP 5: USE A MULTI-CHANNEL APPROACH This section will be covered in our upcoming webinar next week! Event Marketing 101 for Not for Profits. Register now! TIP 6: OBSESS OVER YOUR CONVERSION RATE This section will be covered in our upcoming webinar next week! Event Marketing 101 for Not for Profits. Register now! TIP 7: TRACK & EVALUATE SUCCESS This section will be covered in our upcoming webinar next week! Event Marketing 101 for Not for Profits. Register now! TIP 8: REVIEW AND RE-EVALUATE This section will be covered in our upcoming webinar next week! Event Marketing 101 for Not for Profits. Register now!