How to Get People to Your Event

Event planning is a business all its own, but there's no reason you can't plan your next event yourself with a solid strategy. The most important point to get across to your audience is why they should attend your event – don't just tell them the features of the gathering, let them know the benefits they'll receive. For example, saying “Local Business Meeting” is less effective than something like “Meet Other Local Business Owners to Learn and Expand Your Network and Clientele!” Knowing how to differentiate features from benefits and then communicating those benefits to your customers can mean the difference between a successful event and a so-so event. Use good hooks in your titles and expressive and interesting images in your design. Once you have the reader's attention and have explained exactly why they should want to attend your event, you can proceed to give them the details such as time, location, etc. Once you've figured out how to communicate your message and packed it into a motivating design, you can deploy your message in several ways – starting with printing invitations.

Print invitations

rint invitations to your event early, and plan to print them more than once. You might create a special early bird ticket price for those who sign up right away, an advance price for those who sign up a few weeks before your event, and a last-minute deal price leading up to the day of the event. The invitations you print should have a compelling design, and can be deployed in conjunction with other direct-mail and additional marketing strategies.

Direct-mail postcards

Direct-mail postcards are perfect for complementing formal print invitations and can serve as print invitations themselves. Send your formal invitations first, then send a successive series of postcards to entice last-minute attendees to purchase tickets to your event.

Flyers

Newspaper and magazine inserts can be effective ways to promote your event. Print invitations as insert flyers and distribute to well-targeted media outlets that are read by your target audience. This is a great way to get print invitations in front of your customers and complement your direct-mail marketing campaign; and can add credibility to your event.

Print quality invitations

Last but not least, you should print high-quality invitations using premium printing processes, papers and inks. Thick paper stocks make your event seem more credible, and soy inks produce vibrant colors in an eco-friendly fashion that does not harm the environment. When it comes to direct mail, make sure your mailing list is well-targeted so you do not waste your marketing efforts or dollars.

When you take a solid approach to your event marketing strategy, you can print invitations and distribute them to just the right people, at the right place, and at the right time. This will get them to your event; and once they're at your event, you can work on turning prospects into customers.