If you are new to event marketing, you may struggle to time your marketing communications for optimum impact. If we ignore the ‘gurus’ for a moment – who claim to be able to predict when a tweet or email reminder will reach the greatest number of eyeballs – we can see that there seems to be a timeline that can help you with promoting your event. Let’s look at a rough timescale for promoting your event effectively online.

6 weeks before your event:

• Book your venue and performers. Arrange any food and drink required and make arrangements for security.
• Share event details with your audience through online channels such as your website, partner websites, social media platforms, and email lists. Consider eco-friendly options before printing physical invites and flyers
• If you have video footage of past events featuring the same artist(s), upload it to YouTube to catch people curious about the featured artists. As a bonus, video content is extremely well-optimized for search engines, so it will boost the chance of your content getting exposure online.

3 weeks before your event

Submit your event to as many listing sites as possible.

Tip: If you’re using Evvnt to promote your event on multiple listing sites, we recommend scheduling it to go out no more than three months in advance. Since different websites have different editorial and content approval calendars, your event information may not receive enough attention if promoted more than three months ahead of time.

2 weeks before your event

Send out an email informing your subscribers of the event. You can find some tips on how to combine your email marketing with your social media in this post.

1 week before your event

• Start promoting the event on social media with relevant, high-volume hashtags and tagging the relevant accounts (e.g. #comedy, #camdenevents).
• Publish the event on your Facebook page. You can set this up in advance as a draft and just tweak it as necessary later to save time in the run-up to your event. You can do this either directly on Facebook or using one of the external tools available. Tag your artists/partner pages and ask them to share to capitalise on their reach.
• If you are promoting your event with an SMS campaign or mobile flyer,  then it’s time to send a message with brief event details and a website link to notify your potential attendees. A mobile campaign can be one of the most effective ways to promote events with regard to response numbers – there are many low-cost SMS marketing providers out there that can help you.

4 days before your event

Consider sending another reminder email to your subscriber list to remind people who may wish to attend your event but have forgotten the date. Do be careful not to send too many emails, however, as you may soon find people are sending your emails straight to spam.

There are different views on the maximum number you should send, but we recommend no more than 2 a week, as the main reason people give for unsubscribing from mailing lists is that they are receiving emails too frequently.

Likewise, you should consider sending a reminder message now.

3…2…1…

In the final few days before your event takes place, keep promoting your event on your social channels. Your posts should be useful and informative, not dressed-up ads. So whether you are providing a piece of interesting news, a guestlist invite, or a special offer – don’t throw away your followers’ goodwill on endless posts that provide little value.

The day of your event:

If you have plans to repeat the event, consider posting during the event to drum up awareness for the next occasion. One of the best ways to gain followers is by using @mentions and reposting other people who are engaging in your event.

Remember, no marketing strategy should exist in a vacuum, and cross-referencing all of your content should produce a multiplier effect, hopefully resulting in more attendees in seats.

Browse more advice on event marketing.