Publicise Your Event for Free
I recently read a guest blog on Events-guru.co.uk, about the free channels you can use to publicise an event, which I thought many of you would find very helpful. Tim Kern, the CEO of GetPromotd, a dashboard to help create, automate and analyse online event promotion, provided some great tips on free marketing for your event.
Some of the ideas Tim suggests in the blog include using social media as a targeted approach that lets those who have opted-in to hear your news, know about your event. He also suggests social media websites that you may not have heard about like Reddit, Stumbleupon and creating a network on image-based platforms like Pinterest. Other suggestions included using event calendars and bulletin boards to grow inbound links and exposure to your event website and using classified listings to market your event to your local area. Another tip was to send guest posts to relevant blogs or ask that details of your event be included on the blogs. Sending press releases to websites is a great way to promote your event for free. As Tim says in the blog: “At worst, you’ll again be just building inbound links to your website. At best, you’ll be doing arguably the easiest thing to get in front of the eyes of the press.”
You can read Tim’s full blog by clicking here.
A good addition to Tim’s advice is to try to get your local media to cover your event. Many of your local media organisations will be listed in the yellow pages and the library but a great online source is http://www.newspapersoc.org.uk/, which should include local and regional daily and weekly papers (including free sheets), local press and photographic agencies and many more. If you send in a press release, follow it up after two or three days, check whether it was received and if anyone will attend/cover your event. This can improve the level of coverage and provides an extra opportunity to publicise the event.
As Tim suggested in his blog, using the classified listings or ‘What’s On’ page of your local media can be very useful but they often have a long lead time so get in touch early. Another great option is the Letters to the Editor page. You would need to link your event to a local topical issue but it is a good opportunity for publicity especially if the media is reluctant to cover the event in their features and news pages.
You can also try contacting your local radio stations, for both news and for an interview. Try http://www.mediauk.com/radio to find your nearest station.
Here at Exhibitions.co.uk we can help you to get started with publicising your event for free. We provide two of the free marketing channels that Tim spoke about. We have an online diary of forthcoming UK exhibitions and events where organisers can upload their event information for free on the site. We also publish press releases, about exhibitions, the event industry on the whole or exhibition suppliers, on our news pages for free. Along with publishing the press releases we post on Facebook and tweet the news to our followers, helping you to reach an even larger audience who have all opted in because they are interested in the events and exhibitions industry.
Exhibitions is the UK’s leading online resource for people to find the latest Trade Shows and Events, and top industry suppliers. We have over 48,000 monthly unique users and have been serving the events industry 1996. So, when you are considering how to publicise your event, make sure that we are at the top of your list!
Lauren Cayless White
Editor