10.5. Promoting Your Event

Creating Promotional Materials

You might be asked to help create or proofread materials like:

• Event posters or flyers – these are usually the size of a standard piece of paper and easy to post in high-visibility areas. The graphics components of Word and PowerPoint can often serve this need in a pinch.

• Email invitations – these are generally used to send the first round of information to your target audience, often via the mail merge process, and they have basic information, including a link to find more information on the web or a phone number to call

• Social media posts – can be regularly scheduled and timed to keep the audience interested in learning more.

• Website updates – if your company has an active web presence and is comfortable offering up part of that real estate to your marketing efforts, this might be a great way to optimize the  promotion of a larger event to folks who are already fans of your company

Keep these tips in mind:

• Use clear and simple language. Include what, when, where, and how to register or attend.

• Make sure the tone matches the audience (professional vs. casual).

• Check spelling, grammar, and names—mistakes can make the organization look unprofessional. The best practice is to have someone unfamiliar with the event proofread your materials to help you find and correct errors before the campaign goes out to the public.

• Ask if your company has branding rules (like logo placement, colours, or fonts) and follow them.

• Being organized and respectful with timing is important. Don’t send too many messages, but make sure people have enough notice so they can get your event on their calendar before it fills with other opportunities.

The tools mentioned earlier in this chapter can help you make materials that look clean and polished, even without a design background. Give yourself time to get familiar with the software and have fun learning all the features that you haven’t discovered yet.

Promoting the Event

Once materials are ready, it’s time to share them. As the Office Administrator, you may be asked to:

• Send out invitations by email or calendar invite – keep notes about your timing so that this can be reviewed during the debriefing process

• Post updates to social media – as was mentioned previously, carefully time these and space them out so folks stay interested and engaged. Consider developing a dedicated hashtag to add searchability to your posts for future reference.

• Print and post flyers in common areas

• Send reminders a few days before the event

Remember – the key to promotion is to get folks excited about what is to come! Don’t give away too much before the event occurs.