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Marketing can take place using a wide range of methods, some are very cheap, and others cost more and take a little more time to plan and produce.

Marketing tactics refer to the methods you use to achieve your strategic aims and objectives. These methods are often called 'Tactics', and can include printed materials; brochures, leaflets, flyers and posters, as well as information sent out in emails, spread by word of mouth, adverts in relevant papers or publications and websites.

It is not always necessary to try and use every single form of marketing, rather to chose methods that you can afford and that will deliver the information you want to the people you want to influence.

In fact, you may need to be careful to ensure that you keep within safe audience capacity numbers and not over-promote your event.

The next section will explain some more about how to get to know your audience, and how to make marketing decisions to target them.

Printed Materials like flyers, leaflets or brochures can be used in a flexible way and can be distributed in different ways. It is important to plan the distribution of your materials thoughtfully. Printing lots of flyers does not necessarily mean that lots of people will pick them up and come along. Consider the kind of places you think your audience will be frequenting, whether you are trying to attract visitors to the area as well as your local community. If you research the places you would like to distribute to before you get your materials printed, you will be able to plan out the quantities you need. It has been proven that targeted mailing and distribution will secure more audience than a blanket method that sends print out everywhere.

There are a variety of ways you can send out or put out printed materials:

  • In large quantities (bulk) posted or taken to places of work, arts centres, libraries, leisure centres, schools, colleges, pubs, post offices, local shops, cafes or tourist information centres, so that passing trade can pick them up
  • Delivered door to door by volunteers
  • They can be inserted into a local magazine or newspaper
  • Handed out at similar events by volunteers
  • Handed out in the street by a 'Street Team' of volunteers
  • Posted to people on your mailing list (this has a cost, so plan this wisely)
  • Posted to people up who came to your event in previous years.

People can pick them up and take away for reference, and if they are distributed in well-used places, they can enlarge the kinds of people that know about your work as well as expand your audience. So you can use printed materials to contact people that have already signed up to your mailing list, as well as people that you don't know and who are new to your work.

Posters are another printed form of marketing that, when hung in the right places can spread the word about your event. Drawing up a targeted list of places that will be seen by a large number of people is the best approach, rather than sending them out to a range of organisations where you can't control if or where they are hung. Volunteers can take them out and put them up with the consent of shop owners, and organisations. (See the 'Producing Printed Publicity' section for more on the design and production of posters)

Emails can be a very cheap way of communicating what you are planning with your audience. Bear in mind that you can only use email to contact people that have signed up to your mailing list and have supplied their email addresses. A bonus when you use email is that you can send attachments like schedule and listing leaflets as attachments and it is free.

Electronic communication saves on the costs of paper, printing and postage, but is also an environmentally friendly option.

There are some resources available on line if you would like to set up your own regular e-mail newsletters (you could do something like this yourself, these companies create images, and designs that will come up as part of an email, not just as text).

Mail Chimp
www.mailchimp.com
Costs around £90 per year

Constant Contact
www.constantcontact.com
Costs around £75 for up to 500 contact e-mail addresses

Patron Mail
www.patronmail.com
Costs around £170 per year for unlimited contacts

Websites can be a very effective way of communicating all of your event or project information in one place. If they are designed well, and easy to use, visitors can come back again and again. There are several things to remember when deciding on whether to use a website or not. They can be costly; you can commission a designer to build one for you, or use a ready-made site provided on-line. They will need updating all the time in order that they look fresh and have up to date information. There is the potential for them to become very good resources, however, for showing images, and keeping audiences up to date throughout the year as to what your organisation is planning for the next event.

Word of mouth is one of the most effective ways of getting people to come along, but it's difficult to control. Encouraging volunteers to talk to friends is a good method, or setting up a group of 'ambassadors' who can talk to other people at events or at work across the area or county where you are based. Word of mouth will also happen if your marketing is interesting and your event works well; it's another incentive to be welcoming to audiences and to make sure that they have a good time.

Listings or adverts are a good way of including information about your event on websites or in local magazines or papers. There might be a small fee for an actual advert in local newspapers, but most local, community or parish magazines and newspapers will carry listings on local events for free, particularly if they are for charity. Online listings sites are also very useful and generally free. Your local district council and county council will run an online events listings section, and other organisations like community councils run them too. You can also search online (use www.google.co.uk ) for arts specific listings too. Some sites will allow you to enter details straight into the site, others you will need to email with your event details.

There are a few local listings sites that could be useful.

©Somerset County Council 2012    


The Event Planner has been produced by Tiina Taatila, Tiihee Event Management & Marketing for Somerset County Council