One of the first advertising jobs I had was working on a midnight movie film festival for a local movie theater chain. We had a very limited budget and were forced to do a lot of different things to get our message out and in the process I learned a lot about event advertising. In a lot of ways event advertising is easier than advertising a product or brand. Your only competitors are other events going on at the time and the TV at home. If you know exactly what your competition is, it’s a lot easier to plan an ad campaign. Unlike most other advertising however you are working against the clock. Every day you aren’t getting your message in front of people it’s a wasted opportunity. For event advertising, think of time as a perishable item. Thankfully, internet advertising has made it possible to take advantage of every hour of every day to advertise your event.
It doesn’t matter if you have a brand or an event, just having a website isn’t advertising. When we created the ad campaign for the midnight film festiva,l our homepage was only a small part of our campaign. We had a MySpace page that allowed people to vote on what films they wanted to see (this was back when MySpace was still a viable medium), we had a forum set up so people could discuss the movies and share articles and websites they liked. We even encouraged film professionals to visit and talk with fans and put over the festival online, and we had someone watch the forum daily to make sure it was on message and to stimulate conversation. The forum was one of the most important things we did because it gave a voice and a personality to the event and helped us with search engine marketing and made sure we were on the first page of relevant Google searches.
With the film festival event we had one major tool given to us before we even started a core audience. If you have a few hundred people coming to your event right when it’s posted online and you don’t use those people to help grow your audience then that’s just another wasted opportunity. You can use your core audience to spread the word across the web and get some fan generated content online. (The best endorsement after all is word-of-mouth) You could organize them to make your event the trending topic on twitter (it worked for MGM Studios, and the G4 network recently) You could give incentives for anyone who invites people on Facebook. Speaking of incentives, that brings me to my next point.
One of the things we did was give people a reason to go to our website beyond just the event info. Contests are a great way to your marketing campaign forward without constantly bombarding them with straightforward ads. We gave away action figures, posters, clothes, and other inexpensive trinkets, none of which really cost more than the price of the ticket. It was an easy way to get people excited about the festival.
The Midnight Movie Festival was actually really successful. We had a great showing every night. However if we had all the resources then that the Internet (and more specifically – social media) offers now I really think we could have been a phenomenal success. Specifically, I think we could have gotten good use out of YouTube. I would have shown clips and other relevant vintage videos and really given the festival its own vibe. YouTube can be a great way to give your event personality and really get your audience excited. Upload footage of a previous year’s event or show videos of your company preparing and getting excited. If they think you’re psyched about working on it the odds are they are going to be psyched about going to it.
Ultimately using the Internet for event advertising is as simple as taking advantage of every opportunity possible. Whether it’s using your core audience, other companies in cross promotions, games, or sites like MySpace, Facebook, and YouTube. It’s all about getting your message out to as many people as possible in a limited span of time.
Last 5 posts by joshuasinason
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