Thread: best method to promote an event

What do you think is the best way to promote an event? Paper fliers, word of mouth, mailed postcards, ads in dance newsletters, facebook invites, etc.
I would love to hear your opinions. I guess we need to embrace all methods, but it will be good to hear what you think!
Thanks!

Most of the event sponsors in my area have switched to electronic publicity. I don't know how effective it is, but it's certainly much cheaper than paper mailings. I think paper flyers on bulletin boards and tables at workshops have a place (how else do you reach people who aren't already on your mailing list?), but that's a much smaller printing commitment than mailing to all the potential customers you know.

It also depends on the scale of your event. If you're putting a major event together and want to draw people from out of town, you need more aggressive publicity, and it makes sense to put more money into fancier advertising. I'm puzzled by why the Bhuz Events board always seems so dead. Doesn't anybody read it? At any given time, there are always at least two or three events I know are happening nearby but aren't listed there.

I've had good success with getting blurbs placed in community newspapers. E-mail me at andalee.oriental at gmail dot com if you want more information.

I actually hear about most events on Facebook and through the Bhuz forums.

I feel like facebook is more and more the most efficient way to promote things, because it does a lot of the "word of mouth" effect for you by posting to newsfeeds

I actually got to participate in a really big show because I saw that a friend had rsvp'd to it on FB and I clicked on the event and saw that they needed more performers

I agree that online advertising is inexpensive and relatively useful. I don't think people realize how little one announcement does, though. It has to be a more consistant thing to really get attention. I do love twitter & facebook because it allows me to make little announcements all along the way.

I also think ads work via repetition. It's good to be in as many different mediums as possible. It's useful to have some continuity or branding to your ads so that when they are seen in different places it is immediately recognizable as yours.

I agree that it's good to use a variety of methods.

Personally I like an email directly in my inbox - it's hard to ignore. I think that most events I go to, I hear about them from a) a local listserv, or b) direct mailing from a dancer's mailing list.

I would like an email or facebook event invite and an attached flier that I could forward or print for students. Also, there's a dance company in my area that hosts a big workshop annually that usually brings in fairly big name people. She mails flyers and then a follow up post card. BUT!! She has no web presence/web site, doesn't use facebook (that I know of) and the last few years she's provided tons of information about the dancer who's teaching but nothing about what topic the workshop will be about. I'm not paying $65-85 for a mystery workshop. I don't care who's teaching or how many years of experience they have. Hope this helps!