How to Promote Your Events and Specials Online

Tips & Tools to Promote Your Events, Specials and Sales Online

Sean Barkulis – Co-Founder of UPlanMehttp://www.UPlanMe.com

http://www.UPlanMe.com/

Copyright © UPlanMe, Inc. 2011. All Rights Reserved.2

Are you a restaurant, bar, club, clothing store or other small business looking to promote your events, specials, sales and promotions to drive customers?

Presentation Will Address the Following to Drive Customers to Your Event

1. Promotion through Social Media

a. Facebook Pages

b. Twitter Account

2. Customer E-mail Lists

3. Adding Events to Your Website

4. Utilizing Location Based Services

5. Inclusion / Promotion on 3rd Party Websites

6. Tools to Manage the Above

Introduction to Online Event Promotion


Creating a Facebook page for your business is an invaluable tool in communicating and engaging with customers on events, specials and sales

Facebook Pages

1. Allows you to create and publish events and share with existing customers

2. Post quick status updates that will be seen directly into your customers’ newsfeeds

Pros

3. Over 1.0 billion people use Facebook on a monthly basis

4. Communicate with your customers wherever they are

Cons

5. Facebook limits how many followers will see your updates w/out paid advertising

6. You cannot invite followers to events

Social Media Facebook - http://www.facebook.com/pages/create.php

Pro Tip: Increase Facebook Page fans by including links to your Facebook Page on your website and with in-store signage


Having a Twitter account allows you to send short, simple updates to your customers regarding events, specials, sales and promotions

Twitter Accounts

1. Twitter is used by social media savvy consumers who will follow you to learn about short 140 character updates from your business

2. Your twitter followers can amplify your message by ‘re-tweeting’ it to their followers

Pros

3. Great way to communicate simple updates

4. Ability to spread your message to potential customers

Cons

5. If your followers are not actively on twitter when you post, they will most likely miss your message

6. 140 characters limits the length of your message and what you can convey

Social Media Twitter - http://www.twitter.com

Pro Tip: Increase Twitter followers by including links to your Twitter on your website and with in-store signage


E-mail lists are a great way to convey daily, weekly, or monthly specials and updates directly into your customers’ inboxes

Customer E-mail Lists

Customer E-mail Lists

1. Acquiring your customers’ e-mails gives you a direct line of communication to convey your upcoming events and specials

2. There are a host of web services like MailChimp which allow you to design effective communications and track your newsletter / e-mail campaigns’ success rates

Pros

3. E-mails stay in the customers’ inbox until they read or delete the message

4. E-mails allow you to convey as much content and information as you like

Cons

5. Open rates and click through rates tend to be low for e-mail campaigns

6. It can be difficult to convince customers to share their e-mail

Pro Tip: Limit the number of e-mails you to send to customers so as to not become redundant or ignored

http://mailchimp.com/


Include your events, specials and sales on your website so that existing and potential customers can find out what you have going on

Updating Your Website

Events on Your Website

1. Potential customers find your website when they are specifically looking for more information about your business (Through Yelp or Google Search)

2. Use this chance to notify these potential customers of your upcoming events, specials and sales

Pros

3. Events and specials could convert a potential customer into an actual customer

4. Tools, like UPlanMe allow you to embed your upcoming calendar of events directly on your website

Cons

5. If your web experience is limited, it can be difficult to continually update your website with your events and specials without the help of an embeddable calendar

Pro Tip: Make sure your upcoming events and specials are in a noticeable place on your website. Don’t make it difficult for potential customers to find

http://www.UPlanMe.com/for-businesses


“LBS” applications are mobile services that connect with potential customers whenever they may be near your store

Location Based Services (“LBS”)

Location Based Services

1. Location Based Services are mobile applications that provide their users with geo-targeted content, to a highly captive audience

2. Applications include: travel info, city guides, networking apps, dating apps, check-in services that are all specific to a person’s location. Most notably Foursquare and Yelp

Pros

3. These services give you the ability to tap into 1,000s of potential customers whenever they may be near your store’s location

4. Users of these applications are near your store and ripe to hear about your events and specials

Cons

5. There are 1,000s of location based service applications available to potential customers, all focused on a different category; this makes it difficult for you as a business to provide your events, specials and sales to each one

Pro Tip: LBS applications utilize UPlanMe for their extensive database of events and sales. Be sure to add your events to UPlanMe for maximum reach

http://www.foursquare.com/

http://www.yelp.com/

http://www.UPlanMe.com/


Many local newspapers and city event guides have websites that allow you to include your events (some free and some for a fee)

Promoting via 3rd Party Websites

3rd Party Websites

1. Placing your upcoming events, specials and sales on third-party websites can help spread the word to many potential customers

Pros

2. If you can find websites that allow you to upload your event to their visitors, it is essentially free advertising

Cons

3. Identifying the right websites and spending the time to promote your events and specials to each website can be extremely tedious and time consuming

4. If you have to make a change to your event or special at the last minute, it can be cumbersome to go back and change the details on all of these websites

Pro Tip: Reach out to your local newspaper or city guides well in advance of the event or promotion date to give ample time for approval and posting


Managing and promoting your events via social media, customer e-mails, LBS applications, and websites is simply too much work for the local business

Difficulties with promoting across these various platforms:

1. Social Media tends to only focus on existing customers, not potential customers

2. The amount of time to manage upcoming events and specials is just too difficult for the small-business owner

3. The cost to promote via advertising or to hire a firm to do this for you is too unreasonable for local businesses

4. A last minute change or update to the event can be lost across all of these various channels

Solution

UPlanMe has created the first online platform for local businesses to manage and promote their upcoming events, daily/weekly specials, happy hours, in-store sales, live music, promotions, etc. across the web through one simple to use interface

Tools to Manage Event Promotion Across the Web

Pro Tip: With UPlanMe, when you make a change to an event, it automatically updates on your website, Social Media channel and third party websites

http://www.UPlanMe.com/for-businesses


Manage Your EventsSpend your time more efficiently with UPlanMe

UPlanMe is your end-to-end events and schedule management solution.

Mass-upload all of your events and specials at one time

View detailed analytics and demographics of attendees

Print RSVP lists

Create and sell tickets


Promote Your EventsEvents on UPlanMe reach potential customers far and wide

Once events, schedules and promotions are uploaded to our system, they reach consumers wherever they might be, whenever they’re ready to engage!

They appear on your own websites via our

embeddable calendar.

They appear as events on your Facebook pages and as Tweets to your Twitter

page.

They appear to UPlanMe users in their custom calendar and on our “Discover page” of

upcoming national events.

They get picked up by media sites, blogs, 3rd party publishers, LBS

applications to reach 1000’s of new

customers


UPlanMe enables brands and businesses to push specials, promotions and events across the web and into customers’ calendars to seamlessly keep them up-to-date.

CREATOR CONSUMER

INFLUENCER / PUBLISHER

The Online Ecosystem for Event PromotionIt all happens here, all in one place!


UPlanMe Premium BenefitsIncrease your reach across the web with our Premium Package

Gain additional management tools and promotional reach by becoming a Premium Member for only $15 a month! Gain one new customer and it pays for itself!

Embeddablecalendar for your

website

Publish events to Facebook &

Twitter

EventsIncluded in

weekly emails to potential customers

TrackRSVPs & print

guest-lists

Events appear directly in

customers’ calendars

View detailed customer analytics

Mass upload all of your

events all at once

Distribution to 1000,s of customers

through UPlanMe’s

Publisher Network

FREE

PREMIUM


Don’t get left behind! What brands have already hopped on the bandwagon?

Many national brands and local businesses are already leveraging their UPlanMe calendars to drive engagement.

…And more and more each day!

How to Promote Your Events and Specials Online

Business

Transcript of How to Promote Your Events and Specials Online