6 Best FREE Tools, Ideas For Show Promotion

Once you've planned the perfect show or event, you are then faced with the uncomfortable necessity of getting people to actually attend. Luckily, there are a variety of tools and strategies out there for doing precisely that.

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Guest post by Ronnie Higgins of EventbriteYou’ve organized a can’t-miss event. You’ve settled on a venue, enlisted performers or speakers, and dialed in on details. And you’ve set up your ticketing options.Now, you’re faced with the most daunting challenge: getting people to attend.Event promotion doesn’t have to be hard, and it doesn’t have to be expensive. In fact, there are plenty of free event promotion options that can drive serious sales. Here are the top six to consider when promoting your event.

Free event promotion idea #1: Choose the right name for your event

There are a lot of events out there for people to choose from. The very first step to getting their attention is to give yours an impactful name. The right name will serve a few purposes:

Arouse curiosity, compelling people to want to learn more
Not just describe your event, but help create an “event brand”
Make it easier for search engines to index, so people find your event when they search for things to do

Be sure to include important keywords — like digital marketing, entrepreneurs, sales— to describe the events to both potential attendees and search engines.

Free event promotion idea #2: Customize the URL

Your event page’s URL is another opportunity to increase the number of people who’ll find out about your event. The URL is the website address at the top of the browser window, and search engines pay attention to it when they rank sites.If you’re creating a website to support your event (and you should be), investigate your options for customizing your URL. Choose a URL that describes your event clearly in as few characters as possible.If you create your event on Eventbrite’s free platform, an event page is automatically generated for your event. Via your Event Dashboard, you can edit this page’s URL.For instance, say your automatic URL looks like this:

The 6 Best Free Ideas and Tools for Event Promotion

Click “Edit” in the bottom right corner, and you can change it to something like this:

Free event promotion idea #3: Personalize your emails

With the advent of GDPR and other global consumer privacy regulations, doing email “the right way” is critical. That means using a legitimate email marketing platform to send your messages — one that allows people to opt in and out easily.Many of these platforms allow for email personalization, which speaks directly to each recipient in your database of hundreds or thousands. For instance, you can populate the subject line or body of your email with the recipient’s name.Eventbrite customers can send personalized emails right through the Eventbrite tool. Eventbrite also integrates with other major email marketing providers like MailChimp, Emma, HubSpot, and AWeber.

Free event promotion idea #4: Create an “official” Facebook Event

Facebook Events is a powerful marketing channel. Facebook’s robust user data allows the platform to expertly serve up event information to users who are most likely to care. This extends your reach to people who wouldn’t otherwise hear about your event.But there are a lot of Facebook Events to compete with in the news feed. One of the best ways to get a leg up on the competition is to create your Facebook Event directly through your Eventbrite event. Thanks to Eventbrite’s partnership with Facebook, when you do so, Facebook considers your Event “official” — deserving of higher ranking.Even better, events created on Facebook via Eventbrite automatically include a “Get Tickets” button to make it easy as possible for users to register.

Free event promotion idea #5: Use your attendees to help you promote

In the social media age, your attendees are one of your strongest marketing tools. Motivate them to share your event by providing content they’ll be excited to engage with and repost. Create custom event hashtags so people can get “in the club” with your event before it even happens.Tip: If you’re intimidated about how to get started marketing your event on social media, read How to Promote an Event on Social Media in 12 Steps.

Free event promotion idea #6: Use tracking links to keep track of everything

One of the most important aspects of your event marketing should be tracking it. If you’re not monitoring the performance of your marketing campaigns, and actively adjusting your strategy over time, you’ll lose momentum.Tracking links will help you find out where your ticket buyers come from. If you’re using Eventbrite, you can set up tracking links for your email marketing, social network efforts, and any marketing you do with partners or sponsors. In this way, you can see which channels are performing well and which need work.Once you’ve put all of these free event promotion ideas into place, you will start to see the momentum build around your event. But first, you need to make sure your event page is prepared to start selling tickets. Create your next event on Eventbrite today.Ronnie Higgins works at Eventbrite, helping event planners level-up their registration game. Born and raised in New Orleans, there’s nothing he enjoys more than helping people get together—whether it’s for a conference, class, or a city-wide party like Mardi Gras.