Marketing SciComm Events: A Workshop for Event Organizers
Getting an audience – and the right audience – is maybe the hardest part of running an event. The Edinburgh Skeptics run over sixty popular science events a year, often sell-out. David Frank will share their wildly successful marketing strategy an process for you to adopt and adapt.
This event was originally fun in Edinburgh, Scotland in January 2016 for Beltane Public Engagement Network, and branded as one of their 'Twilight' networking and workshop events. You can watch the hour-long video to the right, and read the notes from the talk in bullet point below. If you would like me to run a workshop on event marketing, contact me. "If you run any kind of science promotion organisation or something like that, this is required viewing. Very good info!" - Mark Pentler, Chairperson, Edinburgh Skeptics |
Watch the 1 hour workshop in the above embed or on YouTube, or read the talk in note form below.
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The talk in note form:
Success: budget optional, but it does require many, many hours. Spend your time on the things that yield the best results for your event.
STRATEGIC PARTNERSHIPS
Keep a list of similar groups and actively meet them. Here's an example of the one I use for Edinburgh Skeptics
You can offer partners
WHERE TO LIST EVENTS:
(Here's a spreadsheet with the checklist I use for Edinburgh Skeptics)
EFFICIENT INTERNAL PROCESSES
Streamline the process of listing events by having the speaker fill out a form
GET AUDIENCE FEEDBACK
WEBSITE
SOCIAL MEDIA
PRESS RELEASES
GENERAL MARKETING
Not in this talk - BAND TOGETHER
- Joint SciComm twitter. E.g. twitter.com/EdSciComm
- Form an organiser community. E.g. facebook.com/groups/EdSciComm/about/
STRATEGIC PARTNERSHIPS
Keep a list of similar groups and actively meet them. Here's an example of the one I use for Edinburgh Skeptics
You can offer partners
- cross-promotion of events (the primary reason for networking)
- the possibility of joint events (both organisations get to make an event officially theirs and fully promote it to their members)
- the possibility of joint marketing - e.g. a joint flyer
- willingness to help on their bigger events (human resources)
- knowledge about venues in your cities
- knowledge about speakers
- access to other resources if you have them - e.g. projector, printing budget, human resources etc
- knowledge you possess, being a successful and experienced event organiser yourself.
- Free tickets to their paid events for your volunteers - happy volunteers = longer serving and harder working ones. This also allows you to promote their events better
- Prizes for your fundraiser events - e.g. free tickets to their events, 1 year free membership to their organisation, merchandise they might have
WHERE TO LIST EVENTS:
(Here's a spreadsheet with the checklist I use for Edinburgh Skeptics)
- Meetup - our own group, best source of new members, but costs money. If you don't have the budget, share an account with another group, but note you risk them having complete control.
- Meetup - Anyone can post to Thinking Allowed group in Edinburgh, but such groups are rare.
- Facebook Group (you can invite all members up to 500 members)
- Facebook Page - Our procedure is to create the event on the GROUP, them IMPORT it to the PAGE. OR create on the page, then post to the group wall.
- Eventbrite - they will promote your event in emails when people buy tickets for similar events, on their listing page, and in other places too!
- Tweet (scheduled using Hootsuite or Tweetdeck) - for many, Twitter is a search engine!
- Email newsletter (Mailchimp - free to 2000 subscribers)
- Local events newspapers and online listings.
EFFICIENT INTERNAL PROCESSES
Streamline the process of listing events by having the speaker fill out a form
- Here's the form Edinburgh Skeptics send to Speakers to fill out.
- Here's the spreadsheet I used for the Science Festival lineup
- Thank the speaker via email after, and send Feedback Survey (link - this one I have embedded on the EdSkeptics website)
GET AUDIENCE FEEDBACK
- Here's the online form (we tell people to visit the easy URL edskeptics.co.uk/feedback)
- Here's the PDF of the physical form we leave on chairs, printed A5 on thicker 100gsm paper
- This form allows us to add people to the mailing list too!
WEBSITE
- Keep people there! Embed content rather than external links. This includes the audience feedback form, above.
- Integrate upcoming events using a plugin for Meetup, Facebook, Eventbrite or Google Calendar so you dont have to maintain/edit website - events list automatically
- We also set up blog posts to be automatically created via email
- Some websites allow updating via spreadsheet, possibly via Zapier or ITTT
- Landing page: most important info - often upcoming gigs
- Press page on website
- A wide variety of photos for Press Release purposes
- Correctly labelled and captioned files, and high res photos.
- Use analytics!
SOCIAL MEDIA
- It is NOT FREE as it takes a time investment to do it all day, every day. Make it a habit, not a chore
- Engage ALL THE TIME, not just when you want something or around ticket selling time.
- Send to journalists on Twitter: “if you like that, you’ll like this from me”
- Don’t use twitter abbreviations, use decent language
- Push the public to talk about you, not just like or follow
- Find local interest & Uni groups that might be interested in your event
- FB Boosted Posts - don't boost from Boost button as it gives you less control - use Ad settings page
- Implement Google Analytics, even if you're not using it now!
- Website, Meetup, Eventbrite, Mailchimp etc
PRESS RELEASES
- Edinburgh Fringe: Fringe Central training: Press Panel, Elaine Liner’s Be A Media Darling,
- Edinburgh Fringe: Fringe Central release list of journalists to send press releases every April - make your own list from this
- PR - Short & snappy - headline is long - inc Who, What, Where, When & $
- Strip superlatives - they’re looking for authenticity
- The media want a story - pitch a story, not announcements or general releases. Topical.
- Write for media’s outlet audience
- Be upbeat & positive, never snarky
- Tell journalists you know have covered similar things before
- Think outside the box - hometown papers, alumni magazines, hobby groups
- Thank someone for coverage or a good review
- Fringe: 1) looking ahead, 2) coming soon, 3) just launched, 4) what people are saying, 5) last chance to see, 6) what we’re doing next
GENERAL MARKETING
- Use demographics and psychographics to profile your market and target them effectively through multiple campaigns (or targeting algorithms), not just one big campaign.
- Think about how you are fulfilling a need. Aka job based marketing. A great video: Clay Christensen's Milkshake Marketing (link)
Not in this talk - BAND TOGETHER
- Joint SciComm twitter. E.g. twitter.com/EdSciComm
- Form an organiser community. E.g. facebook.com/groups/EdSciComm/about/