Plan Promotions to Prevent Participant Paralys

Truly memorable events don’t just happen — they take planning, organizing, and managing to be successful. Marketing for an event requires its own planning process, and some marketers start budgeting and goal setting as early as one year before an event.

Ideally, ads and promotions begin rolling out 12 weeks before the event so there is enough time to reach all appropriate channels. To accomplish this, you need a reliable marketing plan in place long before that time. Here are the three major steps to get your promotional planning in order.

1. Assemble the nuts and bolts
Put together the critical tools you’ll use to define and manage your marketing campaign:

• Budget — A budget is the most critical factor in planning. Define your monetary parameters before establishing any event details.
• Timeline — Start from the deadline that’s furthest out and work backward to be sure that you give each marketing piece or promotion the time it needs.
• Target goals — It’s hard to plan an event without understanding the end goal. Without clearly defined, measureable goals, you’ll have chaos.

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