5 Great Ways to Promote Your Charity Event

If you’re hosting a Nonprofit charity event, you’ll want to promote it to spread your message as far and wide as possible!

Living in the era of the short attention span, it’s not always easy to get the attention of your ideal audience when promoting an event. That’s why you have to get creative and think outside the box when promoting it.

By combining modern methods with the more traditional, you can create a promotional strategy that will reach more people and, in turn, increase your attendance and funds for your cause.

“Snail” mail

We may be living in a digital world, but you can still get a lot of eyeballs on your event by using good old fashioned “snail” mail.

A direct mail campaign is a great way to get in front of a lot of people, while also providing attendees with a hard copy of the essential details for your event. Design an eye-catching yet simple “save the date” on a postcard and send it to your target audience.

Include only the bare essentials on a save the date, including:

The name of your event
The time and date
The charity, organization, or cause your event will be benefiting
Any other important details (appropriate attire, suggested donation, etc.)

You can also include your event’s logo or a colorful picture on the save the date as well. Just be sure to include something eye-catching to grab more attention.

Email marketing campaign ✉️

Another fantastic way to get attention for your event is by undertaking an email marketing campaign. An email campaign is effective because:

Once you get someone on your event mailing list, you’ll be able to promote your event directly to their inbox!
You can send reminders, following up with people who have already signed up for your event.
You can follow up after the event to thank attendees for participating, as well as let them know about your next big event.

Pro tip: It takes more than just one email to get a response. Some people miss emails in their inbox, so it’s very important that you map out 2-3 emails to send to your supporters promoting your event. A last minute, “It’s not too late to attend” always works well for people who are busy and haven’t had a chance to respond.

Build an event website ️

Setting up a website is like having an online billboard for your event. It promotes what you have to offer and also provides your audience with the essential information they need to know to attend your event. It should answer the five questions of who, what, where, when, and why.

There are several reasons why a website is a good tool to have for your event:

You can ask your attendees to register online. This may be easier for them, but it can also be easier for you. Some event management websites will track online registrants for you so you don’t have to do it by hand.
You can post any updates about your event to the website.
You have a central location to post all event-related content you create.

Create engaging content about your event

Simply telling your audience about your event isn’t enough. You should instead show how fun and important your event is by creating exciting and engaging content that highlights the very best aspects of your event. This not only explains how your audience will be entertained at your event and why the cause is important, but it also motivates your audience to attend and get involved.

You can do this in the form of blog posts, videos, or other social media posts about your event. Some potential examples of fundraiser-friendly content include:

A video interviewing past attendees about what a great time they had attending your event.
If you’ve got an entertainer attending, you could write a short blog post interviewing them about why they agreed to perform at the event and what they plan to do when they perform.
You can create flyers or other marketing materials that synthesize the information about your event – essentially, recreating your save the date in another format to maximize the number of people who find out about your event.
Create an infographic or some other type of fact sheet discussing your cause or organization, why it’s important, and how your audience can help contribute (in this case, by attending this event) .

Pro tip: It is important to remember to utilize a similar theme for all of the content you create. By doing this, you are essentially building the “brand” of your event and all of its corresponding promotional materials.

This will help increase recognition and help your audience understand what your event and, ultimately your organization, is all about. You can do this by sticking to similar fonts, color schemes, and logos for all of your content.

Use social media

Once you’ve created your engaging content and your event website, you’ll need a way to circulate it to as many folks as possible. This is where social media comes in handy.

Social media is another effective and easy promotional tool you can use to speak directly to your audience. You can broadcast all the great content you’ve developed to promote your event to the audience following your organization’s various social media channels.

The social media networks you can use include:

Facebook. Many people use this platform. You can use it to create an event page with event details, post pictures and video, or post polls about your upcoming event to encourage engagement with your attendees.
Twitter. Twitter encourages short text-based posts. You can send out brief messages about your event along with pictures or video.
Instagram. This is a visually-focused medium. If you have a beautiful property on which you’re holding the event, Instagram is the right platform to promote it on. You can post stunning images of your event space to encourage people to attend. You can also post pictures of people at past events having a great time.
LinkedIn. This is a business-focused network. If you have a lot of professionals attending your event, LinkedIn is a great place to promote it as both a great cause as well as a possible networking opportunity.

There are other social media networks out there, but try not to spread yourself too thin. It’s impossible for anyone to promote on every social media channel, so pick 2-3 that your audience will be likely to use and focus on those.

Summary

Your event’s promotional campaign should include a combination of the following tactics to maximize reach and create excitement for your event:

Snail mail
Email
A website
Engaging online content
Social media

Using these tools together will ensure you reach the highest number of people. By using different strategies to reach those people, you’ll increase the likelihood of your event having high attendance while at the same time helping your event grow.

Best of luck, and happy fundraising!