7 Effective Tips for Promoting Your Event Locally

Did you know that the average consumer will only travel 90 minutes, on average, to attend an event? 

It's true – most guests are more inclined to attend an event that's close to home. That’s why promoting your event within your local community is an essential part of organizing your event. 

Local event advertising opens the door to an audience already tuned in to nearby events, primed and ready to participate. In this article, we’ll walk you through 7 invaluable tips to help you boost event attendance and revenue.

The best and worst thing about social media is that your audience can be anywhere. But if you're trying to reach people who are in your immediate area, you need to follow a few rules when promoting your event on social media. 

• Use location-specific hashtags, with your city's name and the word "event." If users are browsing those hashtags for things to do, they'll be more likely to find your event. 
• Tag your event venue in your posts, stories, and reels. This 
• And it might increase the chance of your venue re-sharing your content. 
• Look for ways to incentivize your guests to share the event with their friends, who are also likely to be local. Social media discounts can be a great tool to use when you're ready to start selling tickets. 

You don’t want someone 1,000 miles away seeing an ad for your local event so it’s important to focus your sights and parameters closer to home. Platforms like Facebook, Instagram, and Google Ads will all allow you to define your precise target area and incorporating locally targeted keywords can further narrow your target audience.

• Set up a detailed location radius targeting with Google Ads. This will allow you to only target people located near your event venue. Depending on your goals and audience, your radius might be one mile or it might be 50. 
• Retarget people who saw or clicked on your ads but didn't purchase tickets. They might still be mulling over their decision, so entice them with a discount or promo code to close the sale quicker. 

If you’re looking for a crash course in using digital ads to promote your event, we’ve got you covered with a recent blog post. We’ll walk you through the basics and you can take it from there.

Word-of-mouth advertising is still the most effective marketing tool in your arsenal. In fact, 74% of consumers identify word of mouth as a critical influencer in their purchasing decisions.  

Collaborating with local influencers and community leaders is another great way to get the word out about your event. Get to know the influencers in your area and offer them free tickets to your event. They might choose to promote it on their own channels.

There are thousands of online directories operated by newspapers, radio stations, magazines, and other media outlets around the country. They’re a great source of information about local events. But each one has its own requirements for how to submit your information and what format it needs to be in. 

But don’t worry, if you’re using Passage you can submit your event information once, right in your admin dashboard, and our partners at Event Vesta will send it to local directories in your area. It’s that simple. 

Want to learn more? Check out our recent blog post detailing all the benefits of Event Vesta and how you can use this new Passage feature.

Ready to start promoting your event with Passage? Schedule a virtual demo with our team today to learn more.

Another tip for local event promotion is to get your local businesses involved. Hang flyers or set up postcards near the checkout at your local coffee shop or partner with a shop near you to provide guests with exclusive shopping offers.

In return, you could offer these businesses a set of free tickets to raffle off to their team or offer as an employee award. You could find ways to promote local businesses to your audience. The point is, that not every partnership has to be expensive if it’s mutually beneficial. Either way, few marketing techniques are as effective as putting your event in your audience’s face as they purchase their morning cappuccino.

Outdoor advertising, also called out-of-home advertising, includes billboards, transit ads, free-standing banners, and other types of signage that people see while out and about. They can be very effective for local advertising because you can pretty much guarantee that only people in your area will see them. 

If you want a really powerful one-two punch, incorporate geo-fenced mobile ads into your strategy. Now, when a guest is near your outdoor ad, they’ll also see a digital ad on their mobile device. 

Many cities host community events like farmer's markets and conventions that attract large crowds of locals. Consider purchasing a table or booth space so you can hand out flyers or other promotional materials about your event. You could even host a ticket giveaway or other contest to create more buzz and attract people to your table. 

Final Thoughts

Promoting your event within the local community is a strategic approach to boosting attendance and generating excitement. There are plenty of resources and platforms out there to help engage and inform your local community. And don’t underestimate the power of word-of-mouth advertising: if you get the word out and create excitement, people will talk.