ALL YOU NEED TO KNOW ABOUT EVENT MARKETING AND FUNDRAISING

Not all events require marketing, social events like weddings, birthdays, christenings, funerals, do not necessary require marketing except your client would like to use the event to support a cause like charity or community development. Some corporate events and training may ask you to market their events and raise funds for them. However for association events and conferences, it is likely you would do little bit of marketing and funds raising.

I’m not going to necessary bore you with the 5 Ps of marketing, but I may be chipping in some marketing basis you would need.

ILLUSTRATION

You have been given the contract to market and raise funds for a 3 days beauty exhibition in Lagos State, Nigeria of the 26th – 28th of November 2021. What would be your approach?

1. DETAILED INFORMATION ON THE EVENT: 

This is the very first thing to get from your client. You need every single detail of the event. 

Date, Theme, Venue, Number of expected participants, Account details for the event: Bank, Account name, Account number, Event contact person.

• Date: When the event is taking place?

• Venue: Where the event would be happening? 

• Theme: The issues the event seeks to address.

• Expected number of participant: Your client should be able to give you an estimated figure from the previous events.

• Account details for the event: Bank, Account name, Account number.

• Event contact person: Most times events these type of event would have a Local Organizing  Committee (LOC) made of people that would be in-charge of different aspects of the event. Therefore it is important that you have someone from this committee that you would work with.

       When you have all these details, you can move to the next phase

2. TARGET AUDIENCE: 

These are the people that you feel your event would appeal to and these are the people that you would be marketing to. From our Illustration, The event is a beauty exhibition so your target audience would be: Beauty product manufactures, beauty product importers and retailers, cosmetologist, skin therapist, dermatologist, hair stylist, makeup artist etc. 

3. PRODUCT

These are the services your event would be offering your clients or sponsors. Example of these products could be: speaking opportunities at the event, opportunity to advertise their product and services on the printed program of event, venue branding, product exhibition and so on. It is important that you know the services your event would be offering. You also need to know the prices of each of the services and if there are any discount opportunities

4. SPONSORSHIP/ FUNDS RAISING LETTER

After you’ve been able to come up with necessary details of the event, you need to prepare a sponsorship or funds raising letter that would be sent to your target audience. This letter should contain the date, venue, theme, account details of the event and expected numbers of participants. The fund raising letter would contain the list of services your event would be providing.

It is a great idea to have an acknowledgement copy for all the letters you have sent out. This would also aid your follow up.

5. FOLLOW UP:

It is not enough that you just send letters or emails to potential sponsors, you need to follow up with them. Call them, send emails and try to convince them on the important of the event on their brand and the opportunities your event holds for them.

6. DOCUMENTATION:

This is very important aspect in event marketing. You need to have detailed documents for event marketing. Keep a separate document for the lists of companies you have reached, either via email or physical letters. You should also have proper documentation for sponsors who have paid, their proof of payment, services they paid for and what they are entitled to at the conference. This would prevent confusion, especially if you have lots of sponsors.

I hope have been able to explain event marketing in a way that you can understand. If you have any question or need further clarification, feel free to hit me up in the comment section👇👇👇 I look forward to reading from you.