From looking at the M-mix, I've decided that the most successful way for me to get people to my event is through word of mouth, so using Personal Selling. I know that from all the events I go to, I hear about them through word of mouth and then look into them further, so I think it's key that I take the time to talk to people and give them the chance to ask questions about why they should attend the event and what they will get out of it.
Personality for me seems key, if they get to know who I am they will then have an understanding of what the atmosphere of the monthly event night will be. You can get so much more from actually talking to a person and put them at ease and also be encouraging much more easily. Also when talking face to face with someone or on the phone, if you say you'll attend something, some people feel a sort of obligation and so I guess Im trying to say that you can guilt trip some people into attending. This will be my main process in getting young creatives to attend, in business it has a high success rate and builds close relationships with people they may come to the event monthly. However marketing my event in this way could be time consuming and also cost money if I were to travel to cities surrounding Leeds to draw more of a crowd.
For putting on an event and getting a wide range of creatives attending, I believe that Public Relations is a good way to advertise my event. Such as advertising my event in the paper, or possibly trying to gain corporate sponsorship from companies. Once my event has been up and running for about a year I could put the event on as a charity event one month and this in turn would be good advertising for the event but also very credible and would be something the public would want their money to go to. Doing this sort of thing also builds trust with my young creatives that want to come every month. All these reasons seem really good and that they will work well, however through using Public Relations I also have to think about how time consuming it is, travel costs and also taking into account that BAD publicity does arise as well.
From looking at already running live drawing events, it seems the done thing to use Direct Marketing. I think this is one of the most common ways of drawing a crowd. Using Mailers and personal invitations are the best way in being selective but It also builds trust with the person/people receiving the invitation as they know that I have directly thought about them and how this could benefit them personally, which in turn is persuasive in coming to the event.
Although personal invites are costly per head, this is also a cost effective way as you are selecting agencies and creatives that you send personal invites to. This builds relationships but also more importantly makes sure you are hitting your target market, and thus possibly getting a higher attendance than if you were to waste invitations sending them to random companies and young people. Sending out these invitations can also make it easier for me to measure the success of my event, but direct marketing is known as being very highly effective.
The use of these personal invitations is also good in building a strong relationship with these design agencies and young creatives in getting them attending time and time again. Although, direct selling could take me to other cities an possibly other countries in the distant future and I then have to take into account the cost of travel.
Another very important way of promoting my event, is through the Internet. Particulary for an event, you already see lots of people using certain internet sites to put forawrd their own events. As a student I already use many networking sites which are perfect for advertising and getting people engaged in what's going on around them. Especially as what I'm putting on is creative it's important that however they receive the promotion of the event is visual and using the internet means that it's also interactive as well. As well as these positives, there is also the fact that using the internet to market my event is quick and so very time/cost effective.
I know that Twitter is one of the most up to date, cutting edge online sites at the moment and so I plan to use this as one of the main sites that I use to market my event, as well as Facebook events pages. In the future I would like to put up the event own website, however until it has a reputation and good attendance I don't think it's worth it as it very expensive to get someone to put together and if the site is badly designed this could reflect badly on my event. A website also needs constant updating. I had though about advertising but I think this reflects well in the other ways of marketing and I can advertise through the internet and through posters and things round college.
In terms of Place and getting my event to surface, I will be hoping to eventually have my event on a bus with exhibition space and room for the live drawing event plus music. For now I will be dropping into all sorts of well known 'creative hubs' around Leeds and asking for permission to put on a drawing event there.
My place will therefore rely heavily on my advertising, using the internet, personal selling. It's important that people talk about my event in order to get people coming back every month and also bringing along new people, so I think to start with it's important to start really well with lots of different marketing strategies. I plan to drop posters, business cards and merchandise with the event details on it and put them in different creative places. Ultimately going to a college of art and design, this is where most of my audience lye. But I have planned to go into creative hubs, where events are already held or have some sort of creative context to then promote my event. Places such as The Art Market or Nation Of Shopkeepers.
Your idea is really taking shape now but there seems to be some confusion, again, about PLACE. Tell me where the drawing events are going to be - not where you will be marketing it. pleas read the introduction to the chapter on 'PLACE' in The Principles of Marketing by Brassington and Pettit.
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