The arrival of the World Wide Web into the palm of our hands has not only meant revolutionary changes in the way people learn and enjoy but how they buy products and services. The exploding of the marketplace right into our living rooms has ushered in an entirely new range of online marketing strategies. Apart from products and services, such strategies have lent themselves very well into promoting experiences too. The recreation, hospitality and entertainment industries have been quick to adopt new-age marketing ways.
So if you are planning to market a music festival, here are some ways to go about it.
- Okeechobee photo via Live Edits Lab
Get on Social Media
The world and its aunt are on social media. So you simply cannot afford to give this platform a miss when marketing an event like a music festival. Go on to various social media platform to splash the announcement in as attractive as language you can. For this you can get experts from Online Assignment Writing and EssayWriter4u to help you. The exact content will of course vary according to the specifics of the social media platform. On Facebook for example you can post details about the music festival in the Events section so that all your friends can view it. Remember to adjust privacy settings to ‘public’ so that your event reaches maximum number of Facebook profiles. If you have some time on your hands, look for Facebook groups related to music and recreation in and around the city that is hosting the festival. Then post your music festival details on such groups.
In case of other social media platform like Instagram and Pinterest, you can post images of the festival logo or famous bands likely to make an appearance. Create Twitter handle by your music festival name or simply hashtag the event and tweet about it.
Go Old School
The time-tested methods often work the best. Ring up mainstream newspapers in your region since most of them have separate upcoming events page or at least a column. If your resources allow, you can even run a campaign over several days leading up to the day of the main event. Include lots of competitions, quizzes and polls as part of this campaign and if possible, be generous with prizes. Giving out freebies or rewards is a very effective way of getting people to be interested in your event.
Audio-visual media like television and radio are even more impactful way of marketing your event. Tie up with popular FM radio shows and get their RJs to discuss your upcoming music festival.
Also set up stands in venues where people gather to shop or socialize. Shopping malls, city centres and town squares are often popular meeting grounds where people relax and socialize. Handing out pamphlets is the easiest way to get people to know about the music festival though a show or interactive modes like interviews can be more innovative ways to market your event.
Jump The Lifestyle Bandwagon
These days no single experience thrives in isolation – just like travel and food blogs feed each other, think of lifestyle experiences that music festivals can be part of. If the venue city is a famous tourist destination, look for travel magazines, websites and touring companies that will be open to advertising the music festival. Get writers from companies like TopAssignmentExperts to write a killer copy that will stir site visitors and finding out more about your gig. Likewise tie up with popular cafes and restaurant chains where your music festival pamphlets designed by creative experts from PaperDoers and such companies may be displayed just you can reach out to famous food bloggers to highlight the event in case they blog about the cuisine of that place.
Explore cultural venues where you can advertise your music festival. Yet another effective means could be reaching out to performing arts training institutes and hobby clubs in the region which could send like-minded people to buy tickets to your event.
Partner With Local Companies
Make a beeline for the bigger companies who partner with lifestyle events in order to advertise their products and services. Look up such major companies in your city and armed with your event logo file, photos, and other supporting materials, go and meet their Public Relations Officer. And don’t avoid seeking companies which perhaps sell mattresses or kitchen sinks – even if you don’t think music has anything to do with these, their sellers will be only too happy to be given advertising space where their potential buyers gather in large numbers. In return such companies will want to spread the word that they are going to sponsor a music festival which eventually means free advertising for your event.
Hook The Young Crowd
Very often it is the young people who are most enthusiastic about rock shows and pop music concerts. If your event is on those lines, don’t forget to make a tour of the most popular campuses in the city – university grounds and colleges are the easier marketing venues while for schools you may need to get prior permission from the administration. Get your content written by companies like Thanksforthehelp and BestOnlineAssignmentHelp who have their pulse on the hip, cool crowd. Like mentioned earlier, hold contests and photo-ops to encourage curiosity about your event and then make it a point to announce prizes in the form of free tickets, backstage passes, merchandise with logo as well as performer meet and greet opportunities. Explore other ways to hook the Gen Y crowd like advertising in their favourite coffee shops or fast-food joints or if you have deeper pockets, sponsoring their college gigs.
Choose Your Ticketing Company With Care
At the end of the day, it is to increase your ticket sales that you want to market your music festival. So choose your ticketing company with caution. The best among them will have the latest software equipped with varied tools enabling people to buy tickets on social media, email, text messages and other types of online platforms. Additionally such a service provider will also have a sizeable network of people and contacts to cater to anyone interested in buying a ticket through offline channels like at book stores and cafes. Indeed the most effective ticketing company will not stop at selling the ticket – rather it will use means like reminders and sneak peeks, event reviews to keep their clients engaged and anticipated for the final event.
Finally identify the opinion-makers in your community. These are bloggers, RJs, YouTubers and Instagrammers who identify nascent trends as having the potential to become the next big thing. It is important to focus on Instagram growth as well as social media marketing in general, just like these creators. These personalities usually command great influence in society, especially with the younger crowd and getting them to talk about your music festival would be a great way to generate the right buzz about your event.
