Penny Reeh presents strategies for promoting events with limited budgets and resources. She outlines five basic rules of resource allocation: focus on your strengths, understand customers, prioritize free promotions, and commit only to effective tactics. The document then discusses promotional vehicles like advertising, publicity, and word of mouth. Reeh emphasizes the importance of understanding media preferences, building relationships, and having a well-organized website and social media presence. She also explores mobile marketing strategies like SMS, MMS, and augmented reality.

1. 6/22/2010
No Money? No Staff?
No Problem!
Presented by:
Penny C. Reeh
Indigo Resource Group
Fredericksburg, Texas
Learning Objectives
• Understand the five basic rules of resource
allocation
• Implement priority-based planning
• Develop promotion strategies that are
appropriate to your event
• Learn at least 10 simple to use ideas to stretch
your promotional budget
Five Basic Rules of
Resource Allocation
1. Accept that you cannot be all things to all
people.
● Increasing competition for entertainment
dollars.
● The smaller the budget, the more focused
a festival must be in its approach.
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2. 6/22/2010
Five Basic Rules of
Resource Allocation
2. Know your product intimately.
● Strengths
● Weaknesses
● Opportunities
● Threats
Five Basic Rules of
Resource Allocation
3. Understand your customer.
● Demographic, geographic and
psychographic data.
● What are their needs and expectations?
● What motivates their travel decisions?
● Who is in the travel party?
Five Basic Rules of
Resource Allocation
4. Cheap is good…free is better.
● Understand the pros and cons of
the promotional tools at your disposal.
● Use your creativity to set you apart
from the pack.
● Learn from the big boys, then do it leaner
and meaner.
● Look around for dance partners.
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3. 6/22/2010
Five Basic Rules of
Resource Allocation
5. Only commit to what yields results.
● Do not tolerate any sacred cows.
● Break the “But we’ve always done it that way”
mentality.
● There is no such thing as mistakes, only
lessons learned.
● If it works improve it. If it doesn’t work, fix it
or ditch it.
Understanding the Pros and Cons of
Promotional Vehicles
• Advertising – Print and electronic
• Direct Mail
• Internet
• Publicity/Media
Relations
• Word of Mouth
Advantages of Advertising
• Ability to reach large, but targeted audiences
• Chance to demonstrate your event
• Control of the message – You say what, to whom, how often
and in what way
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4. 6/22/2010
The Rules of Advertising
Have Changed
TELEVISION
• Declining viewership in certain groups
• Channel fragmentation
• TiVo
• Programming challenges
The Rules of Advertising
Have Changed
RADIO
• Channel fragmentation
• Satellite Radio/iPod
• Frequency needed to effectively deliver the message
The Rules of Advertising
Have Changed
NEWSPAPER
• Declining readership
• Competition from online news
sources
• Local/regional newspapers may be
the exception for festivals
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5. 6/22/2010
The Rules of Advertising
Have Changed
MAGAZINE
• Micro-niche formula
• Competition from online news
sources
The Rules of Advertising
Have Changed
ADDITIONAL CHALLENGES
• Learning to talk to younger consumers.
• Shifting demographic populations.
• Growing wariness of advertising in general.
How do I pick the right advertising venues
for my product?
• Compare the readership or viewership to
what you know about your customer.
• Talk to other advertisers.
• Evaluate the editorial content of the
publication/show.
• Test the source with a smaller “buy”.
• Track advertising response and conversion.
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6. 6/22/2010
Meet them and
understand them.
Understand how media sources differ.
• Television
• Radio
• Newspaper
• Magazine
• Travel Writer
• E-zine
Meet them and
understand them.
Learn their preference and formats.
• Read, watch and listen
• Focus on what the media covers
• Focus on “their” causes (Fans 4 San Antonio)
• Editorial trends
• Who advertises
Meet them and
understand them.
Actively build relationships.
• Join broadcast and/or press associations
• Invite the media to participate in your event
• Get involved in their events
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Understand their
culture.
• Deadlines, rating, time, space, sales and plenty of
stress are a way of life
• Scandal, death, war, crime, life….and
celebrations….fit the bill
• Pitching stories can be a home run or strike out
• Not all reporters are created equal (learn who writes
or reports about what)
Getting your
message ready.
• Is your story unique?
• Is your story timely?
• Can it be tied to a
current trend?
• Is there a way to
localize the story?
• Is there a visual
element?
Getting your
message ready.
Develop multiple story angles.
• Financial/ • Food/wine
economic impact • Home and Garden
• Lifestyle • Entertainment
• Human Interest • Education
• Environment • Technology
• Sports • Calendars
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8. 6/22/2010
Pack your toolkit.
Websites are essential.
▫ Include your URL on everything
▫ Create a media vault
▫ Virtual media room – access to images, press
credentials, news release archive, fact sheet, etc.
Getting your
message ready.
Telling your story.
▫ Timing is everything. Take advantage of slow news days.
(Elvis turkey and trial stories)
▫ Think visual – even for radio and newspaper – and
package everything the media needs to just show up
and report
▫ Make a list of everything you think a reporter may ask
you (especially anything controversial)
▫ Be available. This can make you a reporter’s best friend.
Contact the media.
• Communicate on a routine basis
▫ Learn their preferred method of receiving
information (phone, fax, email, regular mail)
▫ Conduct media blitzes
▫ Offer media vault
services
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Capturing attention.
• Appeal to the tummy (reporters never turn down
food)
• Do something unusual, even crazy
• Provide an “at ease” spokesperson
• Understand the potential pitfalls of a celebrity
spokesperson
• You are there to promote, but don’t oversell
• Deliver what you promise
Does your website do enough?
• Is it continuously updated?
• Does it periodically change looks?
• Is it intuitive?
• Is there an interactive element?
• Can you buy stuff?
• Is it search engine optimized?
• Is it fun?
Social Media Outlets.
Embrace or be left behind.
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10. 6/22/2010
It’s really all about
conversation.
Begin With Strategy
Developing a social
media strategy.
Source: AMA Social Media Boot Camp
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11. 6/22/2010
Developing a social
media strategy.
Source: AMA Social Media Boot Camp
Developing a social
media strategy.
Six Step Plan
• Outline your objectives
• Define your audience
• Choose the best social channels
• Integrate it into current program
• Tie into metrics
• Implementation
Social Networking Sites
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12. 6/22/2010
Some Facebook
statistics.
• If Facebook were a country, it would be the eighth most
populated in the world.
• More than 400 million users, half of which use
Facebook daily.
• 70% of users are outside the US
• Fastest growing demographic of users is 35+
• Average user spends more than 55 minutes/day on the
site
• More than 20 million people become fans of pages daily.
Content is still king.
Add engaging
features.
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13. 6/22/2010
Video/Photo Sharing
YouTube.com
• Passed 100 million viewers in March 2009
• Forbes estimates YouTube generates more than
a billion views a day
• Ad Age reports 15 hours of video are being
uploaded every minute of the day
• Beware of copyright issues
• Take steps to monitor and enforce content
Add engaging
features.
www.wildfireapp.com
Pricing starts at
$5/campaign, plus
99 cents/day
Parting thoughts.
• Think about policy
issues and potential legal
matters.
•Transparency is a must.
•Social media is not an
island, it is another tool
in our marketing mix.
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14. 6/22/2010
Mobile Marketing
Mobile statistics.
305
Million
people 267
million
have 115
mobile million
phones have 49.7
mobile million
use mobile
web web daily
Source: Nielsen Mobile (12/09)
What makes mobile
superior?
Traditional Usage Mobile Usage
7a.m. - 9 a.m.
Newspaper and radio
9 a.m. – 5 p.m.
24/7
Internet and Radio
5 p.m. – 7 p.m.
Radio
7 p.m. – 11 p.m.
Television
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15. 6/22/2010
How do festivals use mobile.
SMS (short message
service)
• Sends message directly to user
• Delivery is guaranteed since it is a premium
service and payment is made to carriers for
each message delivered.
• Can be scheduled and precisely tracked.
• Weblinks and offers can be embedded.
• Open rates typically exceed 90%.
How do festivals use mobile.
SMPT (Simple Mail Transfer
Protocol)
• Basically sending email through a SMS
gateway.
• Free. But since it is free, messages are sent
when traffic allows.
• Not guaranteed.
• Hard to track.
How do festivals use mobile.
Proximity Bluetooth Messaging
• Hardware that automatically sends a message
to any bluetooth-enabled device within 300
feet.
• Can be used to offer coupons, general info,
directions to the venue, schedule, etc.
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16. 6/22/2010
What’s coming?
Mobile Optimized Websites
• Sites especially designed for
smart phones to load content
more smoothly.
• Expected to increase in
popularity over the next 36
months.
What’s coming?
MMS (Multimedia Messaging
Service)
• Video based messages with guaranteed
delivery.
• Tech sources predict technology and
bandwidth improvements will be in place by
3Q of 2010 to make this a more common
delivery model.
What’s coming?
Augmented Reality
• Will allow smart phone cameras to be aimed
at a 2D barcode and produce a 3D image.
• Predictions place this technology in the
marketplace in roughly 18 months.
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17. 6/22/2010
E-Mail Marketing
Email made easy.
Distribute & track, plus cool
add-ons.
www.constantcontact.com
Pricing starts at $15/mo.
www.realmagnet.com
Initial set-up fee (based on
features enabled) + fee per email
delivered
Email made easy.
Microsoft Publisher
• Allows WYSIWYG design
• Easy to embed links and graphics
• Integrates with Outlook address book
functions
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18. 6/22/2010
Always remember…
Not-for-profit is a
tax status, not a
business plan.
Stay In Touch!
Penny C. Reeh
Indigo Resource Group
P.O. Box 1025
Fredericksburg, Texas 78624
830.990.0180
pennyreeh@ktc.com
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