Publicity Hound Anthony Ingram writes:
I work as a volunteer Hound on a team for a church, and we have an upcoming teen event in February.
Our goal is to attract more than 700 teens to an event that will feature vendors in areas such as formalwear, hair salons, nail salons, florists, limo companies, etc., all of which have to do with Valentine’s Day and the spring prom. We plan to do a fashion show, send flyers, create a website, send text messages on cell phones, have a cool band—the whole 9 yards—but we could still be missing lots of good ideas that would be obvious to everyone else not so close to the event as we are.
What can some other well-seasoned Hounds suggest to attract teens, get them to preregister, and make this event a huge success?
I would definitely jump on the MySpace bandwagon and reach teens through this online social networking medium. In addition to creating your own page (enlist a MySpace savvy teenager or two to help), see if the band you booked for the event has a MySpace page and have them send out an event announcement to everyone on their “friend” list. While you are at it, ask them to put an announcement with a link to your site on both their MySpace page and their website.
I agree with Joan about a grassroots campaign, and suggest that you use the teens in your parish to get it started. Give them the information and ask them to text message/instant message/etc. their friends about it. The idea is to reach the kids with the media they use most these days, and in their language. You might also ask your parish teens to “translate” your information — the flyer headline at least — into text message language and use it in the publicity. That will tell your target teens that this event is really for and about them.
Adding to that gift bag idea, when looking for companies willing to do a makeover, or coupons for nails would be great. Many teenagers are would love to be taught or given ideas on how to look even better for events coming up in their lives, like the prom. So tell business that does makeup or nails pitch that there are potential new customers for those upcoming events. These business always need reasons to give, and this would be helpful. Free advertising in the windows of the businesses that have contributed items for the giveaway bags would be lots of help as well.
Why not have someone go into the local high school on assemby day and pitch the upcoming event? Talk to the any teachers in the parish about how or if this is something the school would be willing to help promote.
Promise gift bags to the first x-amount of teens who register. That’s what everyone does here in NYC to try to get attendees. You can solicit donations from local businesses–these can be coupons or gift certificates that will attract new business or small inexpensive items. If you have any local authors who have books on how to get into a good college, how to get straight A’s, how to get your parents to increase your allowance or whatever, maybe the author will donate books for the gift bags.
Also, collect larger gifts from local businesses for a raffle. Not everyone will win one of these larger prizes, but all will be seen by attendees, which is good for business.
Good luck! Sounds like fun!
Stephanie Pedersen
How about a contest for most referrals to your website and/or registrations for the big event? Top prize could be free limo service for an evening; runner up might win discounts on tux rental, free dinner, with prizes donated by sponsors. If school spirit is strong in your area, consider awarding a major prize for the most registrations from a single school, such as the coolest DJ in town for 4 hrs.
Do you have a local top 40 radio station in town (a station that caters to teens)? Call the station and ask for the Promotions Director. If they don’t have one, talk to the Program Director.
Ask them if they would be willing to partner with you for this event. See if the station will do promotional announcements for the event and give you a 5 minute interview segment on the morning show. Don’t push for them to appear live just because they have so many events to go to and they usually have a paid live appearance to be at.
In exchange, give them lots of signage and see if one of their DJs will be the host of the fashion show (try the 7pm-12mid DJ if they have one…he or she usually doesn’t get a lot of appearances because people/businesses want the morning show).
Good luck!
Don’t forget one of the easiest ways to get to them. Take flyers to the area high schools and ask the officials to have the homeroom teachers distribute them.
Ask the vendors to get the teens involved. Offer manicures in a booth, makeup to sample, hair products to sample, haircuts in a booth, a booth where they can purchase and download the music they are hearing. Clothes to try on and buy and a limo on-site to sit in. The florist can give lessons on how to tie bows, or make a simple boutonniere (not a demo, but so the teens go home with one they made). Invite local restaurants to do cooking demos with plenty of samples to eat.
The fashion show should use local teens. Hold an audition for the models at the high shool as a pre-event.
My experience of working with teens as a coach/trainer and marketer has taught me there are 7 things teenagers want:
To be respected
To be listened to
To be understood
To be appreciated
To be supported
To be responsible
To be independent
I love Elaine and Willetta’s ideas because they put teenagers at the centre of the marketing/pr activity. And I’d take it even further… how about creating a marketing team of teen representatives from different schools/churches? Ask them the same question you asked here – “What would attract you and your friends to this event?” Have them come up with ideas and then support them in implementing them. Give them responsibility for following through. Not only will this help your event, but it could also be used by schools as a real-life project for business studies/enterprise/work experience.
Have a great event!
Anthony Ingram might also want to contact area school guidance counselors. Perhaps he could sell the event to the counselors by calling it a “drug-free, alcohol-free” event for area teens (schools love to push those kinds of events), which could be included in school newsletters (my kids received good, informative newsletters each month from their high school guidance office). He may also want to offer an opportunity for fund-raising to an affiliated parent’s group or student group (sports booster club, French Club, etc.). This would get additional assistance to pull off the event if needed, and would have the parents and kids spreading the word about the event.
Another way to promote an event for teens….
PUBLISH by YOURSELF, for YOURSELF, with NO DELAY.
Local4All.com enables you to eliminate the middleman’s rules, time delays, personal prejudices, etc, etc, etc.
Local4All.com is a “toolbox” of easy to use forms with common sense added in. While it would be great to have everything in one place (story, pictures, event details, coupons, wish list), the search engines reward you for links. Why not take pieces and link them together?
Each event can hold up to 65,000 characters so there’s no shortage of space and each one is automatically assigned a shortcut URL that can be added to posters, flyers, newspaper stories, emailed, or simply given out over the phone.
Tip #1: If you know how to do a flyer with tearoffs, you can put them on bulletin boards in schools and public places. The following event listing has a downloadable flyer with tearoffs in PDF format.
http://e14600.localforall.com
Tip #2: If you don’t know how to do a flyer with tearoffs, find a teenager who can. Since most schools have computer labs and classes, ask a teacher to point out three or four students who have the ability… what does it take to make them willing? Burgers? Fries? Recognition? The FUN of it? Or the “It makes me feel good” invisible paycheck.
Tip #3: Click on my name at the top for a list of forms that can be used to post stories, photos, events, and more. For the benefit of visitors who wonder what else is there, content is automatically sorted by zip code and category. For photos, there is a time delay while we ensure that photos and captions are family-friendly and child-safe.
“Top ten reasons to volunteer” is an article on my blog.
As of this morning, I updated the calendar’s error-checking rules to allow any date before January 1, 2009.
Carl Bromley
Local4All.com
http://www.local4all.com/blog