Originally Posted by
faderswagger
It's fucking time-consuming. For events, word of mouth is so important that it makes everything else barely worth fucking with. Facebook events should be treated only as a way to personally measure how many people are going, and to give info about the event. Thinking they're going to work as marketing is just obnoxious.
The best way to market is to literally talk to people. person-to-person promo. I'm serious. Flyers are important to leave with people, but in marketing on a local/small scale, we've never found anything more successful than verbally talking up the product. Face to face is best, and the best way to do it is called "exit promo" in the rave scene. Since you don't have other events to do exit promote at, talking to people on facebook chat is good too. The key is to be genuine, not pitchy. Make it feel incidental that you're bringing up the thing you're promoting, as best you can. Exaggerate, make it seem like a big deal, and it will be a big deal. Remember that nothing you say in conversation is any more of a lie than anything you'd be implying in print anyways.
Recruit a few people to help you promote this way by offering to comp them in if they help you get more people to go. This works even better if you can make them do it because they feel important, more than because they're saving money. This is especially handy with people that have a lot of friends that they can encourage to come because they're going.
In the same vein, the "reduced price" list is also a great tool. Make people feel special and VIP, even if half the people attending are on the reduced list "because they seem like a cool person" to you.
I actually use this shpeel with clients all the time... never gotten to use it with the correct context like this haha :
I wasn't around at the time of the old illegal warehouse parties, but they were 100% word of mouth, and had great attendance. Somehow we now have lower numbers for independent events, despite insanely unprecedented numbers for big events. I blame it all on facebook and "new" marketing. People thinking that facebook replaces word of mouth. The best way to promote on this kind of scale is people telling each other they're going.
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