Event Promotion Toolkit

Successful event promotion focuses on your attendees’ needs as much as your own. Think about these essentials:

1. Know your audience: Who do you want to attend? Are you trying to attract specific groups?
2. Focus on what matters to them: Why should they attend? What's in it for them? There are many events people hear about—how is yours different and why does it matter for your specific audience?
3. Reach them where they are: Use the channels they already pay attention to—meetings, email (directly or via department/campus listservs), newsletters or social media.
4. Make it personal: A personal ask works better than a mass email! Contact key people (like division admins or coordinators) and ask to share at an upcoming meeting.
5. Communicate at the right time: Give people enough notice to plan and register, and be thoughtful about how often you follow up.

• Put key information front and center. What do people need to know and do, and by when? Keep things short and easy to skim. Key details should be large and bold.
• Flyers work best printed out. Text in images can get blurry and hard to read when digital (especially when it's small!) Try to keep text in the body of an email or social media post rather than relying on an attached image.
• Pictures help tell the story. Seeing past events, speakers, etc. draws people in.