How to Increase Not-For-Profit Special Event Ticket Sales
Organizing a special event for your church, school or other not-for-profit organization can take several months, but what if you gave an event and nobody came? Especially in today's economic climate, you need a strategy for getting people to your event. During the planning stages, give serious thought and action to marketing and promoting your event in order to ensure successful ticket sales.
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Instructions
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Steps to Success
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Book the right speaker, act or band for your special event. Trying to promote an event that nobody wants to see will become an uphill battle, so look for established "brand name" draws to help build excitement for your event, or at least bands, speakers, etc., with a following or a promotable angle attractive to your audience.
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Create a timetable for promoting your event. Schedule deadlines to develop fliers, a website and press kits; print tickets; and write press releases. Local media can play a huge role in increasing event ticket sales for your nonprofit if you work within reporters' deadlines. (Generally, magazines will need your materials 30 to 60 days before publication date, newspapers a week or more in advance and local TV and radio news outlets several days in advance.) Mail press releases and press kits to appropriate media, and make calls to follow up.
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Make it easy for people to buy tickets. Create a website with a mechanism to purchase tickets. Enlist the support of local merchants to sell tickets for your event. Set up tables or booths wherever people congregate locally.
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Advertise in local publications, including school publications, and hang fliers or posters where people will see them. Double-check to ensure that you've put the correct time, date and place of your event on every single item you print, including tickets, so you won't create confusion about attending your event.
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Enlist members of your not-for-profit as salespeople. Encourage your "sales force" to build MySpace or Facebook pages and to Twitter about your event. Hold a contest with prizes for selling 10, 25, 50 and 100 tickets to your event.
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Tips & Warnings
Use an email list to contact members and interested parties with news of your event, but don't bombard them with spam.
