A STORY OF EVENT MARKETING: UGLY FLYERS AND GOOD CONVERSATION

Storyteller Odd?Rod

Metropolis Management, joyce@metropolismanagement.com

It must be difficult for students to market events that don’t involve celebrities on campus and hope that their peers will show up these days. I arrive to some campuses ready to perform for a beautiful crowd and the advisor tells me it's "hit or miss with students showing up". This statement tells me how much work wasn't put into creating a buzz for the event. Entertainment shines from screens at our fingertips, so putting on clothes, traveling to a venue, and participating in a live performance doesn’t look/ sound as exciting as it once did. I hate to start with the phrase, “back in my day”, but it’s fitting because things were much different not too long ago.

As students, we were excited about speakers and artists who visited our campus because it broke up the monotony of studying and schoolwork. A paper flyer, laminated poster, and well-constructed email blast was a sure way to fill a room with enthusiastic spectators back then. Modern times have made way for social media to disconnect us while selling us a connection. We tend to walk around with our eyes buried in our phones like ostriches sink their heads in the ground. By doing this, we avoid human interaction, flyers and posters become invisible, and the world around us disappears. How do you market an event to this type of campus?

My story may be one that can help you see the light at the end of this seemingly dark tunnel. It forwards the “grass-roots” idea of building something from nothing and believing in things we cannot yet see. “Ugly flyers and good conversation” resulted in successful events for me, and this anecdote could still work for you.

My story starts with being depressed and stressed in my dorm room and needing to get my voice heard. My childhood trauma caused me to withdraw into myself and write my frustrations out in poetry. When I arrived at the University of North Florida, nothing attracted me, so I decided to create a space for myself and others. I developed an open-mic event called “Inword Xpressionz” where other students had the opportunity to perform. When I started the event, I had to create a club on campus to reserve room space. A social club was nothing that I desired, but I did what I needed to do to satisfy administration’s rules; I wanted to make sure I gave the best effort to my vision. It’s important to note how resilience played a strong role in my journey. I wasn't going to allow anything to stop me from reaching my goals.

As a Graphic Design major, I used my (terrible) designs on plain paper to create flyers and printed them on the school’s “best” printer. The prints were ugly, flimsy, and crookedly cut, but they existed as something to get the news out about my event. I was unpopular and more of an introvert then because I was dealing with past traumas that followed me and I sometimes wore them. Speaking to strangers was

something I had to overcome if I were to have an audience, so I had to step away from my comfort zone. I pushed myself to greet people around the campus like I already knew them. I was intentional about creating some sort of memorable interaction with them so that when I saw them again, I could engage them about upcoming events. I passed out flyers and spoke to people who looked approachable as they passed. They were receptive and most of them accepted a flyer from me. The school gave me a small budget for the club, and I used it to order four pizzas for the event. On the flyer, I advertised that there would be “FREE FOOD” and I knew it would draw people in. I wasn’t trying to feed the whole campus, but free food while it lasts is still free food! After all the hard work I’d done with advertising and preparing this event, it yielded twelve audience members, and I was discouraged and disappointed in humanity. Nobody had showed up for me, but I still held the event and made sure it was entertaining for the small audience there.

It was the good responses from my first event that awakened a fire in me to have another. Before I knew it, the word spread about how awesome the show was. If you provide for them a quality event, the next event won’t be as hard of a sell, and they will bring more people. Small things made my open mic different from others like how I never had a sign-up list for performers. Each presenter would feel less nervous to perform because they took the stage at their own will. Performers would stand up at random moments like blooming flowers to approach an empty microphone and share their work. The room felt more liberated and less judgmental because of the autonomy of the structure. Everyone looked forward to this event which started with a simple thought and determination to see it through. My ugly flyers may have worked, the food may have worked, but it was certainly my presence amongst the people on campus that was the key factor in my success. There was no social media.

There’s the answer, marketing your event requires that you to know your audience personally. We must walk the campus and meet our audience if we want them to show up for us. Engagement means that we should try our best to avoid having strangers on our campus; it’s important to attempt some type of connection to everyone we come across. Not only does this build our audience, but it also makes the students feel a part of their campus by showing them that we see them. Visibility arrives from acknowledgment and that goes a long way for people faced with the stresses of being a student. A greeting with a smile says “I see you” to a person. They then feel more inclined to attend our events because we’ve acknowledged them. As marketers, it’s important to provide the personal connection with others even if the event does not connect. I passed out ugly fliers, but I also facilitated sincere conversation and met cool people that provided a beautifully engaged audience. It’s a win all around to be more social beyond social media. By the time I’d graduated, I had a monthly audience of two hundred attendees that fell in love with being together for a great show. I developed my stage presence as a host and a speaker, and I released stress by sharing parts of my life.

In summary, having a passion for the event you market is essential and then getting out to meet people is key. Emails are ignored these days like phone calls, and in-person connections have been lost to social media scrolling. It turns out that good ole’ dedication and verbal communication is the answer we’ve been searching for to return our audiences to their seats. I wish you all the best, and I hope my story encourages you to set the tone for your student body.