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| Mailing List Promotions for Beginners |
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Even if you aren't using an online ticketing service for your event, you'll still want to use online marketing. From mailing lists and online press releases, to early bird price specials and charity promotions - there's always a way to build your community. Let's talk about email lists.
MAILING LISTS
Building up a mailing list and sending notices to people already interested in your events is a great way to not only build attendance, but also build community. Common interests and common experience are the cornerstone of great relationships. Most common email programs can handle 100 or more names well. There are also plenty of websites out there to pick up where the offline programs leave off. Yahoo! Groups is a popular choice, but it requires a fee to avoid the insertion of an advertisement in all the postings.
REWARD YOUR LIST
There are many rewards to having a mailing list.You can predict sales to your events. You can ask them questions, and better serve them. You save postage and unknown amounts of time. So why not reward the list members? You can offer special savings to mailing list members or special seats reserved just for them. Your list members will often be the first ones to buy tickets, so it is best to be sure as many as possible buy early.
JANITORIAL DUTIES
If you allow communication between members, set the rules down clearly and stick to them. Resolve conflict quickly and off-list as soon as possible. At the same time, don't try to control the group's direction too much. Community is wild and wonderful thing - let it grow and you will be rewarded over and over.
THINGS TO AVOID
Just like in organic life, electronic life requires manners. Spamming someone is often worse than never making contact. It may leave a terrible impression of you and your project for a long time.
Keep your mailings succinct, and only when necessary. Too many, or too long will drive people to ignore your future messages. The trick is to tell people what they need to know and when they need to know it. Luckily, many mailing lists will have a few vocal folks to let you know how things are going in this department.
Finally, don't ever sell your list. This may be the number one insult to a member of your community. By selling someone's email you suddenly demoted them to a piece of livestock - traded for cash. The list member will blame you for all the spam the get from that point forward.
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