For an investor, nothing is quite as unsettling as silence that comes after a new product or service has been introduced to the market.
The initial stages of developing your own business can be very stressful. After all, nobody can guarantee that the market will respond positively to what we are offering. The situation can become even more complicated when our entire budget went into perfecting the technical aspects of the product (or service) and we end up with next to no expendable income for advertising and promotional purposes.
How to promote your company?
There’s no easy answer to this question. First and foremost you need to consider which of the available channels or tools will be best suited for your business. For example, if you plan on opening a small cafe in the middle of your housing community, you will probably opt against investing in an email base that would later be used for email marketing.
However, there is a tool worth considering regardless of your business’ background; and when it comes to new business ideas, it might prove itself to be wonderfully effective.
Facebook Event
The Facebook Event tool has quite a potential when it comes to reaching a wide audience with information concerning a new initiative and grabbing people’s attention. One of the biggest advantages of using FB Event is the fact that – with a bit of strategic forethought and a pinch of luck – it can reach a huge range of recipients with next to no investment in the ad campaign.
How to use the FB event to promote your company?
Unfortunately, there’s no such thing as a golden rule which would guarantee success here. There are, however, certain steps that we could take in order to increase our chances of reaching a great number of users for free.
1. Make sure that your event makes sense.
It should be something that your potential clients could easily identify with. You could skillfully hide it in the name of the event; for example, one of the restaurants in Białystok that is known for their high-calorie menu created an event called “I am not going to lose weight in 2017”. The event was in line with company’s mission – feeding their customers. And feed they did!
2. Prepare an attractive offer for the recipients.
It can be a huge discount, an interesting bonus or a chance to take part in some fun activity connected with your business’ theme. Plan for a time and date when your “attractions” are going be happening and create the Event. It’s important that your offer is consistent with your company’s goal. If – for example – you have a restaurant that comes with a playground, do not try to tempt the parents with free alcohol.
3. Consider creating recurring Events.
In 2017 Facebook made it possible to create recurring events. This is particularly useful if you are planning something spread out in time. Why is it worth it? Well, to begin with, because people that participated in the first of the event are going to receive a notification each consecutive day. Secondly, you will not have to promote all the events separately, but can instead focus on expanding the target audience of the main event. But how is it done? In the “Frequency” section of the event creator you can select one of four options: “Once”, “Daily”, “Weekly” and “Custom”; later you can also select an hour and duration for each of these choices. So you end up with quite a lot of options, as long as you take into account this tiny detail: the maximum number of dates that the event can take place on is 52, regardless of the option selected; unfortunately, extending the event further is not possible.
4. Co-organize.
If a friendly party – such as another business, venue or artist – has their own Fanpage and is involved in the event in any way do not create two separate events, but instead list all parties as co-organizers. This way you will not risk diluting your effectiveness and increase your event’s effective range. All it takes is for one of you to create an event, select “edit” and mention the other party in the “Co-organizers” box.
5. Invite most of your friends to take part in the event.
This should not be limited to those among them who you think might be interested. There are probably people in your friendlist that you do not know too well – and will not be able to gauge if they will be interested in what you have to offer. Nobody will be offended by an invitation and a group of people added to the event from the get go will socially legitimize the event.
6. Encourage people added to the event to invite others.
You can include in the event description an information that you will be very happy if a lot of people show up. Alternatively, you can go a step further and offer some sort of reward for inviting your friends, for example by offering them an additional discount or another bonus free of charge.
7. Inform the administrators of Fanpages thematically related to yours about the event.
I do not necessarily mean the competition, but – for example – bloggers or other relevant media. Remember that knowing someone on the inside is not a requirement; if your offer is attractive enough, a part of them will be happy to pass the information of the event on to their fans or will simply take part in the event themselves, which in itself will extend its reach even further.
8. Do not allow your participants to sleep through the event!
Take advantage of the fact that publishing something on event’s wall has a huge reach among those invited to the event. Anybody who has declared any interest in your event will receive a notification every time you add anything to the page. That’s an incredibly powerful tool! Use it to hype the entire thing up. For example, each day you can show what’s in store for the participants. You can also keep adding additional organizational details such as commuting info or weather forecasts for the days of the event.
9. Be there.
On the day of the event, when the first guests start arriving, there’s a line forming or something interesting is starting to happen: show it. Snap a few photos or record a short clip that you will publish on event’s page. It’s quite likely that this will be enough to persuade the indecisive people to show up after all. It’s also a good idea to utilize the live feed tool; nothing is quite as effective and natural when it comes to presenting current mood. You do not have to set up an entire TV studio: “by the people for the people” approach works quite well here.
10. Apologize for any potential slip-ups.
A constant state of rush and being under pressure to leave a good first impression will create an environment that’s conductive to mistakes. Remember to remain cool-headed and apologize to every displeased guest and try to compensate them for bad experiences. Also do not let the smile escape your face – these details can create a infectiously pleasant mood thus reducing a chance of receiving a complaint or negative review later. After the event do not forget to thank everybody that showed up.
Following the above steps does not guarantee success. It will not, however, generate any additional costs and with a bit of luck the extra range can lead to a great outcome, positive consequences of which might remain noticeable far into the future.
