I Heard About It From A Friend!

Promoting Your Event with Web Banners
by Lisa Repasky-Sandhusen, Arts Marketer

Ask someone why they attended an arts event and the most common response is, “I heard about it from a friend.”

These days, “I heard it from a friend.” doesn’t necessarily mean that the two friends spoke in person. The internet, now offers many convenient opportunities for friends to reach out to each other through blogs, MySpace pages and personal webpages. It also affords non-profit arts organizations an economical opportunity to generate “word of mouth buzz” using banners posted onto personal web pages.

The Center for Modern Dance Education (CMDE) (hyperlink http://www.cmde.org/news.shtml) added the use of banners to the traditional marketing campaign to promote its 2006 Open Door Dance Concert, an annual outreach concert dedicated to presenting dance theatre to new audiences.

To keep the branding consistent, artwork from the print campaign was used to create banner/buttons that were then uploaded to the CMDE website with the accompanying HTML code available for anyone to cut and paste. Fliers were hung around the studio directing students and visitors to access the banners at the CMDE website.

Banners and buttons are an innovative way for everyone involved in your arts organization to share their interest with their ever widening circle of friends, and become an important part of any marketing campaign by opening new channels to BFF (Best Friends Forever).

63% of survey respondents at the Open Door Concert noted that they heard about this event through word of mouth although it’s not clear exactly how many were attracted by a friend’s banner button. Successful promotional campaigns depend upon repetition. Banners and buttons offer additional viewings and reminders and may be viewed more often when received from a trusted source.

Editor's Note: CLICK HERE for a "how to" on creating web banners and linking them to your event.