Promoting your event
In this section
Top tips
- Work on crafting an engaging title and description you can use to share widely
Give people just enough information that they want to find out more. What’s the gist of the event in two or three sentences? You should try to keep sentences short (less than 20 words) so people can take it quickly what your event is about. You can even challenge yourself to write something you could share on Twitter (280 characters or less).
Have a look at these examples of descriptions written for the British Science Festival for inspiration.
You’ll be able to go into all the detail, including mentioning speakers, funders, etc. on your event web page/ booking form.
- Find a high quality image you can share with it
Ideally avoid using a picture of your speaker (unless its David Attenborough they probably aren’t the main draw for a public audience). If you don’t have a good image you can find free to use stock photos on websites like Pixabay.
If you choose to make a digital flyer then make sure you have a plain text version available elsewhere that’s accessible for someone using a screen reader to read. On Twitter you can also add an alternative description to your image so you can write out what any text says.
- Try to keep your words simple
This will slightly depend on your audience but in general try to pick language that is easy to understand. You need your event to stand out from dozens of messages around it and it’s best if people can take in quickly what your event is about without needing to decipher any jargon.
- You can request a shortened web link such as “warwick.ac.uk/youreventtitle” at warwick.ac.uk
For sharing online (e.g. as part of a tweet) you can just use tools like bitly.com to shorten a web address, but for creating flyers this looks neater and is easier for someone to type in. IT request 5 days notice but typically these are approved in one or two days.
- If you have budget, pay for a professional designer to make your flyer – Warwick Print charge about £60 for a simple digital flyer and it’s money well spent!
We are all busy and spending time making your own flyer is time consuming and usually yields worse results than they can achieve for you. You want your event to stand out and having a clear and easy to read flyer is a good way to do that. Warwick Print won’t write text for you but if you email them your event info they can turn it into a flyer. Less is more so send them the short version of your event description, a shortened web link where people can visit for more info and a nice photo. Contact them at enquiries@warwick.ac.uk for a quote. Payment is done by giving them your budget code so it’s quick and easy.
If you have a large event or a series of activities we can also recommend digital agencies to work with you on it. Get in touch with the team to discuss this.
Managing bookings
Getting people to book for your event is a good idea however it does mean you’re going to be responsible for ensuring their personal data is collected, stored and used appropriately in line with GDPR. You can contact gdpr@warwick.ac.uk for advice and find out more about it on the university web pages about it.
What system should I use?
- SiteBuilder has an inbuilt forms option. This is the universities preferred option as the data doesn’t leave our system but it’s clunky and makes it difficult to limit numbers signing up for your events so might not always work for you.
- Eventbrite – this is free to use for free events. Most people are familiar with booking through it and it’s customer experience is good.
- Microsoft Forms is also available to us – go to forms.office.com and sign in with your university account.
Can I keep the list of people who come to my event to email them again?
Not unless they opt in to this. If you want to be able to do this make sure you write a privacy notice informing them how their data will be used and you must make it clear that people are signing up to hear from you again in future.
If you’re keeping data like this you must make sure you’re following the appropriate GDPR guidance.
Where to promote your event
We’ve put together this checklist of places you can promote activities. Not all will be suitable for every event so consider carefully which are right for you. For example it’s unlikely the University social media team will put your event on their Facebook page if your audience is a very niche group of people.
Printed promotional options usually require a lot of advanced notice – at least a month in advance of your event. Digital options can be much closer to the day of your event.
We’ve mainly focussed on channels that are suitable for the local area but if you’re planning something elsewhere in the country then there are likely to be equivalent options in other places.
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Contact |
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WIE - Events Calendar - Public Mailing List (we typically aim to contact this with a list of several events rather than directly about each activity).
We also have local contacts in the community we might be able to share details of your event with if relevant (e.g. City of Culture, U3A groups, Café Sci etc.) |
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Community Engagement Team (local/ online events only) - Have connections to local authorities they can put you in touch with - Community newsletter goes out regularly via email – and they also do a printed newsletter to local postcodes twice a year - Community events calendar |
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Local libraries The local libraries are happy to display posters of events. You can either take them in and ask them to be displayed, or for Warwickshire libraries you can post 40 copies of your poster (max A4 size) to the address listed with a note asking them to be distributed to their libraries. (This method is best for family events and wouldn’t typically generate large numbers)
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TBC - contact wie@warwick.ac.uk in the first instance
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Internal staff/ students - Insite events calendar (you can add to this yourself) - Insite home page and regular staff newsletters - Student newsletters, MyWarwick alerts - Digital Screen – visit this page (they also give info on getting something on the Piazza big screen) - Your departmental calendars and newsletters/ GRP newsletters etc. – check department/ GRP web pages for contact info. |
internalcomms@warwick.ac.uk (explaining which audience you want this to go to). |
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What's On Magazine and Website - Contact them at least 1 month in advance of your event to be included (no cost), they also share events via their Facebook and Twitter channels. |
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Visit Coventry and Warwickshire Website and Leaflet distribution - Contact as early as possible (1 month minimum) to be listed. Email with: Name of event, date, time, location of event, a small sentence detailing the event. |
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Leamington Tourist Information Office - Happy to display posters in the centre for events (either sent via post, or they can print posters and display them). |
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Council Events Listings |
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Schools Warwick's Outreach Team send out termly and monthly newsletters to primary and secondary schools respectively. This typically contains information about activities for schools to take part in but they can sometimes promote family events. |
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Press Coverage Not every event will be of interest to the press but if you think your topic might have a broad appeal to the public then get in touch with the press team to ask them to support you in putting together and distributing a press release. They will be able to advise on which publications to target depending on your event. |
warwick.ac.uk/newsandevents/team (Contact the media relations officer for your subject area). |
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Social media - Share on your own channels and tag in others/ ask for retweets etc. - If you’re contacting other channels to ask them to promote your activity then write the post for them, include an image etc. so it’s quick and easy for them to do Consider approaching:
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University Social Media team: socialmedia@warwick.ac.uk (they will promote events with a broad appeal on Facebook if they have notice).
Alumni Facebook Group/ LinkedIn: alumni@warwick.ac.uk
WIE: wie@warwick.ac.uk / @WarwickEngages |