{"id":27,"date":"2012-03-28T16:44:00","date_gmt":"2012-03-28T16:44:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.specialtystoreservicesblog.com\/2012\/03\/28\/events-ideas-and-free-publicity\/"},"modified":"2012-03-28T16:44:00","modified_gmt":"2012-03-28T16:44:00","slug":"events-ideas-and-free-publicity","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.specialtystoreservicesblog.com\/testblog\/events-ideas-and-free-publicity\/","title":{"rendered":"Events Ideas and Free Publicity"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><span>Effective business owners and store managers are always looking more ways to\u00a0obtain more attention while keeping costs down. Enter in-store events, press releases and word-of-mouth publicity! I know we&#8217;ve lightly touched on this before but it bears repeating in more detail. \u00a0Here are some event ideas that involve\u00a0a small\u00a0or minimal monetary investment but can garner a lot of attention.<\/span><\/p>\n<div><\/div>\n<div><span><strong>Give and you shall receive<\/strong>. Donate your products or services to a local non-profit or other worthy organization. How does giving away your merchandise or knowledge benefit your store or company? Two words: free publicity. Newspapers will print or post online news about events benefiting the community and non-profits <em>for free<\/em>.\u00a0<\/span><span>\u00a0<\/span><\/div>\n<ul>\n<li>\n<div><span>If you own a beauty salon, offer a day of\u00a0pampering to the residents of a local assisted living home, senior center or women&#8217;s shelter.\u00a0Contact the activity director, pack up your gear and go give free hair trims, comb-outs or mini-manis to people who would like a little pick-me-up.<\/span><\/div>\n<\/li>\n<li>\n<div><span>Own a restaurant? Choose a day to offer military veterans free dessert and coffee or have a little 3-hour reception with finger foods, beverages and desserts for the vets. <\/span><\/div>\n<\/li>\n<li>\n<div><span>Owners of pet grooming salons can offer free nail trims and ear cleanings for dogs and\/or cats and ask for donations which will benefit a local animal shelter. Give it a party-like atmosphere by setting up a tent outside where you can work on the less skittish visitors and do face painting for the kids. <\/span><\/div>\n<\/li>\n<li>\n<div><span>Owners of clothing stores can contact a local homeless shelter or women\u2019s shelter to offer some people in need nice new clothes for job interviews or clothing for their children. <\/span><\/div>\n<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<div><span>Put on your thinking cap and think about what events you can hold at your location or what services you can offer off-site. What can you do to make the events fun and <em>newsworthy<\/em>? The event will be more effective if your heart is in it \u2013 the sincerity will show through and speak for itself. In turn, people will talk about it in a positive way and spread the word about your company. And there you go \u2013 more publicity.\u00a0<\/span><\/div>\n<div><\/div>\n<div><span>Make sure you spend extra time cleaning your store and organizing everything! After all, there will be potential customers coming to your place for these events, so give them a great first impression. Be sure to have business cards or flyers with your company\u2019s information to give to visitors, especially if your event is off-site. <\/span><\/div>\n<div><\/div>\n<div><span><strong>Spread the news.\u00a0<\/strong>Write an <em>effective<\/em> press release to let the local news outlets know what you\u2019re doing. Make sure you get the press release to the Events Editor at least 2-3 weeks before your event and take pictures at the event so they can print a follow-up story (which you will also provide in\u00a0a press release format). Press releases need to have a title that both grabs attention and gives info of the event. Be sure to give all pertinent information in a summary paragraph at the beginning of the press release before delving into details. If you don\u2019t, you may not grab the attention of the editor &#8211; no attention from the editor, no free publicity. Check out this article on how to write an effective <a href=\"http:\/\/www.wikihow.com\/Write-a-Press-Release\" target=\"_blank\">press release<\/a>\u00a0for some helpful\u00a0hints.\u00a0Don&#8217;t forget to advertise your event with posters in your store, on your website\/social media page and via email to your mailing list. <\/span><\/div>\n<div><\/div>\n<p><span><span>So, you\u2019ve got some new fun and profitable event ideas to generate interest and get publicity. Please let me know what events you\u2019re planning and how they go! <\/span><\/span><\/p>\n<p><span><span>Visit the <a href=\"http:\/\/www.specialtystoreservices.com\/default3.aspx\" target=\"_blank\">Specialty Store Services website<\/a> for products to help you promote your events and for links to more tools to help you run your business effectively. <\/span><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Effective business owners and store managers are always looking more ways to\u00a0obtain more attention while keeping costs down. Enter in-store events, press releases and word-of-mouth publicity! I know we&#8217;ve lightly touched on this before but it bears repeating in more detail. \u00a0Here are some event ideas that involve\u00a0a small\u00a0or minimal monetary investment but can garner <a class=\"more-link\" href=\"https:\/\/www.specialtystoreservicesblog.com\/testblog\/events-ideas-and-free-publicity\/\">Read More &#8230;<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-27","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-sales-promotion-retail-marketing"],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.specialtystoreservicesblog.com\/testblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.specialtystoreservicesblog.com\/testblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.specialtystoreservicesblog.com\/testblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.specialtystoreservicesblog.com\/testblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.specialtystoreservicesblog.com\/testblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=27"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.specialtystoreservicesblog.com\/testblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.specialtystoreservicesblog.com\/testblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=27"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.specialtystoreservicesblog.com\/testblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=27"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.specialtystoreservicesblog.com\/testblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=27"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}