4 Ways to Promote an Event on a Tight Timeline

Spring in the Hudson Valley feels especially triumphant this year, am I right? The air outside my house is electric with it. The tulips, cherry trees, and forsythia are showier than ever and the spring peepers got an early start to their chirping, happily singing along the creekside since mid-March.

Alongside the technicolor sights and sounds of nature returning to life, it feels like I’ve woken up from my winter dormancy this year to find my social schedule already bursting with must-see art exhibitions, concerts, theater productions, community events—you name it.

The Challenges of Promoting Events Today

While this spring and summer’s return to a near-normal events schedule is definitely cause for celebration, anyone who plans those events knows that promotion can often take months of  work to see payoff in registration numbers and ticket sales.

With the last two years of stop-and-go event planning, however, promotional timelines and budgets are much leaner than in the pre-pandemic era. (Eventbrite, for one, traditionally recommends that you start event promotion 16 weeks out, but that isn’t a realistic timeline for many organizations right now.)

In addition to the short timelines many marketers work these days, there are the challenges that come with those tighter budgets (a knock-on effect of the past two year’s limited events revenue) and the increased competition from a flood of in-person programming opening up again this year all at once.

To put together a successful promotional campaign, you have to be smarter than ever with your marketing dollars.  

Solutions from Chronogram Media

Need to make the most of your budget and put together a high-impact promotion in double time? We’ve got you covered!

We have a wide array of targeted marketing and advertising opportunities available to organizations that need strategic event promotion on a tight timeline—and one that reaches potential attendees right up to the day of your event.

Here are three ways you can reach your desired event demographic on a tight timeline and how you can utilize the power of our audience network at Chronogram Media to do so right when you need. 

Digital Display Advertising

If you’re promoting an event on a tight timeline, you might not be able to engage in traditional print advertising (but it’s always worth seeing if your media rep can squeeze you into the next issue of Chronogram or Upstate House). Digital display advertising, however, often works on much shorter timelines, so you can put together a display advertising campiang even with just a few weeks of lead time. 

We frequently help event promoters reach our own audience in the Hudson Valley, Catskills, Berkshires, and the New York City metro area. We have 80k+ subscribers to our e-newsletters across multiple channels and our websites receive 4.1 million visitors annually.

A digital display for Field + Supply’s Spring MRKT appears on Chronogram.com

We publish new content on Chronogram.com and Upstater.com almost daily and send out email newsletters four to five times a week to our highly engaged audience, so Run of Site banner advertising on Chronogram.com and Upstater.com and sponsorship placements in our Eat.Play.Stay. email newsletter and High Society newsletter can send traffic to your event materials as soon as you need it.  

Running even last-minute digital display advertising with a publisher that has a large crossover with your desired attendee demographic is a great way to cast a wide net for your event, and it’s just the start. 

Customized Targeting and Remarketing

Our digital targeting tools allow you to go one step further with your display advertising. You can target your desired demographic using search behavior like keywords and geographic data. Search targeting allows you to reach digital users who are searching for specific terms or related activity (think someone Googling “events in Hudson”). Geographic targeting allows you to set a perimeter around a specific physical location and deliver ads to those who are currently in or have recently visited the area. 

At Chronogram Media, we work with a digital partner to bring these powerful extended audience tools to small businesses in our region.  

These targeting techniques are great for event promoters to use, especially on a short timeline. Once your target audience is specified, your messaging is instantly delivered to those users when they’re browsing national high-traffic sites like New York Magazine, Reuters, Epicurious, People, Slate, and more. 

Chronogram Events Calendar

A featured calendar listing for Gardiner Open Studio Tour on the Chronogram Events Calendar can boost your event’s visibility

Don’t have a lot of extra money in your promotional budget? You can create an event listing in our Events Calendar on Chronogram.com for free. The calendar is a highly trafficked page that locals and visitors alike are head to when looking for engaging events in our region. 

Want to give your listing a little boost? Send it to the top of the calendar by making it a Featured Listing for just $10 a day.

Social Media

When it comes to event promotion, spreading the word on your own social media channels is a no-brainer. With all the power that Facebook holds, however, using its platforms (which also includes Instagram) for advertising is admittedly a minefield for small businesses. There’s just no getting around the fact that spending money with Facebook keeps that money out of the local economy.

Facebook has unparalleled information about its users that it gets from its own platforms  as well as other websites that share information with it—from users’ location to current interests and recent search history. All this personal data is what makes Facebook money, so as a small business it’s vital to weigh this fact when you’re making the decision whether or not to use its paid advertising services. 

If you’re on a tight timeline, however, Facebook provides a very effective option for event promotion that is targeted to your exact demographic. 

A Chronogram social media post promoting the newest show at 11 Jane Street Art Center in Saugerties

At Chronogram Media, we curate social media posts on our own channels with you as a visible brand partner. These posts reach our own audience of followers as well as your desired demographic, who will see ad placements across Facebook and Instagram. These sponsored social media posts are a dependable option for an organization that has less resources to devote to social media or simply anyone looking to leverage Chronogram’s brand recognition as a longtime supporter of local events. 

Regardless of the promotional timeline you’re working with, a coordinated campaign that utilizes multiple marketing channels is the most effective way to promote your event. But it’s important to be smart with your resources and think critically about the blend of digital tools that will help you reach an audience that will attend your event—whether they’re a loyal patron excited to see the return of your programming or someone new to the region who can’t wait to get out and explore. 

Want to more marketing tips just for small businesses in the Hudson Valley, Catskills, and Berkshires? Subscribe to our monthly newsletter, The Art of Business!

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