How far in advance should you start marketing an event?

One of my favorite quotes is, “People don’t notice announcements, they notice consistency.”

You can only have consistent communication when you give yourself enough of a runway.

Rather than me trying to dream up a list of events and try to tell you how far in advance to start promoting them, I made a little game.

Get a pad of paper and play along.

START WITH A 2 WEEK MINIMUM

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Keep your event in mind and answer the following questions…

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🤔 Does it require significant financial investment? ($50+ total) YES – add 3 weeks

OR

🤔 Does is require minor financial investment? (<$50 total) YES – add 2 weeks

OR

🤔 Is it free? YES – add 0 weeks 😛

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🤔 Does it require registration/RSVP? YES – add 2 weeks

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🤔 If the event is for adults, and a parent wanted to attend without their child (assume they are NOT in school), would they need to arrange childcare? YES – add 2 weeks

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🤔 If someone with a Mon-Fri, 9-5 job wanted to attend, does it require time off of work? YES – add 2 weeks

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🤔 Is it on a weekend night and/or Saturday morning? YES – add 1 week

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🤔 Would a teen or adult introvert consider this event particularly “scary”? (Translation for my extroverts: Does it require meeting a bunch of strangers? Ice-breakers? Role-playing? Potential embarrassment?) YES – add 1 week

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🤔 Is this a routine event that people expect to happen (annual/monthly/weekly)? YES – subtract 1 week, NO – add 1 week

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🤔 Is this something people have explicitly asked you for? YES – subtract 1 week, NO – add 1 week

I’m pretty sure no one could possibly end up with 0 weeks… If you do – please email me and tell me all about this one-of-a-kind event you’ve created!

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How did it work out for you?

Maybe you got to your answer and you’re thinking, “Really? 13 weeks? That seems like a lot…”

A little over 3 months to: plan for significant financial investment, fill out registration forms, arrange childcare, and ask off of work (among other things) seems quite fair to me. If you had to do all that, how much time would you want?

Use this time to consistently communicate the benefits of the event – why would someone want to overcome all these objections?

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