Putting together a non-profit event takes a lot of work, and often, there isn’t a lot of money to work with. This means that you have to come up with ways to make these events successful, without having to spend much. One of the most expensive aspects of any event is marketing, but there are tools you can use to make it a lot easier, and a lot cheaper. Here are our top seven picks for marketing tools you can use to promote your non-profit event.

1. Use Social Media

You will find loads of social media tools that you can use to promote your event for free. You can send out Tweets, or use the tools TweetMyEvents and TweetVite. Update your Facebook status regularly with posts about the event. Take full advantage of these free marketing tools.

2. Word-of-Mouth Marketing

One of the best ways to get the word out about an event is to tell people. The more people you tell, the more people they will tell, and so on, and so on. People tend to trust recommendations they get from family and friends, so if people are telling others that they know how great your event is going to be, it is sure to be a huge success. Check out ReferralRock, where you can ask people to tell others about you and your event.

3. Create Merchandise

There are many ways you can use merchandise to promote your event, without having to spend a lot of money. For instance, you can create promotional buttons for pennies apiece, and then get people to wear them all over town to promote the event. Buttons are just one of many small items you can make at a low price. Others include fridge magnets, zipper pulls, clothing magnets, and many more. Check out what you can create at UberButtons.

4. Use Local Promotions Sites

If you are able to offer an incentive to people for attending your event, some good tools to use are Groupon, Living Social, and Gilt. Basically, you advertise your event, and offer an incentive to those who visit these sites if they sign up to attend. An incentive doesn’t have to be costly either. It can be as simple as a free e-book, or something else that they are interested in.

5. Create an Event Page

When using social media, go all the way and create an event page. You can invite people to the event, and you will have a pretty good idea of how many people are going to attend. Users can let you know if they will be attending. One great tool to use is Attendee Events, which lets you create a page that lets people register for the event.

6. Use Traditional Media

Even though most people tend to use social media, don’t forget about traditional media. Television, newspapers, and radio stations can promote your business, and there are ways you can do it for free. Send your event notice to community cable channels. Send press releases to newspapers with eReleases (they may even decide to do an actual article and interview you about the event), etc.

7. Create a Calendar Invitation

You have an email list, so you should take advantage of it in order to promote your non-profit event. Once you have all of the details about the event in place, you can send out email invitations to everyone on your email list. Then, you can send out periodical reminders in the days leading up to the event, to make sure that they don’t forget about it. Of course, it is going to be so great that people will be looking forward to attending.

Article Written By: Kathleen Olson