I have not written anything here in a while because I have been using my free time to work on our new marketing campaign for ELLA. Recently, our dance group got together and formed a plan for generating some new interest in swing dancing. We realize that the swing craze of the nineties is ancient history and most people have no clue what swing dancing is these days. This means that keeping people excited can be a challenge.

We have a very limited budget, which means, we have to be a little more creative when it comes to advertising. We decided it was time to host free swing dance workshops on the University of Oregon campus. Our sister club, U-Lindy, has access to free spaces on campus and our regular ELLA instructors offered to volunteer their time for the cause. Great! Now all we have to do is get as many people there as possible.

I designed black and white and full color flyers that we put up all over town, handed out at swing demonstrations, and took to other dance events. The flyer on its own can only do so much. We have found that doing a demonstration of swing dancing before we hand someone a flyer makes a much bigger impact. We have also found that we are likely to get more people out if their friends are excited about it, so we came up with incentive for our regulars to bring other people they know to the workshops — people that have never tried the dance before.

Chances to Win Prizes!

Everyone that attends the free swing workshops this Saturday in the EMU Fir Room will be entered into a drawing to win the following prizes:

• Free One-Hour Private Lesson with Karly Barrett
• Free One-Hour Private Lesson with Emily Erfurth
• Free One-Hour Private Lesson with Nathen Lester
• A Card for Ten Free Passes to ELLA’s Wednesday Dances**
  **Excludes free admission to live music events.
• As Good As It Gets: Swing with Various Artists

Increase your chances to win prizes by bringing first time dancers with you. You will get extra entries in the drawing for every person you bring. For example if Jane Doe shows up and brings three new dancers with her, she would get four free entries — one for herself and one for each person she brought with her. Just tell us at the door who you brought with you. We will draw for prizes at the end of the Shim Sham class. Must be present to win.

Press Releases

The final stage of the plan is to make the announcement to all the local media, dance clubs and our regular contacts. We sent press releases to everyone. We emailed our regulars. We posted on dance forums and sent event bulletins to our friends on MySpace and Facebook. We also made sure the event appeared on every community calendar we have access to, including craigslist.

We are down to the last couple days of advertising. I will try to give you an update on our final numbers soon.

What do you think? Do you have any marketing ideas that we have not thought of? Do you also have the limitation of working with a small budget. How do you overcome that?

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You might also be interested in reading the following blog entries:

• Flyer and Poster Design for PLS
• Portland Swing Fest Poster
• Marketing Your Brand: Part 3
• 2009 PDXLX Promo and Event Materials
• Marketing Your Brand: Part 2