Customer story with Stephanie Singleton
Own an event planning business and tired of looking for ways to market your services? Well, Stephanie Singleton’s here to tell you there’s a much simpler way! As the owner of her own micro-venue, Princess For A Day, Stephanie has planned, hosted, and marketed countless events. And what does she have in her marketing arsenal to help her? A fabulous promotional strategy that starts with the right event poster.
We sat down with Stephanie to talk about her venture, and how she uses event posters to plan, host, and promote fabulous events.
Can you tell me about your business? How big is it?
My business is a micro-venue called “A Princess For A Day”. We specialize in small weddings, elopement ceremonies, birthdays, and more. Our target market is people who want small, intimate events.
We can accommodate up to 10 weddings in a week. And if there are any open slots in the week, they’re available to people who want to throw any kind of social event.
We have an elegant Victorian-style banquet hall, so we’re already set up for many receptions. People can book the venue as is or request a specific theme or setup.
Since most of our setup is neutral, clients can request a specific color scheme and we can work with that. For those that want to spruce things up more, we can offer different backgrounds, centerpieces, and other stuff. We also host themed birthday parties, mixers, and other events, so it really depends on what the client wants.
How do you primarily promote your business?
Social media is my go-to tool when it comes to promotion.
Facebook is my most used platform. And after that, I rely on Instagram. I use these platforms to post about my events and services, share my rates, and connect with potential clients.
Event posters are the main form of content I post on social media, and PosterMyWall has been very useful in helping me with that. I host so many weddings in a month. And when I’m not hosting a private wedding, I’m hosting Singles’ Nights, Game Nights, and other similar fun networking events. I always create fun graphics to promote them.
1. Plan out your event posters according to different themes
What kind of event graphics do you create? Can you take me through your design process?
So I have a range of graphics that I create when marketing my business. My graphics either focus on promoting a specific event or promoting my venue in general.
If I need to promote a specific event, let’s say a Singles Night open to the public, I’ll look for a template that matches what I need, and customize it accordingly. I’ll use eye-catching colors and fonts because I want to post something that stands out. I try to work with the theme I’m going for so I can attract the right audience every time. So, if it’s a Singles Night, I’ll add darker colors, and give it a more fun, adult-ish vibe. If it’s a children’s party, brighter colors with more imagery would work better. I’ll also make sure to add important details about the event.
I also create themed posters to advertise the different types of private events we host at our venue. So I create generic wedding posters, birthday party posters, and other graphics based on private parties we’ve hosted and post those on my socials. Since my venue is called Princess for a Day, I don’t want the name to restrict my audience by having people think we host only weddings or similar events. So I make sure to openly advertise different events.
Finally, I create promotional graphics for my venue as an available space. I create a variation of these. Some of them are specific to weddings, while others are more generic. In these graphics, I promote specific packages, rates, and other important information.
2. Create promotional packages for seasonal events
Do you create event graphics for seasonal marketing?
I do! I actually just started offering seasonal packages this previous year, and so far I’ve offered promotional event packages for Black Friday, Cyber Monday, Thanksgiving, Christmas, and New Year.
3. Promote your content through Facebook ads
Tell me more about your Facebook ad strategy.
My Facebook ad strategy focuses mostly on targeting local audiences. And then I set different filters based on what type of content I’m promoting. If it’s an ad for our wedding venue packages, I’ll target mostly women and make sure my event poster has a wedding theme.
I add a lot of keywords that are relevant to my audience. They help with the visibility of my content a lot especially when working on Facebook ads. I’ll add keywords that focus on the event I’m promoting, as well as the audience I’m promoting it to. So for a wedding, keywords relating to wedding venues and small banquet halls work great.
I also target audiences from neighboring cities and towns, in case they’re looking for a nice venue for their event. I don’t think I have a lot of strong competition in my area for small venues, so I like to reach out to audiences a little further away too.
4. Collaborate and cross-market
Have you hosted all of these public events yourself? Or do you work in collaboration with another company?
Not all of these are my own events. Since my venue is located at the Holiday Inn hotel, I often collaborate with them and help promote their events too. For example, the hotel held an Ugly Sweater Party that I promoted on my social media. In return, the hotel promotes my events as well. I usually add the hotel’s address and details along with my own on my event posters, so that people coming to my events can check out the hotel as well.
I benefit from this because I get to market my own venue at the Hotel’s events. People attending these events can check out my smaller venue and I can answer any questions they might have, which increases visibility for my business.
5. Resize your posters to diversify your marketing efforts
What other forms of marketing have you used?
Social media is easier for me financially, so I use that a lot. But I’ve resized my event posters into different sizes for offline marketing as well. I’ve tried billboards and standees, and I’ve even converted some of them into business cards to give out to people.
I believe if these methods don’t generate authentic traffic, they do at least help me market my brand and make it more recognizable in my area.
Alright! Thank you for joining us today, Stephanie! We wish you the best of luck with your business.
New to PosterMyWall? Take a page out of Stephanie’s book and plan out a versatile marketing strategy with simple, effective event posters.
Senior editor at PosterMyWall.
