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Guy wants me to advertise, promote and manage his events. Need help with business plan

by luke1213
10 replies
Some of you guys know, I used to be in construction. I know longer have the company but I still need a place to store all my equipment. So this week, I was at the storage area unloading a trailer I sold. The landowner/landlord came up and started a conversation with me.

We started talking about work (or lack of), the economy, blah, blah, blah. He asked me what kind of work I did and I gave him a brief explanation of what I do. After he found out what I do, he wanted to know if I would be interested in helping him promote and advertise his business. At this point, I'm thinking that he owns a construction business or something so getting new clients would be simple. Boy was I wrong!

The business isn't a typical business. It's not a business that offers services or sells products but its a business that does events like swap meets, tractor pulls, mud boggs, etc. He has a weekend event every year that draws thousands of people to it that is pretty lucrative but he needs the revenue every month until he has his big yearly event.

Now, he wants me to take over as his marketing agent. Doing SEO and websites is one thing, but putting together a marketing plan for these types of events could be a helluva undertaking. Right now, he is only seeing a couple thousand people per month coming to his events which is basically just keeping the doors open for him until the next big event.

I have faith in my abilities to promote this for him and to make it more lucrative, but I need help creating a business plan for him.

Any help would be appreciated.

P.S. He also has a bunch of old antique furniture, glasswares, etc. that he wants me to market and sell for him. If anyone is interested in any antiques, PM me.
#advertise #business #events #guy #manage #plan #promote
  • Profile picture of the author Eddie Spangler
    What kind of budget does he have?
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  • Profile picture of the author Red Kaiser
    You would need a lot of cross promotion for this. Direct Mail, email, etc.

    Something that would stand out would be video marketing. In case he has any clips or images of past events, make an animoto video and then promote them on Youtube and other video sites. Add annotations to the video with his address or phone number for more info, but also make sure to geo-tag the video and optimize it with the right keywords.
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  • Profile picture of the author watsonovedades
    avertise locally on google display network and search
    create a facebook canmpaign targeting people from the city
    buy banner spaces on sites that have traffic from your state

    offline marketing. >>
    buy a radio spot
    flyers
    banners with QR code
    paper ads

    hope it helps
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  • Profile picture of the author rob19028
    Maybe he needs some sponsers. Let high traffic local businesses hang banners at the event for 1000s of people to see in exchange for being able to distribute fliers at their location. Last few little carnival events i took the kids to....I found out about them from fliers at the grocery store...sitting in the rack by the carts
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  • Profile picture of the author shane_k
    Rob's idea is a good one. if you can get businesses to pay you to have banners or hand out flyers or some other marketing material at the event that could be a potential cash cow right there.

    For his big yearly event if most of those people visiting are tourists, then what you can do is find larger companies from out of town to sponser those, and for his smaller events you can have more local companies as the visitors would probably be local anyway.

    Up here in Canada we do have a few large events like this, "Vancouver PNE" , "Edmonton Klondike Days", "Calgary Stampede" etc. And if you look on thier sites I bet you could get an idea of some of their sponsors.

    You could emulate them or go on some websites for big events down in the states where you live. There are probably tones of them.

    Does he know where most of the visitors for his events come from? That could also help you out on which cities, and/or towns to target.

    are they mostly local or mostly tourists?
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    • Profile picture of the author luke1213
      Originally Posted by shane_k View Post

      Rob's idea is a good one. if you can get businesses to pay you to have banners or hand out flyers or some other marketing material at the event that could be a potential cash cow right there.

      For his big yearly event if most of those people visiting are tourists, then what you can do is find larger companies from out of town to sponser those, and for his smaller events you can have more local companies as the visitors would probably be local anyway.

      Up here in Canada we do have a few large events like this, "Vancouver PNE" , "Edmonton Klondike Days", "Calgary Stampede" etc. And if you look on thier sites I bet you could get an idea of some of their sponsors.

      You could emulate them or go on some websites for big events down in the states where you live. There are probably tones of them.

      Does he know where most of the visitors for his events come from? That could also help you out on which cities, and/or towns to target.

      are they mostly local or mostly tourists?
      mostly local people for the every other weekend events. the larger event draws from all over the state.
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  • Profile picture of the author DABK
    I know a guy who does yearly events. He does the banners. He also does a VIP gala, where, people who sponsor the event to the tune of $1200-5000 get to meet all by themselves the evening before the event starts, have dinner and be entertained by some low level (yet known to the group) singers/bands. The 5k ones got to sit at the same table with some politician, a couple of celebrities (former sports people), some other such people... My understanding is that celebrities, if they're entertainers, can be gotten to attend for less than I think, especially the ones who've had their moment and lost it.

    He also got the local chamber to promote his event (gave them a booth, I believe).

    Originally Posted by luke1213 View Post

    Some of you guys know, I used to be in construction. I know longer have the company but I still need a place to store all my equipment. So this week, I was at the storage area unloading a trailer I sold. The landowner/landlord came up and started a conversation with me.

    We started talking about work (or lack of), the economy, blah, blah, blah. He asked me what kind of work I did and I gave him a brief explanation of what I do. After he found out what I do, he wanted to know if I would be interested in helping him promote and advertise his business. At this point, I'm thinking that he owns a construction business or something so getting new clients would be simple. Boy was I wrong!

    The business isn't a typical business. It's not a business that offers services or sells products but its a business that does events like swap meets, tractor pulls, mud boggs, etc. He has a weekend event every year that draws thousands of people to it that is pretty lucrative but he needs the revenue every month until he has his big yearly event.

    Now, he wants me to take over as his marketing agent. Doing SEO and websites is one thing, but putting together a marketing plan for these types of events could be a helluva undertaking. Right now, he is only seeing a couple thousand people per month coming to his events which is basically just keeping the doors open for him until the next big event.

    I have faith in my abilities to promote this for him and to make it more lucrative, but I need help creating a business plan for him.

    Any help would be appreciated.

    P.S. He also has a bunch of old antique furniture, glasswares, etc. that he wants me to market and sell for him. If anyone is interested in any antiques, PM me.
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  • Profile picture of the author luke1213
    This is all great advice. It just sucks that I will have to wait until I get back from New Orleans to start implementing these ideas. As far as his budget, I haven't had a chance to discuss it with him as of yet. We will meet again once I return from NO and I will find out his budget then. What he has is a goldmine if the right person can make it work for him. Hopefully, I'm that right person. If I get him close to where he wants to be, then imagine how many referrals I will get just from promoting him.
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  • Profile picture of the author vndnbrgj
    Luke...
    As far as the antiques things.. I would do a traveling auction.
    Maybe one weekend a month, he does a swap meet in a different part of the country.
    At the swap meet he also holds an auction for some of the goods.
    He can just rent a spot somewhere and then sell the spaces to the locals.
    It may take some time to build up but, then that can be another yearly event for each area.
    1st Annual Florida Swap Meet & Auction
    Got Some Items Collecting Dust? It's time to dust them off and cash them in.
    Don't need your own space? No problem! Drop off your item by Friday at Florida Rented Place and we will auction it off for you on Saturday!
    Advertising can be done on TV, Online, Radio, Billboards, Etc.

    I like that you have a MySpace button... (LOL)
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    • Profile picture of the author luke1213
      Originally Posted by vndnbrgj View Post

      Luke...

      I like that you have a MySpace button... (LOL)
      and it doesn't work lol
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