You’ve taken the steps to organize a community shredding event—stretching from recruiting your team of volunteers to finding a shredding company and the ideal location to hold your event.
With the difficult parts of the process now out of the way, all that remains to be done is getting people to show up.
For advertising a shredding event, sponsors have a wide range of promotional tools to make use of. From cheaper and easier to implement methods of event marketing like making cold calls and posting flyers, to striking up partnerships with local media outlets, there are numerous advertising options for shred event sponsors to opt for.
In order to help give a sense of direction for those planning to host a community shredding event in the coming future, we’ve created a guide to promoting a shredding event—covering topics which range from the essential message of your marketing efforts, to various strategies and ideas for methods of advertising your event to the local community.
First Stop: Set Your Marketing Message
When turning your attention to promotion for your shredding event, it’s important that you establish a marketing message for your event.
After all, the ideal goal for your event is to generate the maximum turnout, so naturally you’ll want to give members of the community a good reason to attend.
To create a sense of buzz, it’s recommended that event hosts place heavy emphasis in their promotions on the rising number of fraud and identity theft cases in America. In 2014, the number of US citizens affected by stolen identities rose once more—now totaling at a whopping 17.6 million individuals nationwide.
Senior citizens tend to make up the greatest percentage of American fraud victims, but because they tend to also have more free time available than other demographics, this makes places like senior retirement communities an excellent location to focus your advertising efforts on.
Cheap and Easy Promotion Strategies
Depending on the size and type of shredding event you are planning to sponsor, the amount of available resources you can dedicate to advertising your event may vary.
If you are considering opting for a less-expensive promotional route, there are several cheap outreach tools available to your disposal.
First and foremost, be sure to utilize the volunteers who you recruit during the process of organizing your shredding event.
Leveraging the personal and professional networks of both your event volunteers as well as your own can unveil a treasure trove of untapped resources. Between co-workers, neighbors, and your local church or youth sports organizations, you can already get your foot in the door within a wide network of contacts.
A traditional event promotion strategy, posting flyers around frequently visited areas within your community is an excellent and cost-effective method for getting word through the grapevine about your shredding event.
Wherever you are permitted to do so—whether on street signs throughout neighborhoods, in the windows of grocery stores and libraries, or even via email campaigns—try to get as many flyers as possible into the public eye.
Although shred event sponsors are by all means encouraged to implement their own creative posters and flyers for advertising their event, createthegood.org also provides a sample shred event flyer for potential event sponsors to help get the promotional ball rolling—you can find the template on page seven of their community shredding event guide.
Upping the Advertisement Ante
If your sights are set on a shred event of massive proportions, you may want to consider placing a heavier emphasis on advertising your shredding event by also bringing in co-sponsors and media partners to help build hype.
Many companies choose to host shredding events not just for the sake of benefiting their local communities, but also because sponsoring a shredding event can help to market their business and get their name out into the local business space.
By introducing another already-known company to help sponsor your event, you may be able to capitalize on attendees recognizing the names of businesses who are hosting the shredding event.
Besides just co-sponsoring with other businesses to help advertise the event, don’t forget to also shoot a promotional email to local media sources like newspapers, radio stations, and television news channels.
While your team of volunteers and their word-of-mouth advertisement can only cover so much ground in one day, imagine the number of potential event attendees who read or watch the news each morning and listen to the radio driving home in the afternoon.
Finally, social media and digital event management tools can also add a helpful boost to your shredding event outreach. For large-scale, all-day events that charge participants a small fee to attend, paid tools like eventbrite.com can be used to promote and manage your event all hours of the day, right up to the day of your event.
Although Eventbrite is free to use for promoting free events, for events that charge attendees, Eventbrite simply deducts a small service fee for each event ticket you sell.
Get Free Quotes on Services for a Shred Event in Your Community Today!
Community shredding events serve as an excellent chance to promote awareness of fraud and identity theft while also providing a convenient opportunity for members of the community to safely shred and dispose of old and unnecessary documents.
At Shred Nations, our network of shredding providers extends nationwide and can handle shred events both large and small. Once you settle on a company, you can leave the rest up to us—all you have to do is promote your shredding event.
To begin shopping for mobile shredding services at your community shredding event, just give us a call at (800) 747-3365, or simply fill out the form at the right of your screen to request free quotes from shredding providers today!
Additional Resources
Hosting a Community Shredding Event: A How-To Guide: Community shredding events offer benefits to all members of a community, including both the participants who attend as well as the sponsors who host the events. With this in-depth white paper and supplemental collection of articles, learn all the aspects of hosting a community shredding event, ranging from what a shred event is, to how to ensure yours is a successful one!
Community Shredding Events Can Help Prevent Identity Theft: Besides offering a convenient and cost-effective option for securely shredding documents, community shredding events are a valuable opportunity to cut down identity theft in local communities across the United States. Use this article to learn how shredding events help to combat the perils of fraud and information insecurity.
The Host’s Handbook: Three Key Components to a Shredding Event: In order to ensure that the shredding event you plan to host is a successful one, it’s imperative you put in the necessary time and organization first. Get all the information you need for sponsoring your own shredding event with this guide—including volunteer recruitment, shredding service searching, and finding the perfect place for your event.
(createthegood.org)
(eventbrite.com)
(bjs.gov)
