This article is part of the school of coworking course through Archie. Make sure to check out the other articles to learn more about how to start a coworking space business.
Why Host Events at your Coworking Space?
In the fast-evolving landscape of office life, many coworking spaces are popping up, possibly leaving you somewhat lost in the masses. Therefore, making sure that your space stands out from the competition should always be at the top of your list.
As seen in the “Marketing Guide for Coworking Spaces” section of this course, hosting events is one of the many ways to bring awareness to your coworking space. Regularly hosting events not only help build an organic community, but it also increases traffic and social media engagement.
Whatever type of event you decide to host at your space, you will need to promote them. Well-designed posters, flyers, banners, and such are important promotional tools and can help you increase the attendance rate of your events. In this article, you will learn how to design promotional material with a lasting impact.
How to Promote your Event
Promoting your event can take place on multiple platforms and mediums. It’s best to consider the target market for each event before landing on one or more channels/mediums of communication to ensure that it is the right one for the audience in question.
For example, if the event is targeted to an older generation, you may choose to concentrate your promotional efforts on your coworking Facebook page, newsletter or print media.
As mentioned above, while there are a number of ways to promote events, this article will focus on promotional material and how to design it. To learn more about hosting events in your coworking space go back to read the “Marketing Guide for Coworking Spaces” section of this course.
Designing Promotional Material
The first step of this process is to define the audience and objective of the event. From that, you will be able to make an educated decision on where you will publish your visual promotional material.
Print vs. Digital
Posters and flyers can be both printed or digital while a banner is a digital element only. You can use a mix of both or stick to one medium only. Regardless of what you decide, make sure that your designs are compatible with your chosen medium. To do so, consult the sizing chart included below.
Poster Size (in)
Standard : 24” x 36”
Medium : 18″ x 24″
Small: 11″ x 17″
Letter: 8.5″ x 11″
Flyer Size (in)
Letter : 8.5″ x 11″
A5 : 8.3″ x 5.8″
A6: 5.8″ x 4.1″
DL : 8.3″ x 3.9″
Banner Size (Px)
Billboard : 970 x 250
Medium Rectangle : 300 x 250
Leaderboard : 728 x 90
Wide Skyscraper : 160 x 600
Choosing the right size for print especially is important. Larger sizes are likely to require professional printing while smaller sizes can be printed in-house so depending on your budget one may work better than another.
Message
Next is the message you want people to get when they come across your promotional materials. The most impactful posters, flyers, etc. will have a single comprehensive message that is succinct and engaging.
The message should be as explicit as possible. It should be appealing to the viewer and clearly states the action to take for more information. You want people who come across it to know immediately whether or not your event is relevant to them and how to participate if they wish to. If this information is unavailable or hard to find on the promotional material you will lose a large number of potential attendees.
Visual elements
Once you’ve crafted your message you will then select relevant graphics and/or photos to compliment it. Visual elements are typically more impactful than written information and people tend to focus more on this aspect of the advertisement. Therefore, it is crucial that you pick images and graphic elements that convey the same message as the headline and text.
You should also be mindful of overcrowding your design. As it is with the text portion, the visual elements you select should be simple enough – in this instance, quality trumps quantity. Remember that colours can be very impactful, consulting colour psychology charts can be tremendously helpful in selecting a colour palette for your design.
Layout
For your design to be completed, a well-balanced layout is needed. Clean lines, appealing design, and easy-to-read material will do best.
Prioritize spacing and ensure that the company’s logo and name are appropriately positioned and prominently displayed. The CTA, or call to action button, must also be prominent enough for the audience to take action.
Branding
Lastly, it is important that your coworking space brand is reflected in any promotional material.
It is possible that you will rent out your space to another business or company so that they can host their own event. In this instance, your promotional material should reflect both brands so make sure your space retains visibility.
Conclusion
The steps outlined above can be used to create banners, posters, flyers, etc. to promote events at your coworking space. Keep it simple but vibrant to draw in the most viewers. Make the content readable while avoiding visual clutter. Posters, banners, and flyers are excellent ways to advertise events and convey messages. While graphic design firms can offer to professionally create event promotional materials, this can also easily be done in-house to save cost.
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