Four years ago, Truman Charities raised just $17,000 at their annual Halloween Party. This year, they’ve raised over $65,000 for Main Street! One thing they attribute to their growing success is the marketing expertise of board member Julie Schumacher.
In this episode, host Jamie Truman is talking to Julie, the founder of Sasse Agency, about the dos and don’ts of event marketing. She shares three critical aspects of event marketing, ways to utilize partnerships for promotion, and how to use social media to increase awareness for your brand. Plus, Julie answers questions from listeners of The Truman Charities Podcast!
If you have an event but don’t know how to leverage social media, manage a website or improve engagement, this episode is a must-listen.
Tune in to hear Julie’s priceless advice, and find out what happened at this year’s Truman Charities Halloween Party!
Learn more about Sasse Agency on their website!
Email Julie Schumacher at julie@sasseagency.com.
Connect with Jamie at Truman Charities:
Facebook
Instagram
LinkedIn
Website
YouTube
Email: info@trumancharities.com
This episode was post produced by Podcast Boutique https://podcastboutique.com/
Four years ago, Truman Charities raised just $17,000 at their annual Halloween Party. This year, they’ve raised over $65,000 for Main Street! One thing they attribute to their growing success is the marketing expertise of board member Julie Schumacher.
In this episode, host Jamie Truman is talking to Julie, the founder of Sasse Agency, about the dos and don’ts of event marketing. She shares three critical aspects of event marketing, ways to utilize partnerships for promotion, and how to use social media to increase awareness for your brand. Plus, Julie answers questions from listeners of The Truman Charities Podcast!
If you have an event but don’t know how to leverage social media, manage a website or improve engagement, this episode is a must-listen.
Tune in to hear Julie’s priceless advice, and find out what happened at this year’s Truman Charities Halloween Party!
Learn more about Sasse Agency on their website!
Email Julie Schumacher at julie@sasseagency.com.
Connect with Jamie at Truman Charities:
Facebook
Instagram
LinkedIn
Website
YouTube
Email: info@trumancharities.com
This episode was post produced by Podcast Boutique https://podcastboutique.com/
Welcome to the Truman Charities podcast. I am Jimmy Truman, your host. Truman Charities is a 100% volunteer-based organization and we have raised I believe after this Halloween event where we raised $65,505 for Main Street, I believe we are over $1.8 million that we have raised since inception about 14 years ago. So today I'm going to recap our Halloween event and also I'm going to get to everyone's DM questions that we've had about marketing. So Julie Schumacher she is a marketing guru and she owns Sassy Agency. So we're going to get a little bit into a lot of the questions that you guys have about what are the best ways to market your event, mistakes that a lot of people make when trying to market their event, and also, is social media really important and what platforms should you be using? And then also a lot of questions about websites, like if you're starting an organization or you're starting a business, should you make a website? Is it really important? And what are some of the stakes that people make when making websites and what are some of the key important elements that you should have on your website. So those are some really great stuff that we're going to dive into with Julie Just after my recap here of Main Street again.
Speaker 1:As I mentioned, we had our Halloween, our annual Halloween event, on August 28th at Tommy Joe's in Bethesda, like we always do, and we've raised $65,505, which is absolutely incredible, you know, and we honestly could not have done this without our amazing sponsors. So I want everybody to know that 100% of the money raised goes directly toward the charity. This could not have been possible without our extremely generous sponsors. So please take these sponsors into consideration when doing business, because they do an awful lot for the community. They give back so much. So Sheila and Ed Novak, our sponsors I'm going to go down the list here William J August DD, spa Newsmark.
Speaker 1:We have Derek Harmon from Mortgage on Admission. We have Ross Presidential, sharon and Greg Kinche, beth Freeman and Lee Burner, freeman and Freeman. And then Mark Malench Law, family Law, re-invision, small Business Advisors, mori Home Team at Compass, lighthouse Insurance Services, focus Delivery Now KLNB Commercial Real Estate Service, sassy Agency, the Truman Hall Family. So what Else? First Home Mortgage Scotties, vodka, mike and Lori Burke, live Casino and Hotel, the Deaner School, the Copeland Family, chris Remasco, chip Lipscomb Law, rbc Wealth Management, samuel and Sylvia, kaplan Foundation, the Truman Family, julie and Bruce Hunter, glickman Field Foundation, boone Sons and Bobella Brands. So thank you, sponsors, so much. Honestly, without you guys, we could not have been possible at all to have been able to raise that kind of money for Means Street. And, of course again, 100% of the money raised goes directly towards the charity.
Speaker 1:So if you don't know about Means Street, make sure to go back to episode 83, where I interview the founder of Means Street, julian Copeland. I was blown away with what she's been able to accomplish for individuals living with disabilities and how her son, nickel, inspired her to create Means Street. You know Gillian, our husband. They've created a 70-unit apartment complex that's designed with accessibility in mind and also offers affordable housing. And with Main Street, they have a membership program so people that are not residents within Main Street can still enjoy all the wonderful amenities and classes that they have going on.
Speaker 1:But if you haven't been to our Halloween parties, they are insanely fun, and make sure to look at my Instagram. Jamie underscore Truman Charities and I have videos I compiled from our wonderful volunteer photographers that we had and compiled the video of pictures and put them into videos and you can see all of the great costumes that were there. And one thing that we're really proud of with Truman Charities is that you know, and we can thank my husband so much for this. He is wonderful at getting all of these great auction items and, again, we don't have to do anything. On consignment, again, 100% goes directly to the charity, so this is all just donated to us. So we have great auction items.
Speaker 1:And so if you look at my latest video that I have on Instagram, you'll see our costume winners. So their individual costume winner and he was Richard Simmons. He was great. And we got a two day stay at the Salamanders Resort Spa, which is my absolute favorite place to go in Middleburg, virginia. So it's about 40 miles from DC. So if you're close to home still, but you feel like you are so far away, it's so great. I love that place.
Speaker 1:And then for the couples, the couples costume winners they were Bud Light. They were really cute costumes. They won a six person dinner with wine pairing at Medium Rare, so that one of the greatest restaurants around here. So you know, if you haven't been there, please, please, make sure to go. So thank you guys, everybody. So much for that. Again, please make sure to think about doing business with our sponsors, because they do give back so much to the community. I want to thank everybody for coming.
Speaker 1:If you are not on our list, we are right now compiling our 2024 calendar. Right now, to make sure you don't miss any of our charitable events, which we do about three to four per year, make sure to email me at info at Trumancharitiescom. I'll make sure that you are on our newsletter list. And then also so you don't miss any of our but those disposed happy hours, which are not charitable events, but each month we get together for just like a fun networking event for people in the community to get together and learn about what everybody's up to and how we can help each other.
Speaker 1:So, all right, without further ado, let's talk to Julie and let's answer all of these questions that you guys have about how to market, what to do. I mean, all your questions are going to be answered, and Julie was one of the first people that was on this podcast. It was our 10th episode, so go to episode 10. It is called Simple and Strategic Marketing that motivates, so you can hear even more detailed about Julie and Sasse agency and just the do's and don'ts when it comes to marketing. All right, thank you so much, julie, for coming on and you're going to be answering some of a lot of DMs that we're getting throughout the year about how we're marketing and what we're doing.
Speaker 1:Literally right before we got on, I started to really think about it and I was like you really have transformed Truman Charities since you've been on our board. What I realized is that four years ago and this is before you were on our board we had our Halloween, or annual Halloween event and we raised $17,000, which is great, but think about the difference there from 17 to 65. And I think a lot of it I attribute to you and being on our board. So, thank you, we're very lucky to have you. So tell me a little bit, what is Sasse agency?
Speaker 2:Okay, Well, first, thank you for inviting me back and those moments they came off the cuff like I'm almost in tears right now. So I really appreciate it and it's really the power of marketing, right. So Sassy Agency is an integrated marketing agency and we focus on brand strategy, social media marketing, website design and development and digital optimization for businesses and organizations.
Speaker 1:We had a podcast where we talked all about Sassy Agency and I believe it was. If you go back, if someone's to listen to episode I believe three or four and you go into so much detail about exactly what you do too, so go back and take a listen to that episode as well. So tell me. So what we get a lot of DMs let's get into these questions is about exactly what are the best ways if somebody is having an event coming up and how do you market that Like what is the best way to do that?
Speaker 2:So I love this question, but it's kind of tricky because this is when people would ask me a question and I answer it with the question and say who is your audience? What type of event? Is it hybrid, is it virtual? Is it whatever? But every little venue and event has its own different, unique approach to marketing. But I'm going to give three considerations of what I think all events really need, and I'm just going to list them and then get into a little deeper dive.
Speaker 2:Brand is number one. Two, promotion. And three is be authentic, and let me share what I mean by that. One is for branding. You want to have a strong brand and define your audience. You need to know who you want to market, to right and create an awesome event page with a clear call to action for people. Do you want them to attend? Do you want them to donate? Do you want them to sponsor, volunteer? Maybe all of them? So that's a lot of call to actions to have on one page. So make sure all your materials are consistent, you use the same artwork and you have stronger brand recognition. So I would say it starts with brand, it always starts for brand with me.
Speaker 2:And then the second thing I would say is the promotion piece. You want to put together an integrated marketing plan with campaigns which will include email, social media. Maybe you have some industry influencers or leaders, big sponsors, and then don't forget traditional marketing, that word of mouth and trying to get the word out. There's so many constituents that come together for you know events that you want to make sure that you really get everybody involved on board. And don't forget a hashtag for an event is always like a fun thing to do. And then you also want to leverage the SEO and digital you know landscape we have, which could be digital tactics. You know you have the vent right. You have Facebook events, you have online forums so those are all really, really important to promotion.
Speaker 2:And then be authentic. I think you know you need to create compelling content with consistency, that includes artwork, and you want to make sure it's clearly communicated. I just heard not a true maturity Halloween party, but someone said they were invited to a Halloween party as a family. It was, you know, the date of Halloween. They show up as a family and nobody's like dressed up and it reminded me of like Reese Witherspoon in like Legally Blonde. That was a trick, you know, when they told us that it was going to be a costume party, but like it's a communication, fail right. Like you want to make sure that people know what to expect when they come to the vent, so everybody's comfortable and has clear expectations. So that's where I would sit with that.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I'm thinking back and I remember when you first got on the board and you were like, where you guys are all low for the place, like there's no, there's no consistent. Like there was no consistent artwork, there was no consistency in posting, there was no they're like. And then I remember you're like well, how are you capturing, you know, emails for people that are coming to the events and then they'll make sure that they're on the list for the next one. And we're like, oh yeah, we haven't done any of that either. Like it was.
Speaker 2:Now, everybody knows the art we work for the happy hour and Halloween. We just, you know it's a staple, right? Yeah, it gives brand recognition, right? People know what to expect and you know I also remember, you know one was like a happy hour, to come have fun and the other was a fundraiser. People need to know. You know, right, the difference. We have expectations.
Speaker 1:That's 100% right because we were having that issue distinguishing. But that's the best happy hour, which is just our kind of networking, for people to get together and then our events and people Are getting confused and you're like, well, it's because you're not being clear enough. And so now you've made it very clear and, like you said, that a vet that Halloween party where they showed up and like, oh my gosh, no one's in costume.
Speaker 2:Well, now people show up ready to support the organization that we you know, yes, which is awesome costume.
Speaker 1:So tell me a little bit about some of the mistakes that people make when trying to market their event.
Speaker 2:So here, if you take a ways for your listeners on that one, remember the importance of Sponsors and partnerships. The right sponsor vendor speakers, exhibitors are crucial to the success of an event and the right partnership can be Invaluable to your marketing strategy too. So each partner comes with the network and you want to make sure that you communicate with them early on about, you know, expectations, media kits, provide some sample social media posts I know we do that this now in our media kit and put together posts for them to share. Provide the artwork, email banners, digital assets and create a hashtag. Make it easier for your partners to you know, promote to their networks. And this becomes really important with these marketing opportunities Because it's an opportunity for not only you all to promote but also to increase your own brand awareness, reach new audiences, improve engagement and Expand the network. So it's really a win-win. And I always say keep it simple, sweetie, that if anyone goes back to my old Podcast, I think I talked about dad.
Speaker 2:That's dead. You know, don't give them this whole long list that nobody wants to. You know you open it up and it's like I don't want to see that, like it's too overwhelming. But break it down so that it's really simple. You know, get that landing page and here's the tools you need and make it easy. The second worth mentioning Is near and dear to my heart, which is to plan, track results and debrief. You want to make sure you create a plan and track the progress right, because everybody has limited budgets. Today you could have a huge budget for an event, so you want to make sure you know the emails are going out people are opening them right.
Speaker 2:Subject lines opening rates, click-through rates, social media engagement. If you're using QR codes, put some tracking code. You know, maybe that's something you're going through the effort of printing out and nobody's using it right, so you want to look at that. And then, of course, I always get back to Google Analytics and GA4 and trying to track engage progress. You also really need this for planning for next year. It ensures really an efficient use of your budget and that you've used successful Tactics, and it measures return on investment and ROI. And after the event which is so important, even after a fabulous event a Team debrief. You know what was the most successful. Even the most Successful events discuss what was went well and what can be improved. So I think that's a really important thing and you should do it when it's fresh in mind, right, oh?
Speaker 1:yeah, exactly, you know what. We've gotten a couple of DMs about a social media. So some people are kind of overwhelmed and they're like you know what is it really? Is it necessary that that I have social media and I'm marketing? Is it you have to have it? And then, if you think that you do, what do you think is the best platform? Do you think so?
Speaker 2:hashtag capital. Yes, yes, you need social media to promote an event today. You need it. It's important for reach, higher visibility, promoting engagement. So, yes, I think you've heard me mention social media and everything we do and every tactic. Yes, remember the use of videos and influencers. Jamie, my favorite post for the Truman Charities is when you get on with your boys and you draw that raffle ticket. Kids and pets always are good for engagement. It's got to be appropriate, but I mean it's like heartwarming, it's so much fun to watch. So you know it's a social channel. Get social and have fun, and I think it's really, really important.
Speaker 2:You asked which platforms or channels are more effective and this gets back to that first thing. Under branding that I said who is your audience? Right, what do you need to know about your audience? Make sure you know your audience and create compelling content to support your messaging and align everything.
Speaker 2:You know, for example, b2b events or business to business. They might be on LinkedIn and it might be a great thing, and the sell right to that event is the marketing and networking opportunities with that business community, or it's B2C. You know Facebook and Instagram, where you're going direct to consumer, and that might be better and you know Facebook has an event page, so maybe you've had good success with that and you can boost and you can create new audiences and target people you know, especially if it's hyper local, like throughout the DMV, that always seems to go really well because you can boost it and Instagram tends to be a younger demographic. But don't forget to put you can always put event you know link in the bio and push that out as well and try and get things. So I do think it depends on your audience for that. But they're all available and you know your audience best and who you want to attract.
Speaker 1:Yeah, what I've noticed is when we've started, depending on what platform you're on so say, for instance, we're on Instagram and the engagements that we really get a lot of engagements with this now video. So those short reels are becoming huge, like no one is posting. I put a photo up and it gets like nothing, and then when I put the reels and the videos up, that's why I started doing our photos from our events and turning them into video. Absolutely yeah, see, everybody should just follow what you're doing on Truman?
Speaker 1:Charities. Well, because basically you're following Julie all of her suggestions.
Speaker 2:But you know what Video short video, you don't know these long ones. That's to tell a story and your brand story, right, when you're trying to get big sponsors, you're trying to get people to come do the podcast or whatever and they want to find out more about you right. But when you want to get onto these Instagrams and Facebook, now, it's short, really short and sweet. Again, keep it simple, sweetie, right, short and sweet and the energy it's just. It shows that it's fun and you want to be part of it and that gets more people interested.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and so the last thing that I want to get your advice on is websites. Now you have absolutely transformed our website. I love when you first looked I don't know what I had, but I like made something and you're like this is interesting. And if you go on to our website now, we have a wonderful video that you created about Truman Charities and the podcast, and we have our podcasts on there. So tell me a little bit so it can be overwhelming. Though, at first, when I first was thinking about a website for Truman Charities, it was just like, well, what do I need? What don't I need? What are the best tips? So if someone's like all right, I'm starting an organization or I'm starting a business and I have to create a website like, is the website really important and if it is, what elements of the website are crucial to have?
Speaker 2:So a website is a digital footprint of your business or organization, and so I think you need to start with a realistic budget in mind. You know there's different budgets all over the place, so you know that could dictate whether you go on WordPress, so you go on Wix or what. So get a budget in mind and then get your ideas together and your content. A lot of times, you get a website template and you have to fill in what you need for your organization. You really should just get your content together. What is your story? Be authentic, customized to your audience, make sure it's a positive user experience and focus on your brand awareness, your customer considerations and decision-making. And then, really, what do you want them to do when they come? What is the call to action Like? What do you want them to really do before they leave? And you know, create a guide map of how you would envision that. And here are some tips on creating websites right now that just stand out.
Speaker 2:Be very careful of agencies who write all your content for you Right now. They're using a lot of AI and Google does not like duplicated content. It's really complicated right now, so I would just say there's a lot of people going out. We'll do all your content and the content is unique to you and that is like one of the things that you really do need to spend time on to tell your story and differentiate you from other organizations or businesses. The other thing is be careful with website deals and not having ownership. I see this all the time. Oh my gosh. I don't want to mention we took groups of professionals. You know the lawyers, the doctors. They all go to these meetings and they're like we'll give you a thousand dollar website, but then the retainer is like crazy high every month and they, you know they own you, like they literally own your online digital brand. So you want to make sure you have access to every single thing, every single thing. This is one of my pet peeves. Like you should be able to get into your website anytime. You should have access to your hosting. You should have access to everything. So you know, just be the administrator of your own website. That way, any vendor that comes in you can just release very easily and get someone else to come in If they own all that.
Speaker 2:It's not so easy and don't get overwhelmed to your point, you know, with a to-do list of all these things Websites. You know some people have had really bad experience. They never want to touch their website again and it really is supposed to be a fun marketing experience. This is really an opportunity for you to tell everybody what you do and how you do it and why they should consider you for it. You know, the sales funnel really starts with your website, so don't get overwhelmed. Do what you do well and then outsource to professionals who can help, because, you know, don't take one bad experience. You know it's like redoing your kitchen right, you'll never redo it again, but it's like. It's a labor of love. Websites are a labor of love. Just, you know, go with the flow, don't get too stressed out and give what you can't do to someone else and let them do it, and then you control what you like doing and control.
Speaker 1:Oh, my gosh, you kind of said it better. I actually did a podcast with one of our recaps on just that, about how important board members are Because you can delegate what you're not good at. You know, like Jerry, you couldn't do any admin if you tried. Like that's just not his, that's just not working. Just like Jerry on this thing, I know I love him, I love you, jerry, I love you.
Speaker 2:But like, no way, that is not his specialty, right, and I'm not going to like this, but if you want to meet anyone in the city and you call him, you are good to go.
Speaker 1:Yes, he is the networking king. He knows everyone. But, yeah, admin, not his thing. So it's really important to be able to know what you're good at, know your strengths, without a doubt. Oh my gosh, absolutely. And when you're talking about this, I was thinking about my experience with the podcast when I first started. I started with this company and they basically because I didn't know anything about podcasting, like owned all of my stuff and I couldn't change anything, I couldn't edit anything. And then, as soon as I changed and I just hired someone to help with production, and then I send them everything and I own everything and I can do my own editing and I can do everything. It's been a game changer. So you're so right about the website that is absolutely what happens to websites.
Speaker 2:They go with people every time they see a typo and they have to spend an hourly rate and wait three weeks for it to be fixed. It's like what is that? It's? Yeah, yeah, we don't do that Bad idea. I honestly, I don't want to be editing content. If you have to call me to edit content after I deliver a website like yeah no, no, and you're right.
Speaker 1:You want to be updating because your business is always changing your organization. Like us, we have different events all the time, so we're always updating what's going on with us. So you want to make it so easy for the person.
Speaker 2:Absolutely and in fact, reorganizing. We have a meeting scheduled later. You know the website's got. You know you look at the navigation bar, it gets crowded right and then all of a sudden you're like, well, we can put this here. You know it's an ongoing process. It shouldn't be something you put up and you walk away and you're done, absolutely.
Speaker 1:Well, thank you so much, Julie. You are so busy and you're such an asset to Terminatoria. I mean, I hear so many wonderful things about you from all of your clients and you're really changing their businesses and changing their organizations for the better. People are going to be very excited to hear this, because I get a ton of DMs and I'm like I promise I am going to do a podcast with Julie and she's going to answer all of these questions for you. So thanks again, Julie.
Speaker 2:Well, thank you for having me, and spending time with you is always great and also thank you for helping everybody in our community. You do such an amazing job.
Speaker 1:Oh, thank you. All right, and I want to thank everybody for tuning into another episode of the Truman Charities podcast. Until next time, if you liked this episode, please make sure to rate and review our podcast. That is how more people learn about the Truman Charities podcast and our organization, and to make sure you don't miss any of our future episodes, subscribe, subscribe, subscribe. If you'd like to follow Truman Charities, you can follow us on Facebook at Truman Charities, instagram at Jamie underscore Truman Charities, and check out our website, truman Charities dot com.