Tuesday Tip - Last Minute Promotions & Events

Squareberry allows you to plan and schedule your event and promotions far in advance. This helps make your life easier. You are not scrambling to post social messages or updating your calendar late at night. Your schedule can be ready to go ahead of time.

But, things happen. Sometimes you need to run an event/promotion at the last minute. You may need to drive more traffic after having a slow couple days or you may need to react to a situation in your community. Whatever the reason, you will most likely need to run a last minute event or promotion at some point.

The Sooner the Better

"Last minute" is just an expressions. Don't actually wait to the last minute to tell people about it. The sooner you can get the word out, the better. The whole point of an event or promotion is for people to participate in it. Events without people attending them are not exactly exciting.

The sooner you can start to get the word out the better. With social media, sharing is king. You want to give as much time for things to spread as possible and as much time as possible for people to fit your happening into their schedule.

Last Minute Strategies

• Post to Social Media Right Away - As soon as you know you are going to run this last minute event or promo... POST IT. The sooner the better so get on it. Post instant message to Facebook and Twitter. Schedule some message to go out periodically over the next few hours and make sure you include details on the event/promo.


• Still Add it To Your Calendar - Just because your event is last minute does not mean it shouldn't be on your calendar. Some people don't plan their social outings in advance and you want to make sure everything happening at your organization is visibile to those checking. Additionally, it is good to fill your calendar as much as you can to show the "non-regulars" how much stuff you have going on.


• Tell People At Your Location About It - If you are a restaurant or store, people are at your location even when there is not a special event or promotion. Tell these people about what you are doing later. Tell them you are having an event tomorrow and to invite their friends. This can go a long way.

Aspects of a Promotion

See the Parts That Make Up a Promotion

Promotions in Squareberry function much like events. The main difference between promotions and events is that promotions have a set of pre-defined fields, rather than an open content area.

The chart above outlines the different pieces that make up the promotion. They are displayed in the same order that the fields appear in when you schedule a promotion in you Squareberry account. Promotions allow you to publish redeemable coupons on calendars, widgets and social media to drive people in to your real world location.

Promotions are also optimized for mobile devices. Your followers and customers who view your promotion on their mobile device will see a mobile optimized coupon that is perfect for redeeming at your location.

Understanding Location Features

Locations features in Squareberry help tie your events and promotions to the real world and drive attendance to your locations. Understanding how the location features work is essential to maximizing your real world events and promotions.

Creating & Editing Locations

Most of the fields for creating a location are pretty straightforward. You start by naming the location. This name is shown wherever the location is shown. Next you provide the street address, city, state/province and postal code. You will then select the country from the drop down menu of options. The map below the address fields updates to place the pin at that location. The pin can also be dragged and dropped to adjust exactly where it shows. This is useful if you want to display the entrance to the parking area or a specific part of your facilities.

Your location can be connected to Foursquare for showing check-in stats. Nearby Foursquare locales are pulled in from Foursquare and you can select yours from the drop down menu.

The notes field is where you can provide useful information for your guests. For example, you may say "Park in the garage and we will validate your parking ticket." or "Take the elevators to the 2nd floor and turn right." Adding useful notes to your location can give first time visitors quick info on getting to where you are. The notes you add are displayed along with the location.

Where Locations Display

When creating and editing events and promotions, you can tag them with one or more locations. These locations will display with that event or promotion. This is the ultimate call to action as it offers a visual map of where your happening is taking place and offers directional features to guide visitors there.

Understanding Event Views

Event Views control your calendars and widgets. Calendars and Widgets allow you to push dynamic content to your website, connecting your entire web presence and showing off your events and promotions. Event Views are designed to be flexible and powerful, allowing you to control what content goes where.

On the Main Menu of your account click the "Calendars & Widgets" button at the top.

Default Event View

Every account starts with a single Event View. This is the default Event View. Every category in your account is automatically added to this view. The name can be changed and color options can be adjusted. But, this Event View can not be deleted.

Custom Event Views

You can add any number of additional event views you want. Click the "Add Event View" button at the top of the page to create a new Event View. Give your new view a name and select the colors you want to use. You will also select which categories will be included in this Event View. You can select any number of categories. You can also decide to include events, promotions or both. Lastly, you can specify active categories.

Calendars & Widgets

Once you have a new Event View created or if you are just using the default Event View, you can grab calendars and widgets. For each Event View you have there are a variety of calendar and widget options listed. Each calendar or widget has an embed code you can grab for placing the calendar or widget on a website. The calendars and widgets will use the settings you have provided for that event view, thus dictating what categories will be pulled in, etc.

Ideas for Using Your Event Views

Follow the links below for additional reading on Event Views, including ideas on how to best use Event Views and how to customize them to meet your needs.

• Single Category Views
• Specify Your Active Categories
• Widget Placement on Your Website