Ready to market your event offline? If so, you will need some great graphics for a variety of outlets. In this post, we’re going to give you an overview of the designs you need to consider creating to market your event.
Preface
The great part about the following branding graphics is that you don’t have to be a graphic designer to create marketing collateral and graphics for your event. Canva is a free tool you can use online that gives you templates for both online graphics and offline marketing collateral.
Alternatively, you can turn to different types of design services to get the job done if you don’t have a graphic designer in house. If you have a smaller budget, you can go with services from Fiverr. For those with larger budgets, you can find a freelance graphic designer to work with you on the project or get work from lots of designers through design contests on sites like 99designs.
Also, the key to branding your event is not just to create the following graphics, but to create consistently-themed graphics for your online marketing. This means you need the same color schemes, mascots, and messaging throughout your graphics. You can always experiment with the messaging by creating multiple graphics with different messaging to see which ones get the most clicks, but for the most part, all of the messaging should help consistently brand your event online.
Website Graphics
First, you will need graphics for your website. This may include a large header image for your conference page or website. If your website is not fully-focused on promoting your event, you will need banners for various areas throughout your website, including your website header, sidebar, post footers, website footer, etc.
Standard size banners for advertising include the following:
- Leaderboard Banner: 728 pixels wide by 90 pixels tall
- Horizontal Banner: 468 pixels wide by 60 pixels high
- Skyscraper Banner: 160 pixels wide by 600 pixels high
- Rectangular Banner: 336 pixels wide by 280 pixels high
- Square Banner: 250 pixels wide by 250 pixels high
Creating banners in these sizes should ensure that they fit well in specific areas throughout your website’s theme. They can also come in handy if you plan to do display advertising for your event through Google AdWords Display Network or sites like BuySellAds.
Social Media Graphics
For your social media networks, you will need images to use as your cover, header, or banner photos on networks like Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Google+, and YouTube. These images appear at the top of your profiles and pages so that visitors can learn more about your event at their first visit.
Each social media network has specific guidelines for cover, header, or banner photos. Here are the current recommendations:
- Facebook Cover Photo: 851 pixels wide by 315 pixels tall
- Twitter Header Photo: 1500 pixels wide by 500 pixels high
- LinkedIn Company Page Banner: 646 pixels wide by 220 pixels high
- Google+ Cover Photo: 1080 pixels wide by 608 pixels high
- YouTube Channel Art: 2560 pixels wide by 1440 pixels high
You will also need an assortment of images to be used in your social media posts on Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Google+, Pinterest, and Instagram. These can be used in organic posts shared to your profiles and pages as well as in advertisements. Note that for photos to be used in Facebook advertisements, be sure that the text covers no more than 20% of the image.
Media Kit Graphics
Want others to promote your event? Help them out by creating a media kit of graphics approved by your business for your event. These should include images for blog posts as well as standard size banner images. This way, people who want to write about the event can, and those that just want to market it on their website’s sidebar or other areas can as well. For banner image sizes, refer to the above-mentioned list.
Speaker Graphics
The best promoters of your event besides your business will be the people speaking at your event. They want the event to succeed as well so they get the most exposure for their own personal brands and businesses.
Therefore, you will want to create some custom graphics for your speakers to use on their websites and social media networks. While they won’t likely change their social media cover photos or website headers, they will want to publish blog posts and social media updates about their session. They will likely also want to add a banner on your their website. So keep them in mind and create a special graphic that highlights them as a speaker for your event.
In Conclusion
Although branding your event well online will require an assortment of graphics for placement on social media and your website, well-done graphics in all of these places will catch your attendee’s attention and lead to more registrations. So be sure to review all of your social channels and online properties to determine which graphics you need to create a branded presence for your event.
