Hosting a cook-off? You’ve probably got a lot on your plate. Not only do you have to make sure the equipment and ingredients are ready, and the contestants are all prepped, you need to come up with a way to get people to attend your event too.
Luckily, we can help you out with that last part. Everyone loves food in all forms. And there are probably a lot of chili enthusiasts out there who would love to watch their favorite dish being cooked up in different ways by a bunch of specialists. But how can you make sure these people know about your event?
By using effective online marketing strategies. Almost everyone you want to target uses the internet for some reason or other. A lot of people use social media to follow food-based accounts or look at food videos, and would definitely love to know about a fun cook-off they could attend. So here are a few tips on how you can promote your chili cook-off online for maximum attendance.
- Go live with behind-the-scenes footage
No matter what contest it is, people love to see what goes on behind the scenes and how contestants go about preparing for victory. So why not give them a glimpse of it on your official Instagram account?
Start an Instagram live to show followers all of the preps for the event. You can give them a short virtual tour of the ingredient pantry, the cookware stations for each contestant, and also the grand prize for the winner.
This way, you’ll not only be getting your followers excited about your event, but will also allow them to see how authentic your contest really is.
- Create a fun hashtag
If you want your followers to be excited about your event, a hashtag is a great way to go about it. Create a fun, catchy hashtag for your chili cook-off and add it to all your social media posts. Here are some hashtag options you can use:
- #ChiliCookOff2022
- #BattleofTheCooks22
- ChiliStandOff
A fun way to promote your hashtag even more is to encourage your followers to share content of their own and use this hashtag so that you can repost the best posts on your social media. You can ask followers to post pictures of their own chili recipes on Instagram, or post about who they think will win, using the cook-off hashtag. This will not only create an exciting campaign of its own, but will also keep followers excited until the day of the event.
3. Create your own cook-off posters
While it’s important to create excitement through hashtags and user-generated content, it’s also important to make sure you’re giving out as much information about the actual event as you can. Your followers want to know the location, time, date, and all other relevant details so they can make sure to be there. And if you have any sponsors, they’ll want some graphics to post on their platforms as well.
You can create your own chili cook-off poster and post it all over your social media. If you’re worried about how to make your poster vibrant and engaging enough, use online design tools like PosterMyWall to get access to a wide range of templates that you can customize according to your needs.
An ideal poster should have the following attributes:
- The title for your cook-off at the very top.
- Some fun imagery that represents your event. Add some chilis to your font and some fire animations to your poster.
- Some visuals of people cooking. Throw in some great looking ingredient photos as well.
- All important information related to your cook-off.
- A QR Code or embedded link in one corner to link people to more information on the event.
Final thoughts
cook-offs are super fun to be a part of and to attend. But you need to know how to promote it well if you want it to be a success. Follow these tips to create hype for your cook-off on social media and turn the heat up on your event promotion skills.
