Shot in the Dark Creative Director, Leigh, sat down with her marketing team from C+P Digital to talk about how to hype up your party. You can listen to their full conversation here.

As the marketers they are, their answer is to essentially create a campaign. Which means, just like a campaign, your target audience is everything.

Having a great party means having great people attend.

At SHOT we call those attendees the ‘good guests’. The ones who automatically up the vibe of the event just by showing up. So, how do you get them in the door and show them a good time?

According to the marketing team, your campaign relies on you doing three things:

  • Entice
  • Threaten
  • Deliver

Enticing your guests is all about building anticipation. Your goal is to make people want to come to your party. When throwing a murder mystery, a big part of that is leaning into your theme. This can be done easily by sending out themed invitations. Then, keep doing the pre-work of your campaign by coming up with interesting ways to use your theme as you send out reminders. You need to get your target audience friends to believe that this is going to be THE BEST THING EVER. You are promising a spectacle that they do not want to miss.

Next up in your campaign is to threaten. This sounds rather…threatening. In reality, it is all about reaching out personally and pushing the right buttons. You want specific people to attend, and they may need some gentle coercing or reminders.

You’ve done all of the work getting people there. That’s a good start. Now you have to deliver!

Keep diving into your theme. Leigh suggests having extra costume items on hand so that  no one feels they are the odd one out. Have your food, drink and décor all play a part in bringing the theme to life. Make sure to have an open bar, and potentially even a feature drink. All of these things will help ensure your party is THE BEST THING EVER.

Delivering also means that you can use the last party as an enticing reason for people to attend the next one. Everything goes full circle and you become known as the host of not-to-be-missed nights.

—

Helping you Deliver

Watch: Gin Rickey Cocktail Recipe

Listen: