How to draw students to your School’s Beginning-of-Year Picnic? At the beginning of every school year, there’s a golden opportunity to foster new friendships, bring the student body together, and start the year off with the right energy. What better way is there to unify a school’s student body and teachers than through a beginning-of-year picnic when the weather’s still nice enough to spread out a blanket and munch on tasty foods before a test?
But it’s one thing to schedule a beginning-of-year picnic: it’s another to get enough students to attend that it’s a fun event! Today, let’s take a look at five ways you can advertise your school’s beginning-of-year picnic and make it the best event you can imagine.
Start with Social Media
Everyone’s on social media these days, so why not advertise your school’s beginning-of-year picnic on platforms like Facebook and Instagram? You can contact your school’s social media manager to put out a post or to even start an event page so students can RSVP or state their intentions to attend.
Social media posting is also advantageous since you can “countdown” until the days when the beginning-of-year picnic starts. That way, students always know how much time they have left to decide whether they are attending or staying away in favor of studying or something else.
Send Out an Email Newsletter Burst
But there’s one other way to take advantage of digital technology and advertise a start-of-year picnic at your school: email newsletters. Odds are all of the students at your school, whether you’re at a high school or a college, have emails… and that your school has those email addresses on file for contact purposes.
If your students already get marketing emails for registering for upcoming classes, student store discounts, and more, why not send another email about the upcoming picnic?
Strategic email marketing online may let you reach as wide an audience as possible when advertising a beginning-of-year picnic. Not only is it cost-effective, but it’s instantaneous. You can send out emails about the upcoming picnic the week or the day before the event and ensure that most students will get the message.
Fortunately, you don’t need graphic design skills to put together eye-catching and engaging advertising emails for the picnic. You can use email design tools like PosterMyWall, which comes loaded with customizable templates to help you make your announcement emails shine.
Send the right picnic emails, and you’ll draw tons of students to the field where you’re hosting it, guaranteed.
Go Offline for In-Person Posting
Online advertising isn’t your only avenue. You can and should also put up posters advertising the upcoming picnic in person. Print out some posters and stick them on student announcement boards, telephone poles around campus, and even on the doors of classrooms.
The more posters you put out, the more people will be aware of the beginning-of-year picnic before it comes up. That’s the best way to boost attendance among the entire student body. Just be sure to put up enough posters to maximize the coverage of your school’s campus, and have a few spare posters on hand. You never know how many posters may get torn down or blown away by the wind and will need to be replaced before the picnic date rolls around.
Mention the Picnic at the End of Class
As a teacher, you already have the ears and minds of your students each time you host a class. So why not mention the beginning-of-year picnic at the end of class, when your students are already looking forward to the next thing on their schedules?
Mention the picnic at the end of class rather than the beginning of class, as this increases the chances of retention. You can even announce that you’ll be attending the picnic to show your students that it’ll be a fun time with plenty of people to socialize with!
Put the Picnic in Class Calendars or Syllabus
Lastly, consider putting the beginning-of-year picnic’s date in your class calendar or syllabus that you hand out to all your students. This can be a great way to spread the word about the picnic to your online or remote students as well, who may not come to class in person frequently or at all, but who may nonetheless want to attend.
Just be sure to highlight the picnic in bold colors so your students see the upcoming event date and don’t skim over it like many other sections!
Wrap Up
All in all, advertising your school’s beginning-of-year picnic means using all the advertising channels available to you: social media, email marketing, and in-person talk or posters. If you combine all these methods, odds are plenty of students will attend the beginning-of-year picnic and make it an event to remember. Even better, those students may feel inspired to attend other school events, like dances, conferences, and workshops.
