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Organizer Office Hours

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Marketing
Market Your Event Like a Pro ✨
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Introductions
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About Me!

Hi,I’m Jackie
● Sr. Hackathon Community Manager at Major
League Hacking
● Big fan of cheese
● Bigger fan of dogs
/jackiemarcink
@MLHacks
@MajorLeagueHacking
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About YOU

● What’s your name?

● Where are you located?
● What’s your hackathon?
● Your school/organization
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Agenda

➔ Your Hackathon Website

➔ Registrations & Attrition
➔ Promoting Your Event
➔ Timeline & Goals
➔ Marketing Tools
➔ Tips & Tricks
➔ Q&A
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Registrations & Attrition

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Before You Start Marketing…

How many hackers do you Every Hackathon has

hope to have at your event? about a 50% decrease in
attendees vs registrations.
How many hackers can you
successfully support with your
budget?
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Attrition Rate

What does it mean?

● Attrition is a reduction of a number of people

(ie. personnel, attendees, etc).

● Attrition Rate is the percentage of attendees

less than the expected number of attendees.

● For instance: Your event has 400 registrations

but 300 actually attend.

400 - 300 = 100 / 400 = 25%

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What Causes Attrition?

Attrition is a very normal part of event planning and management!

Attrition can be worse for free events like hackathons.

ALWAYS plan ahead for a drop off of attendance.

What causes attrition?
● Personal and life events for the attendee
● Attendee forgot they signed up
● Attendee changed their mind
● Spam signups
● Imposter Syndrome
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When to Open Registrations

How far out is your event?

● More than 4-6 months, consider opening pre-registrations or RSVP’s if you’re not ready
to take registrations.
● If less than 4 months, open registrations.

Is your event in person or digital?

● Digital registrations will be closer to the event.
● Physical attendees need to plan ahead so make sure they have enough time do plan
their accommodations and travel.
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Hackathon Registration Timeline

For an event expecting around 500 hackers:

Timeline Registrations Numbers

Registrations Open!
4 months before

100 Signups
3 months before

250 Signups
2 month before

1 month before 600 Signups

2 weeks before 1000 Signups

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Preventing Attrition by Planning

Be mindful of your date selection

● Is it a major holiday in NA, EU, or APAC regions?
● Finals week or first week of classes
● Other major hackathons in your area on the same weekend
● Too early on Friday

If in person, location should be accessible!

● Parking or access to public transportation
● Easy to find

Allow plenty of time for people to register and plan but make deadlines clear
● In person registrations should close off a few weeks prior to the event so you can wrap up
● Digital events can go closer to the event but try to close off 1 - 2 weeks ahead
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Preventing Attrition Using Marketing

Keep your registrants engaged

● Invite to social media or newsletter
○ Build up to more frequency as you get closer to your event
● Send out weekly or biweekly updates of your event, organization, or whatever else is
going on in your community
● Cross promote other hackathons

Send out reminders in the month and week leading up to your hackathon
● Get people excited about your event and preparing to show up
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Your Website
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Your Event’s Website

Landing Page: Name, logo, dates,
registration, judging & mentorship interest
forms

About the Hackathon: Vision of the event,

motivation, about your team, etc.

Sponsors: Previous sponsors and links to

their websites. Prospectus for future sponsors
and contact info.

FAQ: This will help you to significantly reduce

the load off your support emails.

Footnotes: Rules, Code of Conduct, email

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What else to include:
✓ Event Date: Include
start/end times as you get
closer
✓ A Registration Form: Name,
email, school,
demographics, etc. Sample
Registration Form
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✓ Social Handles: Your event’s
Facebook, Instagram, and
Twitter accounts
✓ A Contact Email: Potential
sponsors and attendees
need to be able to reach you
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Day of Information | Add to website about a month before your event

✓ Schedule:Keep hackers informed ✓ Tracks: The different themes hackers

of what to expect at different can work on.
times.
✓ Speakers, Judges & Mentors: Include
✓ Link to your Hackathon Chat information about who will be present
Channel: Set up a single channel and their roles at your event.
of communication for day-of
✓ Post the Updates: Post these exciting
updates. Most hackathons use
updates to your social media and
Discord.
drum up excitement!
✓ Prizes: Get your hackers excited
by revealing the prizes from time
to time as they get finalized!
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Promoting Your Event

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Before You Start Promoting

✓ Determine your target audience

✓ What region are you targeting?

● Digital events can extend to a larger area
● In-person events will target a local community

✓ How much do you plan to spend on marketing?

● Promoted social posts
● Magazine/Newspaper ads
● Posters, lots of posters
● Handouts and other physical marketing materials

✓ Is your social media outdated?

● Updated website link
● Fresh logo and banner
● Dates
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Reach Your Audience

Invite hackers from your previous hackathons

● Ask another local or similar hackathon to email their participant list

Set up a table in common areas (Even for digital events!)

● Hand out ¼ sheets with a QR code to your website
● Have some swag at the table to show off
● “What is a Hackathon?” sign

Hang up posters where you’re allowed to

● Around campus in common areas
● Have a street team of volunteers to post posters up around town
● Post in coffee shops and other places students like to go around campus
● Include URL and a QR code
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Reach Your Audience

Invite students from other schools to attend

● Schools that have previously hosted MLH hackathons
● Schools in your area/region
● Don’t overlook community colleges — they’re often full of eager and promising
participants

Reach out to student groups and departments on all campuses

● Groups: ACM & IEEE, SWE, SHPE, NSBE etc.
● Departments: Computer Science, Design, Engineering, Applied Mathematics, Physics,
Business Studies, Marketing, etc.
● Professors: May be willing to share your hackathon to their students and even offer
extra credit for attending your event!
● Speak: Consider asking to speak at a lecture that might be relevant to your event
● Clubs & Departments: Students with other skills/interests like project management,
design, UX, entrepreneurship, communication, graphic design, and many more!
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Launch a Social Media Campaign

✓ Make a Facebook Page, Twitter, Instagram, TikTok or

LinkedIn account.
○ Targeted Facebook or Instagram ads are cheap and
effective!
○ If you have a good following on Facebook, create an event
from your page and promote it.

✓ Ask other hackathons to tweet or post about you.

✓ Partner within the local hacker community!
○ GitHub Campus Experts
○ Microsoft Learn Student Ambassadors
○ Google Developer Groups
○ Discord, Meetup, etc.
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More Social Media Strategies!

● Post about your sponsors
○ Consider paid promotions for your biggest sponsors

● Post about your speakers

○ Have a keynote speaker? Share their website or
LinkedIn and a blurb about them

● ENGAGE, ENGAGE, ENGAGE

○ Share other hackathons
○ Share exciting news
○ Share any updates (new sponsor, schedule, prizes,
organizers)
○ Reply and engage your followers

● Measure your success

○ Utilize an analytics tool to make sure your efforts are
paying off
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Get Pre-Event Press Coverage

● Draft up a press release first!

● If your campus has a journalism dept, ask for a journalism
student to cover your hackathon
● Tell your school’s newspaper
● Reach out to your local media outlets
👉 This can also be a great in-kind sponsorship opportunity!
● Try reaching out to different startup/ media agencies for
potential partnership.
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Marketing Tools
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Build Your Marketing Toolbox

CMS (Content Management System):
Create and manage your website
● Wordpress
● Drupal

Automation:
● Email automation
○ Customer.io, MailChimp, GMass, MixMax
● Social Media automation
○ Hootsuite, Buffer, MeetEdgar

Spreadsheets and Documents:

● Keep track of everything
● Document processes, best practices, and
instructions, etc.
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Tips & Tricks

👉 You should update your website on a rolling basis as you land speakers
and sponsors, create your schedule, confirm transportation offerings, etc.

👉 Check out MyMLH for an awesome single sign on solution to make signing
up for your hackathon really simple!

👉 Don’t leave out non-tech departments. Hackers come from all

backgrounds! (art, business, journalism/media, med school, etc)
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Q&A
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Resources
MLH-Hackathon-Boilerplate - Boilerplate code for any new MLH Member Hackathon
looking to build a website integrated with MyMLH. Written entirely in Jekyll, which GitHub
pages automatically compiles to make hosting seamless.

How to write a press release by HubSpot

Hackathons as Branding by BitCamp

7 Basic (But Brilliant) PR Tactics that Work! By Prowly

Hackathons are for Beginners by Tim Fogarty

Registration Outreach Template

Video: Building A Strong Hackathon Brand Through Social Media - Neal Goyal