A Guide to Planning and Promoting your College of Liberal Arts Department Event

Promoting these events in ways that align with the sophisticated and professional branding of RIT helps to elevate the perception of their significance, capture attention, and improve engagement outcomes. 

Questions about event planning and promotion?  

Contact Events Manager Kerri Johnson at 585-475-5484 or kasadm@rit.edu.

Event organizers and stakeholders plan and operationalize to present the event and create promotional materials. 

Set the date, time, and location.

1. Check the CLA Liberal Arts Outlook calendar to be sure the date and time you are looking at doesn’t overlap with another event within the college. To find the calendar, go to Outlook and click “Open Calendar”. Choose “From Address Book”. Type in “Liberal Arts.” (The email associated with this calendar is libarts@rit.edu.). Click on Liberal Arts and then click “Ok” 
    
2. Contact Kerri Johnson, CLA Event Manager, at kasadm@rit.edu to confirm that there are no other previously scheduled College of Liberal Arts events planned for the day and time that you are hoping to present your event.
    
3. If you are seeking the attendance of the Dean, Associate Deans, or Assistant Dean, please contact their respective administrative support staff to verify availability. 
   1. Kerri Johnson is able to invite them via the Outlook calendar listing. You should mention you would like this done on the Event Request form. 

Verify event details and prepare to submit the event to the RIT events calendar. 

Before you submit your event, check that you have nailed down all the details and that all stakeholders who have been involved in planning the event are clear and in agreement with the:

• Date
   
• Time
   
• Location
   
• Who the event is for (students, alumni, parents, faculty, staff, everyone, etc.)? 
   
• Whether participants will be required to sign up in advance and how they should sign up. Create a signup form if needed and make note of the URL for the sign up form. 
   
• What the description should say?
   
• Whether and how co-sponsoring departments or entities should be recognized in the event description?
   
• Spelling of names of people, organizations, and co-sponsoring entities 

Once your event has been submitted, making changes to this information can be time-consuming and cumbersome. Depending on project volume and priorities, the CLA Events Manager may not be able to make edits and redistribute corrected promotional graphics and descriptive content for several business days, which could delay the ability to get the word out about your event in a timely manner. Delays can often be avoided by thoroughly double checking and ensuring that everyone on your team who needs to approve the event and its details has done so before submitting an event for the calendar.  

1. Four weeks prior to the event, event organizer should create a registration link at the RIT Service Center.  
   
    
2. Fill out the Event Request Form
    
3. Create promotional graphic files for each of the following placements and email them to Kerri Johnson, CLA Events Manager, at kasadm@rit.edu for channel distribution: 

• 16:9 for Digital Display Monitor Template and Campus Groups
• Instagram post: 1080 x 1080
• Instagram Story: 1080 x 1920
• Facebook and LinkedIn posts: 1200 x 630

4. Use Outlook calendar to send a meeting invitation to libarts@rit.edu to the event. Doing this ensures that the event is added to the College of Liberal Arts Outlook calendar, which is monitored regularly by CLA Events Manager Kerri Johnson to ensure that critical events do not overlap.
    
5. Use Outlook calendar to send a meeting invitation to the Dean’s Office leadership team Kelly Norris Martin, Kirstin Condry, Lauren Hall, and John Smithgall.
    
6. Submit the event to the events calendar.  As part of the events submission process, you can upload your promotional 16:9 graphic file for digital displays.
   
   After you have submitted the event and provided the graphics, your event information and graphics will be reviewed to ensure that the event description is clear and accurate and that the graphics align with RIT branding guidelines. In the event edits are needed to either descriptive text or event graphics, you will be contacted.  

Communicate cancellations or changes.

When an event is canceled or changed references to it will need to be deleted or updated. This process takes time, so please notify the College of Liberal Arts Event Manager Kerri Johnson as soon as possible. 

The event manager will need time to edit the event calendar to read “Canceled” (the event is not deleted), remove the slide from the digital display monitor, notify the email newsletter editor, remove/update social media posts, and intercept any planned printed materials.

For events that are changing (not being canceled), an entire new set of promotional assets — for social media, campus groups, email, digital displays, etc. — will then need to be re-created and re-distributed to all of the appropriate channels.

These processes can take several business days depending on workload volumes and staff availability. It is not an automated or easy process.

Departments can independently create marketing materials for their events. Designs for imprinted items and promotional materials must adhere to RIT branding guidelines and content creators should use either the templates available at the RIT brand portal or COLA templates available in Canva. Costs for design and production of materials are covered by the department. 

The RIT brand portal is a toolkit that anyone can access when creating marketing and communications materials. It includes in-depth guidance and resources such as: 

• Colors
• Photography
• Editorial Style
• Fonts and Typography Styles: Neue Haas Grotesk, Milo Serif, Arial, Georgia
• RIT Print and PPT Templates 
• RIT lockups

Additionally, the College of Liberal Arts has a library of branded templates ready for your use in the easy-to-use design tool, Canva. Login access is required. You can request login info and an orientation to Canva from Kim Walters, COLA’s marketing and communications delegate. 

Materials that are not properly branded may be flagged for discontinued use and disposal. When in doubt, please consult with Kim Walters. 

Top 3 Tips for Successful Event Promotional Communications: 

1. Clear, concise, compelling headline and description. Make sure you have a clear headline that tells people (students especially) what’s in it for them, why should they attend, what will they learn or gain from attending. The title and first 1-2 sentences are all that most people read when deciding to attend, so make it count! Cut down extraneous info to keep it concise, clear, and easily scanned and understood.
    
2. Be specific about attendance expectations.  Is registration required? If not, say that. Do they have to bring anything or dress in a specific way? Can they just show up and sit down? Students have provided feedback in the past that they are nervous to go to these events so if we can tell them more specifically what to do and what to expect, it’s more likely they will attend.
    
3. Use strong images for which RIT has usage permission. A picture is still worth a thousand words, so find something fun, relevant, and engaging to use over and over again in your event marketing. You might find image options in TigerStock, the RIT photo library. If you decide to use the COLA branded templates in Canva, you’ll find many professional stock photography concept images that can be used. 

Printed Materials for Your Event 

If you need printed promotional flyers or event programs ahead of the event, identify your budget source, get the budget line number to which The Hub should bill printing costs, and determine how many copies you will need printed. 

Branded design templates for 8-½ x 11 flyers, 11 x 17 posters, and event programs can be found on the RIT brand portal as well as in the College of Liberal Arts Canva account. 

Promotional Items (Swag)

If you need promotional items (e.g. swag) produced for the event, determine your budget source, budget line number, quantity needed, deadline by which item(s) need to be produced and on campus for distribution. 

Contact an RIT approved vendor to learn more about the types of promotional items that are available, their costs, and how long they take to produce. 

The process of creating a design and obtaining approval to produce can take up to two to four weeks depending on the complexity of the project and the workload volume of the team members. Careful planning well in advance will help to ensure your promotional item is ready in time for your event.

More information about ordering swag and promotional items >

1. Event listing on rit.edu/events.  When events are submitted and tagged, the RIT.edu website automatically distributes and displays them on the appropriate web pages (e.g. departmental or academic degree pages) as well as within the RIT events calendar. 
    
2. RIT campus-wide events emails. 
   • The RIT News and Events email is created and sent by University Communications 2 or three times a week and includes a selection of events from all of those offered campus wide. 
   • The RIT Events email is sent by Student Affairs every week campus wide to all subscribers. 
      
3. College of Liberal Arts “This Week at COLA” weekly email newsletter, sent on Sunday evenings to all students, faculty, and staff subscribers. Your event must be published on the RIT events website rit.edu/events by the end of day on Tuesdays in order to appear in the next week’s email. 
    
4. Digital display monitors in College of Liberal Arts spaces and other buildings on campus. 
    
5. Post on Campus Groups. Campus groups is a student engagement tool, overseen by the Division of Student Affairs at RIT and supported by Assessment, Technology, and Communications. CampusGroups can be used to help Student Affairs recognize student groups and departments, promote on campus events and programs, communicate with members of their group, track attendance, collect information through forms, and much more. In addition, CampusGroups provides a platform for students to:

• Search for clubs and events
• Promote events
• Keep track of events and sync them to their calendar
• Easily check-in at events
• Share updates and photos
• Check the latest news from their group or organization
• Connect with classmates
• Register for events
• Purchase tickets for events
• Read more about Campus Groups here »

6. Social media (Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, and LinkedIn). If your department has and maintains its own social media channels, you can also independently promote your events to those channels. Within the social media platforms, you can share  your post with the College of Liberal Arts social channels for further amplification. Additionally, the COLA social media content manager often posts department-level event announcements. 
    
7. Flyers printed at the Hub or Hub Express (at your department’s expense for printing).
   • Read about Hub printing services, ordering process, and costs >
   • Read about Hub Express services, ordering process, and costs >