Best practices for promoting an event

Most important thing to keep in mind is, who is your audience? 
And, what is the call to action? i.e., what are you asking people to do?



All eblasts and web pages should follow the style guidelines below. We want to present a professional, consistent look in every communication that comes from Landscape Ontario.



Once you have created the content for your eblast or webpage, let the art department put the finishing touches on it to make sure the styles and tags are correct.



Please make sure a second set of eyes sees all marketing and promotional material before it is distributed.



Finally, email yourself a test of the eblast before it is released to members.



Email campaigns



Must have complete contact information listed: Mailing address, plus phone, email or web address.



All email campaigns must include some type of unsubscribe functionality.  We have built our opt in/out system to comply with the CASL law and you can simply link to: https://epic48.com/apps/opt/f/ with some text, for example: Manage your Landscape Ontario communication preferences below the address, phone and email/website.



To keep email clutter down, and effectiveness up, LO managers have agreed to follow policy that all eblasts must have your manager’s approval before broadcasting.
In addition, departments must limit their broadcasts to a single day of the week:

Options for promoting your event



horttrades.com website:

• coming event,
• news item,
• flash card

Industry news in LO magazine and/or LT

Eblasts

Enews, copy deadline is Tuesday at noon.

Ads in LO magazine

Style guidelines

We follow the guidelines below in LO’s publications and websites; the more consistently they are used in all our communications, the more professional we look. They are based on the Canadian Press Stylebook, plus our own style policies. Please bookmark this page for easy reference.

Headlines
 
We use sentence case for headlines in our magazines and on both sites, capitalizing only the first word. Only proper nouns in words following the first word should be capitalized.
 
Wrong:
My Garden Inspiration
Learning to see: Beauty and the Sublime
Certification is Good Business
Promote the Home Renovation Tax Credit to Your Customers
 
Right:
My garden inspiration
Learning to see: Beauty and the sublime (cap after punctuation is correct)
Certification is good business
Promote the Home Renovation Tax Credit to your customers (the tax credit name is a proper noun)
 
Websites

The http:// or www does not need to be included when referencing a web address, because almost all web software supplies it. Some addresses begin with other expressions (ftp://, for instance) and these should be included.

Long web addresses should be allowed to wrap. Be careful that editing software doesn’t add extra hyphens in the address.
 
Alignment
 
All elements in the magazines and on both sites should be aligned flush left: copy, photos and logos. Nothing should be centred.
 
Hyphens and dashes
 
Hyphens should never be used as punctuation. Hyphens separate syllables of broken words, or join compound words. If you are using spaces on either side of a hyphen, you are using it incorrectly. If you wish to use a dash, use the correct html character coding to set an en (short) dash, or em (long) dash.
 
Dates and times
 
Follow CP style. Common mistake: Use a.m. and p.m., not am and pm
 
Phone numbers
 
Follow CP style. Use 905-875-1805, not 905.875.1805
 
Provincial abbreviations
 
Follow CP style. Provincial abbreviations follow:
Alta., B.C., Man. N.B., N.L., N.S., Ont., Que. and Sask.
The two-letter, uppercase provincial abbreviations are postal abbreviations, and are proper if you are citing a postal address. Otherwise, use those above — the postal abbreviations slow readers down and can be confusing, especially with U.S. states.
 
Plant names
 
Common plants names are always lowercase, unless part of the name is a proper noun. Examples: daisy, Shasta daisy, lilac, dwarf Korean lilac. Botanical names are made of two components, genus and species name, and are always set in italic. The genus is always capitalized and the species always set lower. Set the genus in italic even when it is abbreviated (C. kousa). Sometimes genus names will come into common usage, and lose the italics and capital, for example, geranium. 

 
Brevity
 
Keeping copy as brief as possible helps everybody.
For more information contact > Use: Contact
 
Common mistakes
 
Its/it’s: its is the possessive form, it’s is a contraction for “it is”
Effect/affect: effect is a noun; affect is a verb in most cases. Look this one up!
 

Caps and spelling