In their heyday, when big-time editors had discretionary hours for champagne meals, extravagant events may have been impactful at enticing them to feature a product and nudging notable non-media attendees to spread the word. But today there are cheaper ways to put on an event without making serious tradeoffs that could set a brand back.

Don’t get me wrong. I love a splashy beauty bash as much as the next person. When I was a beauty assistant at Glamour, I was treated to a 12-course dining extravaganza at Per Se. I was in no position back then to afford that restaurant and thoroughly enjoyed the chance to experience it on a brand’s dime. I can’t remember the brand, though, or the product it was promoting.

When I decided to orchestrate a launch event for my fragrance brand Nomaterra, Per Se wasn’t in the cards. I needed to produce a memorable occasion that was practical on a meager startup budget. In January 2012, I spent under $1,000 to unveil Nomaterra in New York City at Inglot Cosmetics’ loft space—a mere 5% of what my beauty entrepreneur client shelled out for her brand’s hotel shindig—and drew more than 300 people, including nearly 70 members of the press from television, print and digital outlets.

You don’t need to blow thousands of your hard-earned dollars to throw a successful launch event. Instead, leverage your connections, skills and offers by following eight key strategies.

When Nomaterra was a baby brand, I reached out to the director of marketing at Inglot Cosmetics through a friend of a friend. Inglot had recently opened a beautiful third-floor loft space in Chelsea Market with sweeping views of the city for corporate meetings and makeup artist trainings. Different from many rental spaces, it wasn’t constantly crowded by customers, so my event wouldn’t compete with them.

Having come from the magazine world, I pitched media attendance in exchange for use of the space. I proposed that a certain number of guests would drop by, and gave them the chance to sell products to and do demos for them. The proposal was a win-win. Inglot received media exposure and sales opportunities, and I secured a gorgeous space for my launch party and fun demos for my guests. It was a bonus to incorporate Inglot’s globally-recognized name in the mix.

Action step: Figure out benefits you can trade for space and services. What’s most important is being resourceful with what you have, which I believe is the essence of growth hacking in the early stages of a brand. If you’re a graphic designer, you might swap free marketing collateral for a space. If you’re an accountant, you could suggest a couple of months of bookkeeping or a financial advisory session. Brands are always looking for financial assistance.

At Nomaterra’s launch event, my friend Justin Harter, founder of Citysticks, acted as a sponsor of the event and creating custom popsicles with ingredients from the brand’s fragrances. He brought his hip ice cream cart into the event, and guests absolutely loved it.

Action step: Make a list of your entrepreneur friends, friends of friends, relatives and friends of relatives with products or services that complement yours. Persuade them to set up a table, demo a product, dole out samples or craft custom goodies for your launch event. They’ll obtain access to your audience, and you’ll have goodies or activities to share with your attendees. Be sure to promote your sponsor on your invitation and at the event.

Identify friends and family that might be willing to help out at your event. Your support network is likely wider and stronger than you think. Don’t feel shy about asking around. At our event, my cousin checked coats and handed out the popsicles. If you have interns, you should call on them to introduce guests to your product, greet them at the door, serve drinks, and prepare and clean up the event.

Action step: Find helpers who would enjoy the atmosphere or products at your event. Be honest about what the work entails and how long they should expect to be there. Take care to ensure the people lending a hand know how much you appreciate their efforts. The last thing you want is someone feeling taken advantage of. You’d like them to spread joy rather than annoyance at your event.

Keep the good vibes going by putting together a killer branded playlist or enlisting a live DJ or band. Tapping your connections can clue you into a DJ or band that won’t charge a pretty penny. Do you have musician friends who want to get their names out there? We didn’t know any DJs or musicians prior to Nomaterra’s launch party, so I ended up hiring a DJ on Craigslist for $300. He was awesome, and I connected with him for possible future gigs.

Action step: Does your DJ cousin owe you a favor? The moment has come for her to pay up. If she’s not your speed, dive into your contacts and your contacts’ contacts for a DJ or band. Weigh whether they’d suitably represent your concept. If you can’t drum up a DJ that fits the bill, curate a playlist exemplifying your brand. Be sure the playlist speaks to its ethos, voice and identity along with the target customer profile, not your personal preferences.

At Nomaterra’s launch event, Inglot provided makeup tutorials and cultivated an atmosphere that prodded people to explore. Ponder inexpensive, DIY activities that are appropriate for your brand. At a fashion and beauty pop-up called Nude House that I ran a couple of years ago in SoHo, we had a braid bar from RPZL and a crystal-necklace bar from Kalaki Riot. The bars were great for exciting and surprising guests.

Action step: Partnering with non-competitive brands adds pizzazz to an event. For Nomaterra’s launch in Washington, D.C., for example, fashion brands Kim Schalk and Pico Vela displayed their wares. The three brands split the cost of the venue and rented it for the whole weekend to host the launch event on Friday night, and dedicated Saturday and Sunday to a pop-up shop. The approach allowed my brand to reduce the cost of the launch event and utilize the space for sales.

Beverage brands are among the easier sponsorships to land. There are countless emerging liquor and wine brands, and a lot of them will gladly sponsor an event and distribute free products to potential customers. At the Nude House pop-up, Montauk Brewing Co. and Cordiale Wine Club were sponsors. Depending on your target audience, you should evaluate alternatives to alcohol. In the age of wellness and juice bars, mocktails are increasingly popular. For the pop-up, we snagged Wtrmln Wtr as a sponsor for a non-alcoholic option.

Action step: Reach out to emerging liquor or drink brands that mesh well with your brand and event, and invite them to be sponsors. Highlight the attendees, existing sponsors and location, whatever serves as effective selling points to convince the brands to become sponsors. You can also contact local wine stores or communicate with vineyards directly to see if they’re up for holding a tasting.

Don’t plow your guests with full meals. They won’t shop if you do. I’ve learned this lesson the hard way. Booze makes credit-card fingers loosey-goosey. Excess food makes them oily and lethargic. For the D.C. event, a cupcake maker whipped up custom cupcakes containing ingredients found in the fragrances. They were a huge hit, and she lifted awareness for her catering business. For the New York event, a Craisglist caterer fell through last minute, and we ordered loads of sushi and appetizers. It was a great spread, so great that a lot of people lingered around the food table a bit too long.

Action step: Contemplate bites that correspond with your concept, but aren’t difficult to consume for guests walking around. Eateries or catering services in the vicinity of the event may be open to supplying the food on a budget because they’ll understand party attendees could become their customers.

An event host isn’t a requirement, but it’s nice to have a person appointed to assist in telling your brand story and attracting guests. Influencers are typical party hosts these days. Welcome the people the host knows to the event, and draw upon the host as a liaison to customers and the media. The turnout was outstanding at both our New York launch and our D.C. launch. While the former didn’t have a host, for the D.C. event, we hired a local beauty influencer for $300. She pitched in to arrange the space, brought in a bunch of local people and worked the crowd. She became our first official brand ambassador before that was even a thing.

Action step: If your brand has early adopters in the influencer crowd, you could request one of them become your host. Be certain your host is dependable and enthusiastic, and your target consumers wouldn’t be taken aback by the brand affiliation.

DJ: $300

Step and repeat banner: $150

Food: $400

Miscellaneous: $100

The D.C. event was slightly more expensive. However, my brand recouped the additional cost by selling products during the weekend-long pop-up.

• Ensure everyone involved in your event—those renting the space, vendors, sponsors, the DJ and more—have invitation social media assets to share with their networks. Eliminate obstacles or inconveniences making it difficult for them to share with their followers. The assets should be finalized in advance to maximize their circulation on social media leading up to the event.
• Point out new accomplishments and wins to your current sponsors, and other sponsors you pitched, but haven’t yet nabbed. Maybe you landed a pretty well-known DJ or stellar influencers to RSVP. Work that! Name-drop like it’s going out of style. Update people on the regular on expected attendees. If you send your invitation to the media and get a maybe from a local magazine or TV channel, mention that.
• As the event nears, remind everyone who’s RSVP’d and those who haven’t of event time and details. Create a sense of urgency and exclusivity around the event. If you’re nearing max capacity, send out an email to fill people in that they have to RSVP quickly to get in.
• Assess forming an educational panel with experts discussing the theme of the event. For example, if you’re launching a wellness product, you could fill a panel with a doctor, mental health expert, nutritionist or yoga instructor. A panel is an efficient tactic to build the audience scope of the event.
• Live referral programs can be effective to push people to share the news about your event. Perhaps every guest who brings a friend gets an additional entry for a beauty goodie bag raffle.
• Email capture is mission critical. Simple methods for collecting emails are having guests sign in on a tablet to check in or a paper sign-up sheet. A little incentive can prompt people to furnish their emails. For example, giving emails could enter attendees into an on-site giveaway.
• Leave media and consumer attendees with small gifts and samples, including postcards spotlighting sponsoring brands. Small gifts and samples get your products into new hands. Rely on your partners’ products and services to load up impressive goodie bags, which are excellent codas to a great event that make your guests feel pampered.

Aggie Burnett is a public relations and brand strategist for beauty and wellness companies dedicated to helping them go from conventional to cult status. She is also the co-founder of Nomaterra Fragrances. She has been featured in publications such as Beauty Independent, Entrepreneur, Glamour and BossBabe, and has spoken at conferences, including Six Degrees Society, Ladies in the Industry: Music and Media, and Flourish and Thrive.