August 20, 2022
3 hackathon announcement email templates
Kevin Peters
Founder of tooltipr
Organizing a hackathon is time-intensive. And especially communicating it. Organizers spent many hours crafting messages for internal communication like announcing the hackathon, finding ideas, announcing winners, and many more.
3 announcement templates
The easiest way to announce your next hackathon. Within 30 seconds.
One of the first emails that will send around is the announcement email before the hackathon. In this blog, we will present you with three templates for you to just copy and paste for your hackathon announcement email.
Let us discover what is important for a good announcement email in the following chapters.
Prerequisite
To announce a hackathon you will have to plan your hackathon. We have discovered this topic in "What is an internal hackathon? -> How to organize an internal hackathon" that you can explore. But in short, you will have to figure these things out first before sending an announcement email:
- Finding a theme for the hackathon
- Figuring out a budget for the hackathon itself
These steps can be only done if leadership approves this idea. So talk with your C-level to bring this idea up. Hackathons are good to market your own company externally or can be used internally to bring people together and increase the average tenure of employees.
What should the hackathon announcement email include?
The hackathon announcement email should include many pieces of information. It is generally split into three parts:
- Introduction about the hackathon
- Call to action
- Additional information
This structure is taken to attract the employees first to the hackathon. The introduction should clearly state the benefit for the employees. It should also mention what the hackathon is about, the dates and what is happening - at least a rough plan. This should answer the following questions
- What is the hackathon theme?
- When does the hackathon happen?
- Where is the hackathon happening? Is it remote-friendly?
- What is the main prize?
After that, the employees might have caught enough interest. In the email, you should include a call to action now. Ideally, this is a link to a form where people can sign up. With hackathon.camp you can use the internal form tooling to let people instantly sign up for your hackathon. It is optimized for no friction and supports Google login and SSO for your organization.
After the call to action there is more additional information that you can include in the email:
- A link to the rules
- What are all the other prizes?
- Are there any other restrictions regarding ideas or teams?
Answering all those questions should result in a clear and good announcement email.
Alternative channels to send the announcement
The announcement should be also sent out to alternative channels within and outside the company. Let us start with internal channels.
Team chat
The announcement should also be made public within your team chat. Most teams are using Slack or Microsoft Teams. In channels that are targeting the right people, the announcement should be made. Most often, these are the #general channels or similar.
And when you are at it, feel free to also create a hackathon channel where people can ask questions and get more information about the hackathon.
Internal team meetings
The hackathon should be also announced in internal all-hands meetings. Meetings where everyone in a company somehow participates. With those meetings, you can even target specific departments like engineering or marketing if you are looking for a certain set of people that should participate in the hackathon.
Social Media
The hackathon can be also used for marketing. You might wonder in which way. Your company is likely to have a profile on different social media channels like LinkedIn or Facebook. On those, you can share that your company is organizing a hackathon and it might be a great opportunity for people to apply to your company. You can showcase the nice company culture you have because hackathons are fun events for the employees usually.
The Hackathon Email Templates
In this chapter, we will present the email templates for your next hackathon.
Hackathon Email Template #1
This template is quite a short one. It is ideal if not everything is fleshed out about the hackathon and you just want to generate signups.
Hey <Insert company names employees>,
We are excited to announce the first hackathon, and invite every one of you to participate! The hackathon will be a 2-day event where you have the chance to participate in a project proposed by one of your colleagues or by yourself. It does not matter if you are an engineer, sales representative, or marketer. In a hackathon, everyone is needed.
The hackathon's theme will be "<Insert theme>"
Date: 16-29 of May 2022
Location: Berlin (In-office), San Francisco (In-office), Remote
Early pre-registration form
To be eligible for the submissions, bounties, and prizes that will be announced soon, please register above. We will announce the rules soon.
Thanks, <Insert name>
Hackathon Email Template #2
This template is mostly used if you want to include a lot more information in the hackathon announcement email. It is a bit longer and takes a bit longer to read.
Hey <Insert company names employees>,
Our <next/first> hackathon is happening! What is a hackathon you might ask? We will organize an internal company event where you can get together with colleagues, from random teams to deliver a small-scoped project. No matter your background, you will find a spot.
The hackathon will evolve around the topic of <insert theme> and we are happy to invite y'all to this event. Some data about the hackathon:
Date: <16-29 of May 2022>
Location: <Berlin (In-office), San Francisco (In-office), Remote>
Slack Channel: <#hackathon-2022>
<Early pre-registration form>
Prizes include:
- <Swag for every participant>
- <Each participant of a winning team of a category will receive $1000 in an Amazon gift card>
The rules around the hackathon are the following:
- <Teams can consist of a maximum of 5 people>
- <Committee members are not able to join the hackathon as a participant>
- <You will have a budget of $500 per team to spend on food or other third-party costs>
- <All projects must be submitted via hackathon.camp>
- <...>
Thanks, <Insert name>
Hackathon Email Template #3
This is an email template that includes a FAQ section as well.
Hey <Insert company names employees>,
We are pleased to announce that a hackathon will happen soon. The hackathon will be themed around <insert theme>. Everyone in this company can participate. It does not matter if you are an engineer, designer, or sales representative.
Date: <16-29 of May 2022>
Location: <Berlin (In-office), San Francisco (In-office), Remote>
Slack Channel: <#hackathon-2022>
<Early pre-registration form>
Frequently asked questions
What is a hackathon?
A hackathon is an event where small teams of random internal colleagues will work together on a project to ship it. In the hackathon, multiple teams will participate and there will be winning teams for different categories that will receive prizes.
What are the rules?
The rules of the hackathon will be published shortly. Sign up or follow the slack channel linked above.
What are the prizes?
Each participant of a winning team will receive a <USD 75 gift card from Amazon>.
Thanks, <Insert name>
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