by Derek Hatchard
Hey, have you heard about the group in your town that’s putting on that cool event?
No?
How come?
WAIT. Stop and think about it for a moment… How come you haven’t heard about the event happening in your own town?
What did you come up with? Was it because no one told you? You didn’t read about it in the newspaper? It wasn’t announced on Facebook or Twitter? You didn’t see any posters about it? You didn’t receive any emails about it?
It all boils down to a simple fact: YOU DIDN’T HEAR ABOUT IT!
If you’re a leader in an organization that puts on events, you probably want people to know about (and attend) them. If you run a community group or charity or service organization, you probably want people to join or help out. If you serve in a church, you probably want to reach people with your message.
In other words, you want your organization to get noticed. How do you do that?
Make It Interesting / Noteworthy
It’s so simple and yet so difficult – if you want people to talk about your group, you have to give them something to talk about. When you put on an event, make it something that people will not only want to attend but something they will want to talk about.
A lot of kid-oriented programs like summer camps or Vacation Bible Schools promise to let kids throw a cream pie into the face of a director, organizer, or pastor if some target is reached (attendance, donations, etc.). You don’t see a pie-in-the-face demonstration everyday so the kids talk about it and get excited.
When I was in grade school, we sold chocolate bars to raise money for the school. The student who sold the most chocolate would receive a 5 pound chocolate bar! When you only weigh about 50lbs yourself, a 5lb chocolate bar is nearly a miracle of nature. [Guess who won that chocolate bar? 
]
Don’t beat yourself up trying to find something that **everyone** finds interesting. That’s not the point. You must make your organization and your events interesting or noteworthy for people in your target audience. Not everyone cares about marching bands but some people do. Reach out to the people who care. Single mothers trying to take night classes might not care much about cream pies in the face but they will find a free childcare service noteworthy. (I’m willing to bet that almost any mother would also find a 5lb chocolate bar interesting as well, but I digress.)
Grab a pen and paper. Write down some ways you can make your group interesting or noteworthy to the people in your target audience.
Go on, grab that piece of paper. The rest of this article will still be here when you’re done, I promise.
Create Flyers and Posters
Creating flyers and posters is so easy these days that you shouldn’t even think twice about it. They don’t have to be fancy. You don’t even need fancy software – your favorite word processor will do the job just fine. Make your flyers and posters 8.5 x 11 inches (letter size) so you or a friend/colleague can print them at home.
Hand out flyers or hang up posters at places where your target audience can be found. If you’re running a technology user group, drop off posters and flyers to some local tech companies and computer bookstores. If you’re hosting a group for people with gluten allergies, take posters to health food stores, supermarkets, and specialty shops.
In the movie Whip It, Bliss discovers roller derby from flyers while she is buying combat boots from a thrift shop.
Create Downloadable Posters
You don’t have to drive all over the city to distribute posters for your group – let other people help out. Create downloadable posters then ask people to print them out and hang them up at their workplaces or other appropriate locations (as long as they have permission).
Again make your posters 8.5 x 11 inches (letter size) and then create PDF versions of them. Some word processors will automatically export or save a document as a PDF. If yours does not, you can download a utility like PDF995 (http://pdf995.com/download.html) that will let you “print” your document to a PDF file. Upload the PDF file to your web site and then let people know where to find it.
Create an Email List
Make sure you send out email reminders before events. Encourage people to forward the emails. In each email, invite people to contact you to be added to the email list (this will let you build a direct connection with someone who received the email as a forwarded message).
A lot of communication has shifted from email to social media tools like Facebook and Twitter or instant messaging tools like Live Messenger and Google Talk, but don’t let that dissuade you from using email as one of your communication tools. The rumors of email’s death are greatly exaggerated. I don’t know anyone who has completely abandoned email in favor of other tools.
Around here we’re partial to Crowd Space for sending out emails. It really is a great tool for managing a group and sending out emails. In addition to general announcements, it can send out emails to specific subgroups such as people aged 18-35 or only people who live in a certain city.
Facebook, Twitter, and All That Stuff
While email remains an electronic communications mainstay, other communication tools have also become extremely popular. Some things you should consider:
- Create a Facebook fan page for your organization. It’s super simple. Go to http://www.facebook.com/advertising/?pages to get started.
- Create a Twitter account for your organization. Again, super simple. Go to http://twitter.com/ to get started. Find some people to follow who are involved with your group or part of your target audience. And please use Twitter to spread useful information (it’s an innovative system but also easily abused).
- Start a blog (e.g., http://wordpress.com/).
- Start an email newsletter (you can use Crowd Space for that!).
- Use Flickr to share photos from your events (http://www.flickr.com/).
If this is all rather confusing for you right now, don’t worry: we will have some follow up posts here on the Crowd Space blog in the coming weeks to go into more detailed about things like Facebook fan pages, Twitter, blogging, and using Flickr.
Newspaper and Radio
Most newspapers and some local radio stations offer community event announcements as a free public service. Take advantage of that! Get your events listed or mentioned.
If you’ve done your job earlier and made your group or event interesting / noteworthy, you might also be able to get interviewed and snag some extra addition for your group.
And That’s Not All
This is not an exhaustive list by any means. There are lots of other ways to get your group noticed. The things mentioned here are specifically aimed at groups working with little to no budget for marketing or advertising activities. If you have money to spend, well, the world’s your oyster.
What things have worked for your organization? Share your experiences in the comments!
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