What Works - and What Doesn't - Blog Hop

by Kim Van Sickler

Here are our hosts: 

Arlee Bird 

Yolanda Renee 

Jeremy Hawkins 

Alex J. Cavanaugh 

I used to work in marketing. Marketing other people and organizations. And I was pretty good at getting those people/entities what they wanted. 

But out of everything I learned, here are the two most important pieces of advice I have to give.

1. If you are trying to spur someone to take action, they need to hear your message repeatedly before they do it. Of course, it depends what you want your audience to do. The more you are asking them to do, the harder you have to work to get a response, but you increase your chances if you 

a) don't ask for a lot of effort, 

b) ask for something they are prone to want to do anyway, 

c) and present your request/idea in a fun/interesting way 

d) in a number of different forums frequented by your target audience.

I've heard that people need to hear a message ten times before they act on it. No one really knows the exact number, but the point is repetition, repetition, repetition. 

That doesn't mean run the same message verbatim. It does mean run different versions of it over and over again, and tap into a variety of media like newspapers, TV, radio, Internet, personal appearances. It is work. No doubt about it. And some people take to it like syrup to pancakes, while others don't.

This is the point where all of those wonderful relationships you've developed come in handy. Relationships with all types of people who are truly interested in what you do and who can help spread the word. 

2. Many local newspapers will print exactly what you send them, if it's relevant. Stories and pictures. (Just make sure the photos are high quality.) Again, keep your audience in mind. My daughter just held an open house for the community as part of earning her Gold Award in Girl Scouts. So we took a picture of the historical building she helped renovate and invited people to drop by. The newspaper ran everything, word for word, as we sent it. And when we held a badge event for Junior Girl Scouts where everyone stepped back in time to 1896, and took an eye-catching picture, it was a no-brainer to send that to the paper too. 

Results: Local residents stopped by the Grange building, clutching the newspaper article, and asked for my daughter to take them on a tour of the building. She was thrilled. The building's co-curators were stunned that so many people visited. Our invited guests drank all of our punch, and ate all of our cookies, and asked lots of questions. It was a truly successful event. But we didn't just rely on that press release. We began by scheduling the event on the same day and the same place as another annual event for civic leaders. Our open house would begin four hours before the second event, and end at the same time the other event started. We prepared an invitation to run on local cable access TV, announced the event on Facebook, personally invited everyone we thought should be there, and talked up the open house at service unit-wide Girl Scout meetings. In fact, one Brownie troop decided to conduct their Girl Scout meeting at the open house. 

As an extra bonus, an aide to one of our state senators saw the article and e-mailed me asking if Claire would like a Senate proclamation recognizing her accomplishment.

Yes, she would! She was over the moon.

As far as the back-in-time event, our goals were to a) document that the event took place for the Gold Award committee, b) reward the attendees with a picture of themselves and c) promote Girl Scouts in our community. The photo was a concrete way to illustrate the occasion for the Gold Award committee. The girls who attended were thrilled to see themselves in the paper. And although we don't have hard numbers, we know that every time we show scouts in action in the community, we find more girls who want to sign up. (Our PR problem isn't finding scouts, it's finding adults willing to lead scout troops, but that's a different post. And the subject of another PR campaign.)

What are some of the things you've tried that have garnered you publicity?