Most of us, when we spend a considerable amount of time in a
community, become aware and involved in various civic and fund raising
efforts. Perhaps supporting fire and
rescue companies or helping out a little league team. In my neck of the woods, perhaps yours as
well, activities revolving around food bring the greatest interest. Those events that are frequent or annual become
the easiest to manage as they have a built-in anticipation to their
marketing. I know that when the phone
rings and it is a certain person that he is calling to see “how many?” and not
to talk about the weather or politics.
Recently, with the help of a local expert on the operations
end of a successful hoagie sale, another group attempted to put on a hoagie
sale. The scope was about 1/3rd
of the size and from an operations stand point it was flawless. But one thing that cannot be duplicated is
the marketing effort or built-in demand.
Thankfully, this smaller operation did sell out, but not without having
to set up a few road side stands.
It started me thinking, how could this newbie group have
done things differently? Both the
project coordinator and the head of the group are moderately social savvy. One has a Facebook profile and the other
operates the Facebook account for the group. A mis-step of sorts here is that the group on Facebook is set up as a personal
profile and not as an organizational page.
However, given that error, each could have set up an Event in
Facebook. Each could have, at any point in
time, set up a Facebook Group forum.
Either would have helped to spread the word. Furthermore, via other group forums that each
potentially could have belonged, the word could have been spread.
Other apps and media outlets could have been utilized as
well. Foursquare and Google Plus come to
mind. Google Plus has a “local” feature
where events can be created and Foursquare, via check-ins and comment posts, could
spread the word to others. Pictures and posts of the days activities could have sparked followers to take an interest in supporting the endeavor.
Marketing, as we know, is critical and no less so because it
is a grass-roots, small community organization selling a $5 hoagie. I would imagine most organizations, when they
meet to discuss their fund raising activities, focus on the operations end and
making sure that everything is ordered or physically in place. Perhaps a separate committee should be
created to focus on marketing; everything from posters, flyers and phone trees
to social media campaigns.
