Sales and Marketing
From Ni Wiki
Sales & Marketing committees are in charge of getting people to come to ventures and recruiting new members.
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[edit] Overview
A successful publicity campaign hinges on your ability to present a compelling message to as many people as possible. Design plays a huge role in the branding of any campaign, but, as important as advertising is, personal interactions are the best way to build interest and close sales. While there are literally dozens of ways to go about a publicity campaign the most sucessful strategies involve a team of dedicated people who can't stop talking about the venture. If you pursue all of these strategies in good faith you will be surprised how easy it is to blow every other campus event out of the water.
[edit] Marketing Strategies
[edit] Direct Sales
- Telling everyone you know: This is the fundamental, most effective, and easiest way to recruit volunteers, attendees, and supporters for our chapter and events. Simply put, it is the responsibility of all the leaders of NI to inform their friends, roommates, classmates, study groups, acquaintances, et c. about Hunger Lunch and NI and to invite them to our GIM and HLs.
- Classroom presentations: There is a reason every organization makes announcements and distributes fliers to classes at the beginning of every semester: IT WORKS. E-mail the professor ahead of time and be respectful. The impact made possible by this communication is absolutely worth the time and effort invested.
- Crazy Promotional Event: Crazy promotional events can set you apart from the pack in more ways than one. Audacity is the name of the game, and if you are trying to sell tickets you would rather be vulgar than go unnoticed. For example, to sell tickets for Hold 'em for Hunger 2007 Matt Callahan agreed to have his head shaved into a mullet if twenty people bought tickets within the first 10 minutes of Hunger Lunch. The stunt worked to perfection. Twenty-two tickets were sold and Matt received a mullet with HEFH etched in on the top. For weeks leading up to the tournament people would come up to Matt and ask what the deal was with his new do. Matt would then tell them about the stunt and Hold 'em for Hunger and people became engaged & intrigued and in many cases they would buy tickets. Mullets aren't the only way you can attract attention to your chapter's events. Other successful publicity stunts include riding a bike around campus wearing a cape to attract people to come to Hunger Lunch and passing out a deck of cards to a crowd of people and giving a prize to the first team that can come up with four of a kind. With publicity stunts the sky is really the limit; so be bold, be creative, and leave your shame at the door.
- Seek out Freshmen This is primarily of interest for when you're trying to build and grow your college's chapter. To put it plainly freshmen are the lifeblood of any organization. Fraternities & Sororities have know this for some time. Since you're going to be competing with them and every other student group it is essential to recruit underclassmen early. If student organizations are allowed to set up & or present at freshmen orientations you should be there. At UNC-CH there is a student organization "fest" that everyone comes down to at the beginning of the year to solicit and sign up prospective members. If there is something like that at you're school you should be there too.
- NI listserv: It would be hard to overstate the importance of developing a NI listserv from the very beginning. In essence, an effective listserv will be a tool to reach an enormous number of students and faculty with the highest interest in our organization. EVERY person that even expresses interest in hearing about NI, or a HL or even about poverty and hunger in general, along with anyone who attends a GIM, HL, or other Venture, needs to write down her/his email address.
- Pit Sitting: On UNC-Chapel Hill's campus there is a central area called the Pit where organizations can set up tables and advertise for events. You sit, you wait and hopefully people will come by and talk to you about your organization. Pit sitting is a passive strategy best used in conjunction with other active strategies. You pit sit in order to be available to the sale, that is all.
- Other Student Organizations: Utilizing the resources of other student orgs is an excellent way to reach students/faculty who have already demonstrated an interest in social work/relief. The tactic for this method is to simply go through friends and acquaintances in other organizations. If you approach them with collaboration in mind and explain the mutual interest of our endeavor, it will not be difficult to solicit their cooperation. Once they have given their consent, there are two ways we would want to utilize this resource: acquiring access to their listserv and thereby a larger audience, and the opportunity to speak briefly at a General Body Meeting about our program and upcoming events.
[edit] Advertising
- Flyers Flyers come in a variety of shapes and forms. Some you post on walls, some you hand out to people and some you stuff in mailboxes and under doors. A good looking flyer can go a long way in setting you apart from the field. One of the best places to get cheap, high quality flyers is at Miamiflyers.com.
- Cube & A Frames Many campus will have spaces set up for organizations to advertise events. On UNC-CH's campus there are cubes you can paint and anyone can construct a A-frame an place it in a high traffic zone. Whats great about these forms of advertising is that they're free and all they require is one or two dedicated artists. Having a good artist on your team is essential if you want to pursue this strategy.
- Facebook Strategies While facebook isn't a marketing panacea it is extremely useful as guest list and it can reach a whole lot of people. To get started first create an event. Then, have everyone on your team invite Everyone. Once you start getting a guest list you should create a listserv of attendees & maybes if you're feeling industrious. This way you can send them updates and put them in your system. Everyone on your team should switch out their pictures with advertisements with the event. The Hold 'em for Hunger committee has gotten pretty creative with this one, creating photoshoped versions of themselves on playing cards all in the same format as the event's promotional flyer.
[edit] Media
- Campus Newspaper Connecting with campus publications to help you publicize events can help you reach out to markets you don't already have access to. For more information read James Dillard's primer on how to write a press release
[edit] Contacts
- Joel Thomas - Director - NINO joel@nourishinternational.org
