Publicity ABCs

Publicity, publicity, publicity. When starting a new organization--or in my case a chapter of an international club--the biggest challenge is getting other people to know about your group. Specifically, getting the right people to find out about your new group and to convince them to stop by a meeting.

The question then comes down to: what are effective ways to publicize your group while encouraging the right people to get involved. And of course there is no right or wrong way to answer that question, but what over four years of community organizing and non-profit management has taught me is that there are a number of techniques that you should cover. I call these the "publicity ABCs."

Publicity ABCs:

• All the stops. When you are starting a new organization--even if it is a chapter or part of a larger national or international organization--you want to pull all the stops. Simply paying for an advertisement to run through Facebook or posting a few flyers on bulletin boards is not enough. In order to truly succeed and hit the ground running from the beginning, you need to plan and execute every publicity tactic you can think of. Flyering, pinning posters, facebook ads, google ads, craigslist postings, meetup.com, bulletin boards, business windows, word of mouth, tabling, club fairs, and just about anything and everything else!
• Bulletin boards. Most coffee shops, popular restaurants, community colleges, and public facilities will have a community bulletin board for postings to be left on. It's a great, free way to get word of your organization out there. Just check with the manager to see if you can leave a posters or flyer on there. 
• Community centers & hotspots. Think about who your target audience is, and then think about where that audience tends to hang out during their off hours. Those hotspots are the perfect places to spread word about your organization. Check if they have a bulletin board, or if there are any other publicity options they have available. 

Rotaract Materials for Publicity ABCs


Last Tuesday, I designed a poster about the Rotaract Club of Fremont, Milpitas, & Newark. I made sure it had some neat tear-off contact sheets for convenient access for people on the go. I also quickly recycled the design into smaller flyers. After about 20 minutes of work, I popped online to kinkos.com and sent in an order through their online system. The best part is that I was able to snag a 20% off coupon for kinkos orders by just Googling "Kinkos coupon codes." In the long run it only saves you a few bucks, but when you're doing any sort of community organizing and working with no budget, every dollar you save is a dollar you can invest back into something else later on. (Even if that something is a bowl of broccoli cheddar from Panera Bread after a long day's work.) Almost magically, the posters and flyers were ready about 30 minutes later. As a word of advice, Kinkos--as well as some other printers--charge a labor fee for cutting just about anything. Fortunately, almost all print shops have self-serve manual paper cutters for you to use. After about 30 minutes of cutting, I had a 72 flyers and 12 posters ready to go. Now all I had to do was find homes for the them.

Community Boards, Rotary meeting, & the Ohlone College Club Fair


I spent the better part of the next couple of days visiting local coffee shops and hotspots to talk to business managers and pin the posters and flyers up on their community boards. Last Wednesday, I was also able to visit the Fremont Warm Springs Sunrise Rotary Club's meeting to spread the word of Rotaract to their club and invite them to our first interest meeting this Wednesday. I was really excited to receive such a warm response from the Rotarians. In fact, it was really their support that has helped fuel the progress for the development of this Rotaract club.

I also had the opportunity to publicize at Ohlone Community College's campus club, while helping Fiona out with her new club, Friends of Students with Disabilities. Fiona was gracious enough to allow me to share her table--without which, I would not have had the opportunity to publicize at the club fair since I am not a student at Ohlone. Seeing the eyes of students light up after talking to them about Rotaract and the opportunities it opens up was worth the trip alone. I love talking to young people about service, careers, and traveling; listening to their dreams and helping them find ways to make those dreams in reality is something that never fails to excite me.

After hearing over two dozen positive responses from young professionals, it looks like this might actually be happening after all! Now, for the final stretch before the first meeting this Wednesday.