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Blog Entry 17 of 26 Audience Development Specialists
Do you want to learn how to build an audience for your events? During the week, join me on the adventures of audience development. It is my mission to help you to build a more loyal and satisfied audience!

Blog Url: http://denver.yourhub.com/~AudienceDevelopment

Audience Development - Grassroots efforts

Contributed by: Shoshana Fanizza   on 4/1/2008

Building an audience also means that you need to find a way to reach your audience and get their attention. One of the best ways to do this is through grassroots efforts. Plus, grassroots campaigns can be a great deal of fun since they are only limited by your imagination!

What does grassroots really mean?

Grassroots is any activity driven by the constituents of a community, as opposed to being organized by central power structures.
www.fasngo.org/terms.html

One of the best components of a grassroots effort is the positive energy behind it. It's a matter of getting a group of passionate people that care about your organization who will take your organization out into the community and build relationships with the people of your community.

There are many different methods for spreading the word about your organization throughout your community. The best grassroots campaigns are done frequently and with more than one idea at a time. You can build a campaign where you incorporate three different ideas and then rotate to a another three ideas to keep it fresh. The point is to always have some kind of grassroots effort happening to keep the buzz going.

The following are some tried and true as well as some new creative suggestions to get you started...

1. Poster campaigns - have your volunteers divide up a list of posting places in your community and then flyer anywhere and everywhere you can.

2. Don't forget to flyer bathrooms. Find as many places that will let you flyer in their bathrooms. You have a built in captive audience.

3. Bumper sticker campaign - create your own bumper stickers and have as many people as you can commit to placing on their vehicle. If you splurge on the non-permanent stickers, you can rotate them for each event during the season.

4. Go door to door and invite people to your event. If you are shy, you could use door hangers to advertise for you.

5. Team up with your local radio station for contest to win your tickets.

6. Have contests throughout the year for people to win t-shirts. Make the t-shirt design attractive, thoughtful or funny so people will want to wear it. Get as many t-shirts out there as you can - walking bill boards always grab attention.

7. Have your social networking friends make your myspace or facebook page a smashing success. Make lots of friends then use bulletin board, blog, and invitation features to get the word out about your concert.

8. Always post your event on your local online calendars. Post on as many as you can. People do use different websites to find things to do.

9. Try a text messaging campaign.

10. Send out an email and ask all of your contacts if they could send out to 10 of their contacts.

11. Table at community events and hand out promotional items and coupons.

12. Try starting an old fashioned phone tree. Contact 3 people and ask them to do the same.

13. Make sure your brochures are all over the community racks.

14. Sidewalk chalk art in places that allow it is a very fun idea. High traffic sidewalks are of course the best.

15. Form a partnership with the scrolling signs and other visible signs in your area to announce your event.

16. Create a fun video to post on YouTube and spread the word.

17. Have your volunteers who are good at public speaking go out and give a speech on behalf of your organization.

18. Have the poets of your organization give a poem in honor of your organization on open mic nights.

19. Tie balloons all over your community that have a coupon in the middle.

20. Wherever magnets are sold, ask if you could have your free magnets displayed that promote your next event. Make sure you have a great design.


For more clever ideas, check out this book:
Grassroots Marketing: Getting Noticed in a Noisy World by Shel Horowitz
http://www.frugalmarketing.com/gm.shtml

Until next time, may your audiences be happy and loyal ones, and if not, feel free to contact me!

~Shoshana~


Shoshana Fanizza is the founder of Audience Development Specialists. Her mission is to introduce organizations to their existing and potential audiences and to help them form more rewarding relationships with them.

http://www.buildmyaudience.com
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Audience Development Specialists:Build My Audience board


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CONTRIBUTOR INFORMATION

Shoshana Fanizza

Boulder , CO

Shoshana Fanizza has posted 26 blog entries and 0 comments since joining on 1/18/2008. Shoshana Fanizza 's average blog rating is 5.
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