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FIB - Scams 101
Re: promoting the H.O.L.E. thing-online
Posted By: Mel. White In Response To: promoting the H.O.L.E. thing-online (Susan)
Date: Sunday, April 27, 2008, at 8:24 a.m.(pst)
>> I'm worried about the United States & feel like I need to have
>> better control. I'm starting a program called Helping Ourselves Live
>> Economically. I can make flyers and have groups in my 25 floor apartment
>> complex, but I want to promote it online too. Any marketing ideas? A
>> website and a blog? What would you do?I wouldn't take it to the Internet just yet -- beyond setting up a contact page and making a basic web page. You're seeing a high return for your efforts locally, and spending a little time developing "fame" beyond your apartment block is going to be critical to making a larger, stable organization. This is the kind of effort that can generate news stories (free publicity) and local attention (starting local chapters.) Put the basic idea up, put a contact page up, but don't start marketing it on the Internet yet.
In 6-12 months, after you've gotten chapters throughout your city, yes.
I would start looking for opportunities to present your program to the local Chamber of Commerce and any women's organizations you can find. This is the easiest, no-hassle way of acquiring more members (basically, anyone enthused in those groups can act as a second-in-command for expanding that program in their club AND they will tell you ways to market it effectively to that group. Take notes, and get a file for each organization of what materials you used so you can quickly pick out target materials for similar groups.)
Here's some details about why I recommend that:
Managing groups and troubleshooting groups is very difficult unless you've been involved with something huge like the Junior League. A group (or group of groups) of 1 to 15 people is easy to manage, but when you start expanding you get all sorts of headaches. Cliques form that can break apart or challenge your leadership. All kind of unusual situations will come up, including situations where others are angry with you and your group for some reason. Management problems and takeovers (if the subgroup thinks they can run things better) are very common once a group hits the 25-40 person mark.
You have to establish a good power base first.
Second, you have to know EXACTLY (like a teacher's lesson plan) what you are teaching and what the benefits are of your group and make sure your materials are professional and have perceived value. If you do a "so-so" job of it, you can fail badly. This means you need to test those materials rather than tossing them out online.
My recommendation (based on being involved with similar things and organizations of varying sizes) is to spend the next 6 months with slower expansion and THEN take it to the Internet with a marketing campaign. I talked about news stories... plan some event for your group and then invite the media (I'm sure you can make a tie-in with pre-Christmas stuff) and use that as a springboard to start an online marketing campaign.
You might also take a look at whether or not you can advertise on Craigslist and so forth.
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