Promotion
Promotion is crucial to success of our club. It doesn't matter what you do if students don't know you are doing it. Promotion is an art. Large companies spend millions having advertising agencies dream up promotional ideas for them. You don't have millions, but you do have creativity. Here are the basics . . .
Word of Mouth
This is the most effective advertising and it's free! Talk about your club everywhere you go to everyone you meet. Anything cool that happens should get lots of conversation. Talk to other students who already know about your club so that others can overhear it.
One caution: this can work against you if there is negative perception of you club. If it gets too bad, or if there is a bad history of your club from before, you may have to change the name of your group to change the perception of your club.
Flyers
This is word of mouth plus paper. Have students invite people with a flyer. This not about passing out as many flyers as possible (although to get 1 person to come, you will need to reach 10), it's about inviting people.
Flyers should be clear and answer the basic questions:
What? What is it? What is it all about?
Who? Who will be there? Who is invited?
Where? Where is this happening? Include clear directions with landmarks if necessary. ("across from the downtown TACO BELL" is always better than just "10023 main st")
When? When does it start? When does it end? (sometimes)
Why? What's the purpose of this thing?
Don't try to get to much info on a flyer. It's an invitation, not a novel.
Check out sites like www.psprint.com for large events, it’s surprising how cheap 2500 flyers are to print and how quick you can get them.
By the way, the "Week2Week" campus club program by MyCampus provided flyers for each week! Check it out.
Public address System
By law, if any other group is allowed to use the public address system at your school, so are you. This is a great advantage in name recognition if nothing else. Announce your group every week if possible.
Posters
You can make posters easy. All you need is a copy machine. Take your flyer and enlarge it to 11"x17". It's that simple. Post them anywhere you can. You usually have to get your posters stamped by the administration or they'll get pulled down. Ask teachers if you can post the flyers in their classroom. If each club member takes a couple to their classroom each period, the effect will be huge. Full color posters at place like www.psprint.com aren’t very expensive.
T-shirts
Have t-shirts printed for your event. They’re like walking billboards. Message Media prints t-shirts at cost for campus outreaches. E-mail Message Media . . .
Event Specific Promo
This is where you think of creative promotion based on the particular subject. If you where doing a week on judging others using the story of the the woman caught in adultery, you might give out rocks with the time and dates written on them with a magic marker.
For a week on Love you could give out hearts with info on them instead of flyers.
The "Week2Week" campus club program by MyCampus gives promotional ideas for each week! Check it out.
Use outreach ideas like Adopt-an-Quad or National Christian T-Shirt Day to promote an event.
Send us your promotion ideas.