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| *Ostroff, Fair and Company>>>Government & Non-Profit |
What is the best way for non-profit music (youth orchestra) organisations to get the word out there? |
What is the best way for non-profit music (youth orchestra) organisations to get the word out there? Non profits are just like any business - you need to get the word out in order to get the needed funding to help support your activities. Here are some tips to help you market your non profit: 1. Determine your target audiences: who are the groups and audiences that your non profit wants to reach. Remember that one target group may respond differently to a marketing message as another group so make sure that each strategy is tailor made for each audience. 2. Develop a communications strategy, creating timelines for marketing efforts such as newsletters, press releases, special events, and others. 3. Develop a visual image. Prepare your logo and other branding tools - and use them consistently across various mediums. Make sure that you repeat your branding messages, slogans in everything you make from brochures to newsletters. 4. Employ multiple communications tactics: Nonprofit organizations often target several audiences, which may respond to different approaches. Various communications campaigns can help establish and maintain a more widespread positive image. 5. Select and use appropriate media: Plan to use a combination of approaches best suited to reaching your targeted audiences and that make best use of your financial resources. Include a variety of methods including phone calls, letters, e-mail, newsletters, PSAs, press releases, and editorials. Send elegant postcards to the clubs in the area that sponsor events that draw the people with money or connections. Offer to play for free at upscale restaurants on a holiday weekend Friday and make sure, always, that an elegantly written placard announces your name, that you're donating your time, and how you can be reached. I'm sure that your adult friends know all the classy language. You could also play during lunch time in the business district of your town and have some people handing out business cards. If you have a local radio or local access TV station, get a booking to play on it. I volunteered for one, and we sent a lot of press releases to all the local papers, radio stations, etc. We also sent free tickets to music critics. We would take pictures of the students in concert dress -- with their instruments -- and divide them into the local areas. Then send the pictures to the appropriate local papers. They usually got printed, with a long caption. Posters also help, and inviting local schools to concerts at reduced prices. Ditto Senior centers. You have to create buzz. |
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