Archive for the ‘robbie’ Category

What Personal Touches Are You Doing To Increase Attendance At Your Conference or Events?

Wednesday, October 14th, 2009

There are many ways to communicate with your potential conference attendees that it’s very easy for the information being communicated to be lost or forgotten because of the use of traditional communication methods. To separate your communications from the traditional ways, personalize the information. Incorporating personalized information into your communication efforts will help with increasing attendance at your conference. Encourage potential attendees to engage with the information they are receiving by using pURL’s, twitter, and facebook.

PURL’s
Personal URLs are perfect for potential attendees to interact with the marketing materials. For example, as you send out your save the date postcard, you can send along with it a PURL for the recipient to log on to. On their personal page, you can have them register early, fill out a questionnaire, or have them choose or suggest topics that they would like to have covered during the conference. By allowing the attendee to participate during the pre-conference stage, the conference value and attendance will increase.

Twitter
During the pre-conference stage, you can begin to setup #hashtags for your conference on Twitter. Invite possible attendees to follow your conference twitter account to receive instant updates about the conference and to begin conversations about what they would like to see at the conference and to start networking with other attendees.

Twitter can be used during the conference as well to let attendees provide their own personal views on subjects and to strike up hot topics throughout the conference. Have the speakers setup their own accounts so they can get involved with conversations through twitter.

For more information, check out our newsletter on Twittering your Annual Conference.

Facebook
Setting up a group on Facebook for your conference is a great tool. As you add friends to the group, you can gauge the potential for attendees at your conference. Utilizing the upcoming events tool, the group will be notified about key dates for the conference.

Check out this blog post about using Facebook for your organization.

Registration Offers
Who does not like a discount or special offer? Why not offer a discount for early registration using PURL’s? Provide special offers to your Facebook Fans who participate in discussions. Conduct contests through Twitter during the conference where you provide information or clues only seen through your Twitter updates.  Providing more options for early registration and participation in pre and post conference sessions will encourage members to take advantage of the situation and in turn it will help with conference attendance and late registration because we know “it’s not just a trend, it’s a fact.”

By incorporating these personalization tools, you will help with the overall value of the conference, but more importantly it will help increase your attendance.

Rottman Creative Group

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Direct Mail + Social Media Marketing = Fundraising Success!

Tuesday, June 16th, 2009

easy tips to help nonprofits

To compliment our recent Whitespace Newsletter about conference marketing success by integrating direct mail and social media, we put together a few tips for our nonprofit friends who are slightly more interested in fundraising.

We’ve put together 4 easy tips to help nonprofits:

  • Engage previous supporters
  • Find new prospects
  • Convert prospects to donors
  • Raise more money without greatly increasing your budget

Tip #1

Let supporters know about your presence on social networking sites. In addition to finding supporters on Facebook and LinkedIn with your current email list, you can also inform them about connecting with the nonprofit through these channels with short blurbs on direct mail pieces, emails and the organization’s website.

Tip #2

Respond to feedback from social networking sites, and share it with supporters who are likely keeping up with the organization through direct mail or email. The nature of social networking is that it allows users to provide instant feedback – the good, the bad, and sometimes the ugly. We’re not going to touch on how to handle the bad or the ugly, but we think you should sing the good feedback from the rooftops! Well, not exactly, but we do recommend you share it on direct mail pieces and emails, just like any other testimonial.

Tip #3

Integrate the campaign logo and theme across all mediums. Some organizations feel that their online marketing has to have a different “brand” than the rest of their marketing. This has potential to confuse the audience. We recommend using the same logo and theme for your fundraising campaign, despite how you are communicating with potential supporters. However, this does not mean you can use the exact same message, word-for-word on your direct mail piece as used on the nonprofit’s Facebook Fan page.

Tip #4

A popular trend (and useful tool) on Twitter is to tag posts with a hash tag (#), plus a keyword. This helps identify what the post is about, but also makes it easy to find when conducting searches. One of the most popular tags is #charitytuesday. This tag is used, you guessed it, on Tuesdays. Twitter users will post something about their favorite nonprofit and include this tag, hoping that the post will help raise awareness.

Alerting Twitter followers about upcoming direct mail pieces will peak their interest and let them know you need their help in raising awareness about the campaign. This is a great opportunity for nonprofits during a fundraising campaign with the potential to encourage matching gifts and referrals.

Rottman Creative Group

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Social Media Going Corporate

Wednesday, April 1st, 2009

SocialCorp

I recently read the book “SocialCorp: Social Media Goes Corporate” by Joel Postman. The book covered every aspect of incorporating social media into the corporate world. There was a SocialCorp Readiness Quiz that assisted in identifying leadership, innovation, industry, business objectives, engagement, and culture. The goal of this quiz was to identify strong and weak points in your company to determine your social media readiness. We scored a 90%. Take the quiz yourself to see where you stand.

There were six valuable attributes discussed:

  1. Authenticity
  2. Transparency
  3. Immediacy
  4. Participation
  5. Connectedness
  6. Accountability

I strongly agree with #4, participation. When I first started out using twitter, facebook, and linkedin, there was a lack of participation. I did a lot of reading and following with no participation. As I became more familiar with the structure of each platform and the benefits of each, I began to send @replies through twitter, started to respond to questions being posted on linkedin, and updated my status regularly on facebook. As a result of participation, I have received more followers, connections, and friends that are relevant to my interests, which in turn lead to 3 new business opportunities for our company.

How I use social media.

I am following a number of associations via twitter and the tweets are very diverse. Some tweets promote an upcoming event/conference while another tweet will discuss how to donate and will post the progress of the donations. The information is instant and brief. The great thing about it is that I do not have to search for it. If I am following the right associations/people, the information will be directed to me.

Tracking what is being said about your association or yourself is important. You need to respond to positive comments but most of all, you need to respond to negative comments. Responding to your negative comments will show that you are engaged with what your members/followers are saying, it shows you value the opinions of others, and it gives you a chance to be involved in the discussion to remedy the situation.

As with any new endeavour, you will need to develop a strategy. Take your time. Make sure you have the resources to implement your new social media strategy. Choose the right tools to use for your associations social media.

Be sure to follow me and Rottman Creative Group.

@Digirob316, @Rottmancreative

Rottman Creative Group

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What is that font??

Tuesday, March 24th, 2009

I recently began a project that involved incorporating a logo that used a font I was not aware of. I went through the motions of trying to match the font with ones that I thought would match. I had no luck getting a complete match. So I did my usual; search google for the answer. Google pointed me in the direction of myfonts.com.

Myfont Website

There is a section on myfonts.com that is labeled, “WhatTheFont”. It was exactly what I needed. All I had to do was upload the file or a picture that was taken and myfonts.com would send you back the possible fonts used. My font was recognized instantly and I was able to continue with my project using the correct font.

If there is a font that myfonts.com can not recognize, there are forums you may post your image to and have others around the world attempt to identify the font.

Myfont iPhone App

There is also an application for the iPhone that you can download and use right from your phone for instant use. You snap a picture of the font, upload the image, and if your font is recognizable, it will be identified.

Rottman Creative Group

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