There are plenty of good marketing ideas around. For a list of no cost and
low cost marketing ideas, see the Guerrilla Marketing books by Jay Conrad
Levinson. (Plume Books, Inc.) There is even a Guerrilla Marketing website
(http://gmarketing.com/ ). It will only take a short time to convert
the ideas initially written for small business to small agencies.
But just getting ideas aren't the only answer. You really need to take a a
strategic planning approach to your marketing.
Assuming you have some idea about what you want to market and to whom,
you can:
- Make speeches to civic clubs and leave brochures on the tables.
- Train your people to do a better job of answering the phone (the phone
company may be willing to provide this).
- Put out a newsletter.
- Make sure your place looks good, especially signs and landscaping.
- Schedule open house days and tours.
- Offer promotional incentives, such as extra months of membership or half
price on a course when you bring in a new member.
- Take advantage of other organizations that can bring you business. For
example, NISH (http://nish.ew.net/ ) finds government agencies that
need products or services provided by organizations that employ individuals
with severe disabilities.
- Keep a list of the places which make referrals to you (I&R agencies, the
"community pages" in the phone book, local Internet community guides, etc.)
and set a date every few months to review them for accuracy and completeness.
(-- PB 8/18/98)
- Update the entries for your organization at the Idealist and Guidestar
websites so that they tell a more complete story. See
http://www.idealist.org and http://www.guidestar.org (-- PB 8/18/98)
Reposted, with additions, September 18, 1998 -- PB Reposted with contents of
07-11 on 12/14/00 -- LBS
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