Free Advertising For Fundraising Events

The first thing that one needs to do is to get a great committee together. I try to make sure I have someone who is a good writer, someone who doesn't mind doing leg work and someone artistic.

A lot of times one may find that it is just easier to do it themselves than to delegate it to someone else. This attitude can hurt your project because you need to get lots of people involved.

A great committee is probably the number one most important part of advertising but even as important is to remember to use your committee and to delegate responsibilities.

Communicating with your committee is also very important and it is easier to do if they all have internet access. I would not, however, not use someone who does not have email because that person may have a lot to offer. Listen to your committee and don't be afraid to change a preconceived notion of what should be done. New ideas and suggestions help keep your advertising fresh and appealing. All our Freedom Fest Committee Chairs contribute to the Advertising plus some other local volunteers who are willing to distribute flyers and promote the event.

Squidoo is a free website where you build these Scroll Down Web Pages on any subject that you are passionate about. You can even earn a little money to benefit your cause. Of course, it is as important to be an active member of the Squidoo Community and learn ways to promote your lens. This will help it become a high ranking lens which will help you to earn money but also will help increase the number of visitors to your lens.

I also have a Squidoo Lens about Happenings In Pendleton SC and of course have linked to my Freedom Fest lens on that lens. Of course, it is also linked to our Friends of the Park lens.

If you are not a member of Squidoo, you are missing a great opportunity to promote your cause and write about your passion.
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Twitter and Face Book are both great places to promote your event but both of these will work better if you have built a large local following. Find people who you think might be interested and establish a relationship whether it is as a Face Book friend or a Twitter follower. Hopefully each person you connect with will in turn pass the information about your event onto all of their followers.

On Face Book you can start a group and add your event. This way you can send out invitations to all of your local friends. All you have to do is to filter your friends to show the ones in your local network. You then send out an invitation to each of them.

On LinkedIn you can easily join groups with similar interest and that are local. Then you submit your event news and it will appear on their newsletter that goes out to all that group's members. Ohme's Linkedin Profile

Online Newspapers offer Calendars of Events for local happenings and it is free. It also helps to get your event recognized by Google so people can easily find it when searching the internet. You can post the link to your lens for more information.

There are also some online magazines that offers this service so take advantage of each one that is out there. Submit your event and lens url to as many places as you can find.

I like to use Blogger but there are many other blogging sites that are just as easy. Add pictures from past events and rss your blog into your lens. You can also benefit from finding other local bloggers and following them and hopefully they will follow your blog as well. You can comment on other blogs using your Event Lens URL as your identity. This way when the reader clicks on your avatar or name, they will be directed to your lens.

The Town of Pendleton is very good about linking to my Event Lenses as is South Carolina Information Highway and others.

I use two programs to make my fliers: Microsoft Picture It and Microsoft Home Publishing. Each one of these offers something to help make my fliers more attractive. Each allows non profit use of their clip art which is the nicest thing about these programs.

Printing fliers can be very costly so this is what we do. First, I ask each member if they would mind printing off at least 5 fliers and posting them around town. Most of the time people are willing to do this.

Secondly, I usually will buy ink and card stock paper and use that as my inkind donation or find someone to sponsor the printing.

We are also very fortunate to have a Friends of the Park member who is also a printer and has been so very generous in donating printing for us. These will be distributed to businesses around town and handed out at events such as Pendleton Recreation Association's Diamond Day, Farmers Market, Various Organizational meetings, etc.

The best places that I have found to post fliers and have some available for pick up are at grocery stores, hair salons, restaurants, doctor and dentist offices, pharmacies, and insurance offices. Just think of places that people will be going the most and have them available there.

We have done mini fliers printing 2 or even 4 fliers per page which are nice for one on one distribution. Printing fliers for distribution to school aged students is a big expense and unless you have a sponsor willing to pay for this, it would not be worth it. It is good to go schools to publish the information in their newsletters and this would not cost anything.

Table Toppers are usually successful but do not hold up well in restaurants where they are constantly spraying and cleaning tables. They usually will not hold up over a week unless you have plenty of the upright plastic kind that takes inserts. Restaurants and bars are usually given these by beer companies and sometimes will let us use them. We have even taken some old ones that were donated by a distributor and took all the advertising off with mineral spirits. It is a lot of work for only one week but sometimes it is worth it.

Freedom Fest Kid's Classic T-Shirt by ohmeakanancy
See more Pendleton T-Shirts

Our organization can not afford to have a banner printed so we found these two ways to make banners to hang at prominent locations around town: Old Hunters Store, Bi-Lo Grocery Store and Veterans Park Ball Fields.

Central Textiles is a company that makes blue jean pocket material and they have been kind enough to donate bolts of this material for our use. One of our members owns Village Alterations and she donates putting the gromets on the banners for easier hanging. This fabric will take permanent marker. I always have a supply of permanent markers but if you don't, you might find a store willing to donate some.

The best banners that I have found to use are the Coca Cola banners which have their logo on one end and the rest is blank. They are plastic so hold up good in the weather and have long heavy duty string for attaching to fences or buildings. Our Bi-Lo Grocery Store has been able to get us some of these banners from their Coke Distributor and we use the same ones year after year by just changing the date.

Our town has a marquee and are willing to post events that are open to the public and benefit the community. Some businesses around town have marquees and will post the event information if they are giving plenty of notice. The schools are usually willing to post the event on their marquees once school is out. Since ours is a summer event this really helps especially the schools that are on busy highways and their marquee is easily seen.

Pendleton High School was kind enough to put our Freedom Fest info on their marquee. Pendleton High School is located on Hwy 187 better known as Wild Hog Road and it gets a lot of traffic in the summer with people going to the lake and also people going to work at the Clemson Research Park or shopping at Lodges Landscape which is across the street. Thank you PHS.

We have several organizations that are willing to do this for us and it is always greatly appreciated. Just send an email request with the general information and a contact number and attach your flier.

Our area churches are also really good about publishing the information in their newsletters and bulletins.

Writing a good press release takes time and talent. I usually like to have someone on my committee who specializes in this.

The next thing is to make sure you get it to the right person at the newspaper or magazine and follow up to make sure they received it and ask if they need any additional information. This can be done online but it is also a good idea to send via email to a specific person at the paper.

You can also get into Online Press Releases and Articles which is a good idea.

Most stations will require specific guidelines to be followed when submitting a PSA. Find out what those are and follow them. After your PSA is written be sure to send directly to the right person. This may take some phone calls to find out this information but will be well worth your time.