The Power of Promotion! On-line Marketing For Toastmasters Club Growth. Rae Stonehouse
that would be of interest to their readers or followers
After delivering several webinars on the VP Public Relations role I discovered that while I considered the above strategies to be traditional i.e. they have been effectively used for a while, to a new club officer, these are “brand new.” These strategies still work and you should at least consider if any or all of them would support your task of increasing your club membership.
The New Marketing Strategies
Think marketing!
Think like a business!
Marketing, as defined by the American Marketing Association “is the activity, set of institutions, and processes for creating, communicating, delivering, and exchanging offerings that have value for customers, clients, partners, and society at large.”
Hmmm. Another definition is: The management process through which goods and services move from concept to the customer. It includes the coordination of four elements called the 4 P's of marketing:
(1) identification, selection and development of a product,
(2) determination of its price,
(3) selection of a distribution channel to reach the customer's place, and
(4) development and implementation of a promotional strategy.
Our Toastmaster’s product is easily definable. Around the world we all follow the same communication & leadership skills building program.
Our pricing varies from club to club depending on operational expenses that may include the cost of renting a meeting room, if it is not available for free and the exchange rate of our currency against the US dollar used by Toastmasters International. If we have other Toastmaster’s clubs in our geographical region within the same classification say for example a community club, we have to be comparable to their pricing. Potential members may price shop for what they consider to be a better deal, no different than what they would for everyday goods and services.
There’s an old saying: “Advertising is what you pay for, publicity is what you pray for.” It can be said that advertising is paid media, public relations is earned media. With advertising, you tell people how great you are. With publicity, others sing your praises.
Most Toastmasters clubs don’t have the operational budget to spend on paid advertising and are discouraged from doing so. Advertising is expensive. Publicity and public relations, while not necessarily totally free, can have a better return on investment than money spent on advertising. Many people confuse advertising and public relations. This table (below) compares the two.
Table Source: Robert Wynne
“If you always do what you've always done, you will always get what you've always gotten!”
Conventional marketing wisdom says that you have to touch your customer 7 to 11 times before they make a purchasing decision. In our case, our customers are potential future Toastmaster members. When it comes to touching our customers, don’t take that too literally as it will likely get you in trouble if you were to do so!
In a marketing context, a touch is every time that your customer sees or hears a mention of your name or brand. We discuss branding a little later. Touchpoint examples could be your website, a tweet from your Twitter account, a post to your Facebook page or someone else’s, a blog post focusing on your Toastmasters club, a Linkedin post, a poster on the wall of a public place etc. The list goes on and on.
The individual has to see the word Toastmasters over and over again before they make a decision to check it out. When they think of developing their self-confidence and their communication & leadership skills you want them to think about Toastmasters. And even more importantly, you want them to think about your Toastmaster’s club first!
Enter social media! Social media, if used proactively can maximize your marketing effectiveness and increase your club membership. Think of it as advertising that you promote!
Social Media Overview:
There seems to be a plethora of self-proclaimed “social media Gurus” who will try to convince you that social media is the only way to go. And they are the expert at solving your business social media initiatives.
On-line social media platforms are within the realms of the do-it-yourselfers and allows Toastmaster’s clubs to develop an on-line presence that is often greater than their club membership and their local reach. They can be an easy, if not time-consuming, method of promoting your Toastmaster’s club to the world. It can be challenging though, to demonstrate a positive return on investment for the time and effort you put into social media activities.
Perhaps the real question is “Should you put time and effort into social media initiatives to attract new members to your Toastmasters club?” The answer is likely “yes” & “no.”
There are some isolated, rural communities that have not yet developed a social media consciousness i.e. few if any are using it. In larger urban areas that have embraced the concept the question becomes “Do you want to put the time & effort into social media?” It does not replace face-to-face, belly to belly, interpersonal communication, even though some people are doing so to reduce their own shyness or inability to communicate with others. It won’t replace the relationships with people in our sphere of connections i.e. family, friends, colleagues etc. What social media will do for you is gain you access to a large number of possible members, any time of the day or night, all year long that you would not likely have access to. Something to consider is that while you may not see the potential rewards to having an on-line social media presence, your competition certainly does. They may be getting to your potential future member before you do!
Throughout this manual I will share with you my top social media platforms and software both on-line and not, that serve as tools in helping you to get your message out. Each has their advantages and their disadvantages.
As in my other publications, I use what I call an ‘onion’ approach to exploring a subject. I start off with an overview then peel back layer after layer in order to make the subject understandable. I hope you find that to be appealing! Okay, that’s the only pun I’m going to use … probably … maybe. We’ll see!
The comments provided are my own, based on my personal experience with each of the various social media and may not represent the experience of others.
One of the missions of this manual is to provide you with enough background info for you to decide if incorporating social media into your Toastmaster’s club marketing plan is worth your time and effort.
Before we delve into offering tips & techniques for specific social media venues, we will explore the concept of branding as it is integral to the success of any of your marketing initiatives.
Chapter Three: Branding
As we learned earlier in this manual, the customer has to see your product or service seven to eleven times before they make a buying decision. That decision may be to come out to your club to learn more information.
We are fortunate that Toastmasters International has conducted a great deal of research and development of a recognizable brand. While that is a good thing … it can create challenges in differentiating your club from others if you have others in your geographical area. It can be argued that as Toastmaster clubs, we are not in competition with other Toastmaster clubs, there are lots of potential members out there to go around. However, if you are in a club that has difficulties building your membership and your meetings are poorly attended, then you do have to be competitive … at least for a little while until you pack your meeting room.
So how do you brand