On 9/29/07, Jim Kuzdrall <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > There seems to be a strong drive to just rush out and advertise > while skipping the work of identifying your target population ...
Perhaps a better term would be "publicizing". More specifically, there are two ways I can think of to increase long-term attendance: A1. Find people who might otherwise be interested in attending our presentations, but are presently not attending (for whatever reason), and get them to attend. A2. Find presentations which more -- or different -- people will be interested in, thus providing an incentive for them to attend. Historically, one of our biggest challenges has been lining up our presentation program. I suspect attacking A2 would make that even more challenging. On the other hand, attacking A1 would likely involve things we currently do not even try for, and could be done relatively easy. So I think A1 is worth pursuing first. Here is a particular list of potentially happy attendees who are not attending: B1. They are completely unaware of our activities B2. They give other activities a higher priority than attendance B3. They need more lead time to plan their schedule B4. Our activities are not sufficiently prominent in their minds to yield attendance In the above, we can address B1 and B4 without any manipulation at all; we simple need better publicity. B3 also involves publicity, but first needs more advanced planning from us. Finally, B2 may be address with simply publicity to some extent. Perhaps some people would actually obtain more value from attending than from doing whatever they're doing instead; we just need to give them more information to realize that. Obviously, not everyone in group B2 is going to put GNHLUG first -- family, friends, school, job, etc., are likely to take precedent for most. But if the alternative activity is sitting in front of the TV, or surfing the Internet, or writing long mailing list posts, then that's something we can "compete" with. On 9/29/07, Jim Kuzdrall <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > But perhaps the risk disappointed newcomers is easier to bear > than the delay and turmoil of a businesslike approach in this > non-business environment. Let's look at the cold equations. I see two potential groups which we might reach with increased publicity: C1. New attendees who are disappointed and do not return. C2. New attendees who find the group worthwhile and come back. We have to weigh C1 against C2. Which is more likely? What value do we place on each? By keeping our "advertisements" clear and honest about what we're offering, I think C1 can be kept to a minimum, while maximizing C2. I also think most would consider C2 more valuable to the group. Members of C1 are more likely to have never been repeat attendees anyway. Anyone in C2, on the other hand, is a big win. On 9/29/07, Jim Kuzdrall <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > I will suggest a business-minded approach in a separate post, in > case anyone wishes to slow down. I agree with Ted. We would have to start moving before we could slow down. :) Sometimes, one is better off with a less-than-perfect plan that gets executed anyway, than a more finely tuned plan that never actually happens. Of course, other times, doing something badly causes more harm than letting things be. The trick is knowing which one we have... -- Ben _______________________________________________ gnhlug-org mailing list gnhlug-org@mail.gnhlug.org http://mail.gnhlug.org/mailman/listinfo/gnhlug-org/
