Holding a successful recruiting campaign
For membership-based groups, recruiting is the key to surviving and thriving. In order to do so, you need how to run a successful recruiting campaign. This will be the first in series on all aspects of growing your organization.
Setting the Date
First of all, you need a date for your recruiting event. It’s important to do an event where potential new members are actually asked to join. If you’re not asking people to join, then you’re not going to get any new members, are you?
Remember that the biggest reason that people don’t join an organization is “nobody asked.”
So, it’s one thing to put up a flyer, or an advertisement saying that you’re looking for new members – but people need an incentive to act. So just putting out an ad to join your group at some point in the future is nice, but you want to add a sense of urgency. There’s a big difference between, “Come and see us, we meet every Wednesday at 12:15 pm at Rick’s Cafe Americain” and “You’re invited to an open house for potential new members on May 16th at 12:15 pm at Rick’s Cafe Americain.”
The first thing you need in any recruiting campaign is an event – what, where, and when. You want to give them a sense of urgency. You want them to put a definite date on the calendar, and have them get it in their plans – because otherwise, it’s going to fall onto the to-do list with 9,000 other things that they know they’ll have to do… eventually.
How to Set The Date
Setting a date is never as easy as it sounds. This really should be done at a meeting of all the key people in your organization. You want to make sure that everyone who needs to be there at your event can be – so a sit-down meeting or teleconference where people can sit down with their calendars and pick a few dates that will work for them.
Plan out all the things you’re going to do to get people to your event. Start with that time frame, and add a little while. Don’t try to cobble these things together in a few days. You’ll want to give yourself 4-6 weeks of marketing to really build the excitement for your event, and another 2-4 weeks to actually get your marketing plan together.
Other things to know have on hand before you sit down for your meeting:
- Facility Availability Dates
- Community Events (fundraisers, elections, graduations, sports schedules, etc.)
- School Vacation Dates
- Holidays and Holiday Weekends
Take a look at your community, and look for potential conflicts. This will save you a lot of time and trouble down the road. You don’t want to have all your hard work go to waste when your event conflicts with the Chamber Dinner that all of your target audience is going to be attending. Rather, you want to be at that Chamber Dinner inviting all those potential members to your recruiting event the next week.
You’ll also want to consider what day of the week is best for your targets, and what time of day works best for them. When will they be most likely to actually show up for your meeting?
Backdating
Once you’ve got a date in mind, you can start backdating. Make a list of all the things you’ll need to do to make your event successful. Everything from booking the room, getting supplies, and carrying out your marketing campaign. This list should be flexible, but it will give you a pretty good idea of what needs to get done, who needs to do it, and by when.
Here’s an example of a Sample Backdater that you can use as you set up your campaign.
Next Time:
We’ll talk about identifying your target audience for our successful recruiting campaign, and figuring out the ways that you’re going to reach them…
Photo by Rameshng