Volunteers make passionate fans. They are often emotionally involved with your subject matter or your charitable causes and are therefore, well-positioned to be major influencers for the event. They have large personal and professional networks of their own and now with social media tools…a platform for their voice!
Some practical goals for this unique group of influence are…
Directing traffic to the event website
Building opt-in lists for event updates
Generating warm leads for group ticket sales
Putting a familiar face on a particular sponsor development proposal
Becoming the subject of a human interest story—or helping to identify others that would draw interest from far flung media outlets
Develop a communication plan to provide volunteers with promotional information and specific calls to action on a weekly or monthly basis. For best results, keep this promo oriented outreach separate from operation updates. We need everyone involved with your event to accept their personal role in the promotional process.
Create the promo tools in advance specifically for this key audience such as:
Website and link to opt-in list
Copy and paste email signature messages
Forward ready e-mail offers designed to share with others
Pre-approved blocks of content in order for your event to be represented consistently
Volunteers are typically involved in your event for personal reasons. These reasons can lead to opportunities to tell human interest stories. An event with a broad geographic appeal can use these volunteer human interest stories to garner media coverage in multiple markets. Work to identify a number of volunteers with interesting stories and ties to various media markets.
Volunteers can naturally become discouraged when important promo tools are not available when needed. Respect the time and energy of the key audiences your event counts on; this will exponentially increase your sustainability.
About Linda Sparks
