Recruiting Through Local Media
by Sharon Kittle , Yahara River Public Relations Chair

In order to get people to come and visit your chorus, they have to know who you are and what you do. I remember thinking when I was invited to join our Holiday Chorus that I wished I had known about the Yahara River Chorus years ago, but didn't know it even existed. So with that knowledge, I made a comment to our President about getting the word out there so people know about us. Having worked in the Madison Police Department Chief's Office, I got to know all the news media people because our Public Information Officer worked in the same office and they came in every day. I asked the reporters, who in their agency I would need to speak with to get an article done on our chorus. Well, one thing led to another and now I'm the Publicity Chairman for our chorus.

I started out getting certain information from our President, who had been doing all the PR stuff; she had more than enough things to take care of and didn't need that as well, so she asked me to be her PR Chair. I accepted thinking, now people are going to know about the Yahara River Chorus. Well, that's just a little bit of a grandiose idea, but it was a start in the right direction.

One of the things I did right away was called the Wisconsin State Journal (the official State paper) and asked who I needed to speak with to get someone to come out and visit on a rehearsal night and do an article on us. I spoke with one of the section editors and told him about the chorus and wondered if the paper would be willing to do an article on us. He asked some questions about our chorus and I told him that we have several people from one family in the chorus, a mother/daughter duo, and a set of twins. He kind of keyed in on the family relationships and that was going to be the focus of the story, but after he came to visit on a rehearsal night, it got expanded to the whole chorus. He took pictures of us rehearsing, showing our various costumes etc. It was about a half page article with a big picture with the title "Pop Goes the Barbershop".

Next, you need to let people know that you are always looking for new members who enjoy singing and performing with a group. So you start by gathering information on all the possibilities for advertising. Check with your radio stations, TV stations, newspapers, Weekly Shopper-type papers etc. Ask them for help in getting the word out about this great organization and do a press release giving the pertinent information so that people will know what you do, when you do it, where you do it, and why you do it. Ask them to place it in their weekly "Community Events" calendar. I recently found that many of the small towns around Madison weren't as likely to place the information in their community events section unless there was a member of their community in the chorus. So when preparing press releases, I needed to add to each particular community paper who from their community was in the chorus. The local editors are then more likely to publish the information.

The news media are always looking for stories, so they are willing to listen. It may not always occur exactly when you want it (i.e. on a specific day), but they will usually do their best to help you out.

I compiled a list of all these media groups using the telephone book, and spent one whole day just calling them and asking for e-mail addresses and fax numbers if they didn't want to accept articles by e-mail. I now have them loaded onto my computer so that I have a list of media who have e-mail and will accept articles that way, another for those who will accept articles by fax, and another group of mailing labels for those who don't have either e-mail or faxes. I asked about their deadlines in order to get an article in on a particular day or week etc. Most said the sooner the better so they can plan ahead for the article. I now send one group e-mail to a large group of media, fax to a group, and end up mailing very few through "snail mail". (Saves the chorus money on postage.) The fact that many of the news media groups will take press releases sent by e-mail or fax made my job as Public Relations Chair just a little easier.

One final note: Make sure that if you are doing any paid advertising for your shows etc., that you mention that you are a non-profit organization. The radio station we chose to do our ad gave us a "buy one – get one free" radio spots as a result of that information, so we got pretty good coverage for our Fall Show. (Not all of the radio stations do that, but at least mention it.)

Get to know your local news media - they can really help in getting the word out.

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Site last updated on August 20, 2007