As Lt. Governor for Zone 10, I sent this to the zone club officers. It was suggested that it might be useful to others. Here is the excerpt:
A few short tips and tricks I’ve learned over the last couple of years. These will get your club more visibility and most are free or low cost.
If you have a web site, create an info@yourwebsite.com email address. Forward it to a few key people, President, Secretary, Treasurer, PR or Membership Chair, etc. Also set up a ‘vacation reply’ that says something like, “Thanks for your message. We’ll get back to you within one business day. If you need immediate help, call <name> at <phone number>. When replying, always use “reply to all” so everybody on the distribution list gets it and sees that you’ve answered the query.
Second, create free accounts at the following web sites – AmericanTowns.com and Patch.com. You can register (use your club name and a club email address, e.g., info@yourwebsite, not a personal email account), then place your events and even your regular club meetings on the calendars. If you plan far enough in advance, you can send out Press Releases, too, but keep sending them to your regular sources as well. I have done this for the Brighton club and it looks like other media outlets pick up on them.
Do you have a GoogleMail account? Hmm. Create one. Then go to ‘account settings’ and create an ‘alert’. I have a number of them (personal, business and Optimist related). One is always searching for the term ‘Brighton Optimist’. When that pops up in any web site, blog, whatever – I get an email. I then click on the link and see what’s happening. Be sure to use “as it happens” for the ‘how often’ field to get immediate gratification. You can also choose, daily, weekly, etc. If you send out a press release, when it hits the internet, you will see it promptly. I had numerous hits for our recent fishing derby – so fast it was almost spooky.
Last, the ‘almost free’. Actually, not free at all. The Brighton Club started paying a regular advertising fee last year. Every month we write a check to our local paper’s online edition. The paper is the Livingston County Daily Press & Argus and the web site is www.livingstondaily.com. We have a web ad that is termed “run of the site”. That means it can appear anywhere – no set location. The upside? When we send press releases they get published. They’ve given us ‘feature’ stories and print ads, too. Why? Because we’re a paying customer and not just another group competing for free space. Of course you have to work within your budget, but we’ve gotten a lot more visibility which makes it easier to recruit members and our events are better known, too. It may not be for every club, but it is an option if you want to explore it.</em>
And District Webmaster Theresa Jarrett added this information:
Michigan District does offer FREE websites for clubs – the free sites use WordPress which is an easy “blog” format or “static” page layout and clubs that pay for their domain can have the URL forwarded to the FREE site so they don’t have to pay for hosting. We also offer domain registration at $10 per year and it includes online e-mail with everything. If a club wants to have their own space we also offer a discount for that too, hosting is only $7.49/month.</em>
The last item wasn't included in my original Zone 10 email, but we've also had good luck with what I call 'event specific' email addresses. For example, inquiries about our Spring Break Fun Day go to 'springbreakfunday@yahoo.com', our golf outing inquiries go to 'optimistgolf@yahoo.com', etc. That way I can monitor them via my smartphone and we also don't have personal emails out there for the spammers to grab.
I'm sure some of you have great ideas, too. Let's here 'em!
Bob Smith, Lt. Governor, Zone 10
Michigan District Optimists
