All posts in Media

When your organization is getting off the ground – or maybe before that – you’re going to want to create communications that help share your story with both current & potential fans. This can be a daunting task when one is strapped for cash or doesn’t have the time, energy or skills to communicate consistently.

Another hurdle small organizations face is the fact that – if they grow – they’re going to have to completely overhaul their communication methods which could be a truckload of work & has potential to create confusion with those who you’d like to be crystal clear with.

Wouldn’t it be great if you could start off with a cheap (or FREE!) method of commication while your needs aren’t tremendous? Wouldn’t it be great if those modes of communication were scalable so you could be consistent while your organization grows?

Well the internet just made that a LOT easier. Here are a few ways my current organization uses cheap (usually FREE) ways to communicate. The best thing about these communication avenues is that they’re easiliy scalable. If our organization doubled in size, we’d still be able to use the same avenues and wouldn’t have to transition our entire tribe to a new communication.

Email: Our organization uses MailChimp because MailChimp offers a “Free-Forever” option. We don’t have enough people on our mailing list to warrant spending lots of money on email marketing. Luckily for us, MailChimp has a super-simple interface which allows us to set up multiple mailing lists (teenagers, volunteers, program leaders, & everyone) without costing us a penny. It’s an easy, scalable way to communicate regularly with your customers. MailChimp works well if you have a list of 30 or 3000.

Blog: Write a blog. It’s free on WordPress, Blogger & Tumblr. It’ll cost you a little bit to purchase a custom domain but it sure isn’t hard. Train people to learn about your company through the web. Once you write a blog, there are only minor differences between having 2 readers & 20,000. It’s super-scalable.

Text Messaging: My organization uses text messages to remind people about upcoming events. There is a small monthly fee for us (which will increase as we grow), but being able to communicate in short bursts is fantastic. We use TXTsignal for this.

Social Media: Facebook, Twitter, Youtube, Vimeo. Free, simple services that allow you to connect with people. It costs you the same to connect with 3 friends as it does to connect with 30,000 fans. Either way, these avenues of communication are an easy way to pump out your message.

BONUS!: And just for an added bonus, you can interconnect all of these services to varying degrees. TXTsignal can update your Facebook status. Youtube can update Facebook, Twitter, Tumblr. MailChimp connects to twitter, facebook & blogs. When you interconnect your communication avenues, you help fans connect with whatever communication is easiest for them.

Figure out a strategy, get to work & never stop learning.