Where – should you showcase it?

Location, location, location. This mantra does not apply only to real estate; it also applies to finding the right placement for your news about Toastmasters.

While many Toastmasters members join the organization because a friend or colleague invited them to their first meeting, you need to reach out to a larger audience when promoting an event, be it an open house for your club, or an Area or Division contest. Traditional PR dictates that press releases are sent to newspapers, radio and television stations. But just as your audience no longer gets its news only from traditional newspapers, PR also needs to expand into online channels.

It is not necessary to publish your message in every channel of communication. It is essential to select the right channels – those that are frequented by your target audience. For example, statistics published by the PEW Internet and American Life Project indicate that the median age of a Twitter user is 31. Translate that to mean that if your target audience primarily reads e-mails and never tweets, then Twitter should not be your channel for PR.

Let’s take a look at a few options.

• Press releases. Yes, press releases are still common practice. Make sure your story is compelling – find that hook that will attract the media. Remember, also, that many publications have online editions, to which you can submit events to departments even if the press release is not accepted.
• Flyers can help attract external audiences; they should be posted in community centers and in places of business (with their agreement!) in areas that are physically close to the event.
• Websites are still the most common place where your online audience goes to find information about your organization – and its events. Make sure that upcoming events are prominent on your Home page, and keep the page up-to-date!
• E-mail to existing members helps spread the word to internal audiences. Resist the temptation of blast e-mails to anyone who has not opted into your e-mail campaigns.
• Networking and social sites are a valuable tool to publicize events – and are a good tool to send reminders to events, reminders that could be seen as “too much” if you were sending e-mail. Choose your top 1-2 sites on which your members and potential members frequent.

Above all, be consistent. If you find that you have found an audience through one predominant communication channel – stay there!

When - is the right time?

Imagine the following: you are reading your e-mails at 1 p.m. on a Friday before a long weekend, and are anticipating your early departure to beat traffic and enjoy your time off. A new message pops in, detailing a project that requires significant effort. The deadline? Monday morning. What do you do? If the e-mail is from your manager, of course you take action. If it is not – and remember that Toastmasters is a volunteer organization – it will very likely go ignored.

What happened? The audience of the message was not given adequate time to plan and execute the task – a classic case of the last-minute fire drill.

Timing is everything when it comes to communication. There is tried and true wisdom – such as not sending e-mails with requests on weekends or around holidays, just when everyone is trying to clear their (virtual) desks. Still, the key is to know your audience, and when the best time is to reach them.

A few rules of thumb will help you time your messages:

• Give your audience enough time to respond. Assume that they cannot drop everything to get back to you right away; give them the appropriate time, such as a week. Do not solicit them at the last minute.
• Let your audience know when you need a response. Without a deadline, there is no urgency. And, as we know, a task expands to fill the entire time allotted, so plan a little buffer in case someone gets back to you a day late.
• Follow up with your audience, as promised. If you tell them you will provide more information, make sure you do it. Don’t be “that person” who promises, “I’ll call you” – only to never be heard from again!
• Send reminders. If there is a long interval between the request and the completion date of a task, send a reminder the week prior to the actual deadline.
• Spread the wealth. Don’t overwhelm your audience with too many requests. That may include coordinating with others who are also sending requests to the same audience.

If you do your job right, then you will never hear the classic response, “Lack of planning on your part does not constitute an emergency on mine!”