Marketing & Public Relations 2000

Singing Valentines

To keep the momentum going we decided to improve on a moderately successful singing Valentine event from 1999. In fact we had already begun the process: we passed out pink cards for a drawing for a free Singing Valentine at our Holiday Show. We collected new names of people interested in ordering a Singing Valentine, and even got a few names of men "who like to sing" for our membership team.

The first step in 2000 was to create a photograph that the local newspapers would feel that they "had" to have and run in a prominent place in their publication. The concept was to take a quartet to a local barbershop and photograph them there. Of course the Harmonizer formal performing uniform is a great advantage. The red jacket, red bow tie, and red cummerbund combined with a white shirt and white pants and white shoes complete the "Valentine" image.

Advance arrangements were made with the owner of the Main Street "Boro Barbershop". Six guys were gathered. By being able to mix the group for several pictures we could have slightly different pictures for newspapers on our mailing list. We also could offer pictures for one paper with a couple of guys from their area and could offer a different group in a picture that included guys from another area of the county for the paper published in another area.

The pictures were taken on film and with a digital camera. Prints were made larger than the usual snap shot size. By using 6 by 8 prints there was good visual impact.

A story was written taking advantage of material developed the prior year and by using material on the Society web site. Quotes were created. A picture caption was prepared for each of the photos. An offer for the papers to send their own photographer to a rehearsal was written and offered (one newspaper had taken us up on that same offer the year before).

We used a form of press release that we have had success with in the past. Mailing was done in large red envelopes to attract attention, and so the photos and release material could be delivered flat. Some of the red envelopes and releases, with large photos, were hand delivered to publications that experience tells us have been accepting of what we provide.

We put the project on our web site and we registered our Chapter on the Society web site.

We promoted on our radio program. We have a program that broadcasts locally, and over the internet, for three hours every week. We had a quartet sing and put together a tape that was played as a public service message promoting the project throughout the day, every day.

We established our own telephone number of 908-806-NOTE. Calls that come in are forwarded automatically to the telephone of the event chairman for each event we present. In the past there was a different telephone number for each event in each press release. Of course as the chairmen changed, which happened almost every year, a new telephone number went out to the public. We have now established a single telephone number for all Harmonizer events.

We printed flyers and posters advertising the program. We used heavy red paper to attract attention. We also printed the flyer in a size of "four to a page" for hand distribution to prospects by our members and friends. We all carried a few of these cards to pass out to people who might be prospects.

We got coverage that ranged from full color, full front page cover coverage, to inside black and white coverage. We credit the program with more than doubling the number of singing assignments that came our way. The event chairman elected not to use our past direct mail because the calls coming in immediately after the first story hit the newspaper caused him to believe that he would have more demand than he could fill. He was close to correct. We had more than 100 singing assignments in 2000.

Youth Event

The school where we were to hold the event had to change our date, the other chapters got busy and developed conflicts with the new day, and the new date conflicted with New Jersey All State Chorus Auditions. But we had a grant in hand and thus were not dependent on tickets sales or having a large group participate. We wanted to get started, so we went ahead with the event. It was a very good artistic success. We had more female than male participation, but the event was a great first time event of its type for us and for our community. We consider it a success, as did those, young and old, who attended.

Flyers were printed and mailed to New Jersey Chapters to invite them to participate and bring young people from their communities. Only Red Bank, of local chapters, did actively participate by bringing a young man. They will participate again this year.

Flyers were delivered to music teachers throughout New Jersey at their convention. We arranged for a vendor who would be at the convention to deliver a flyer promoting the event to each teacher.

We distributed a flyer and a press release to each of the newspapers in the area. One newspaper responded first with a telephone call and then by assigning a free-lance writer, who works from time to time for the publication, to do a feature story. At the event itself we had photographs taken throughout the day. The pictures were used in a follow-up story in a local paper that gave us a full page of coverage. The photos were mailed to people involved, were mailed as part of a report of the event to the grant givers, and will be used this year in promoting the next of what we hope will become an annual event.

We will use the photos in seeking supporting grants and in promotion in the future. We will also use photos taken at the event in 2001 for these purposes.

Times Story

Our press release from the Youth Event provides my telephone number and invites calls seeking further information. I received a call from writer Caroline Calogero, a free lance writer on special assignment to the Times, who had questions about the event. Our conversation turned to a total exploration of Barbershop singing, SPEBQSA, and other Chapters in the area singing our type of music. Of course it included our interest in Youth and our getting an arts grant from the State Council on the Arts to support the event.

Interest on the part of the publication extended through several interviews with our people, brought other chapters into the story, caused a staff photographer to photograph a quartet singing in front of our local barbershop, and caused another staff photographer to come to our youth event to take a couple of photos during the afternoon show. The writer explored the Society web pages as part of her investigation. The result was a story with two color photos on the front page of their Sunday edition "Living" section that took up much of the page, followed by much of a page inside the issue, including a large black and white photo. They used our favorite Main Street barbershop to pose a quartet photo and took the other one during our youth event performance. One photo was of some young women who were part of the event.

The story was posted on the newspaper web site as a featured item. It is from that posting that the story was copied to include in our file.

Chamber of Commerce

One of our members has been selected to be a member of the Board of Directors of the Arts Alliance, a non-profit group of the leading arts organizations in the County, that was formed by the Chamber. Through that relationship we have performed on the Beaux Arts Festival on Saturday June 24. We also ran a barbershop clinic at the event to promote our type of singing. Over 10,000 flyers promoting the event were circulated by the Chamber through the school system listing us as participants.

Each month a Chamber Member, or combination of members, sponsor a "card exchange" at which members meet and greet each other. We have one or more members attend each of these events. In February we had a quartet sing in our formal outfits to promote our singing valentine program. We passed out cards that were developed from our flyer and printed four to a letter size page on bright red paper suggesting business people bring us to their business to perform for Valentines Day.

Each year the Chamber holds a Business Expo. For the past two years the Harmonizers have had a booth at the event. We pass our information about the Harmonizers and about barbershop singing and fellowship, meet people from the business community, interest them in singing and in supporting us by advertising in our show programs and providing funds to support our special events.

Last year one of our quartets created, on the spot, a couple of "jingles" that were recorded by a "women network" radio program to use to introduce their show.

Several quartets sing throughout the day. The scheduling accommodates the schedules of our singers and provides samples of different quartets throughout the day to the different groups of people who visit the event to meet our local businesses. We provide a larger group during the last hour of the event when the greatest number of visitors are present to enjoy the food and drink that ends the day. A little tag singing is used to try to interest men in visiting us at our regular meetings.

On several different months we have arranged for one of our quartets to perform at the card exchanges. For example we performed prior to singing the National Anthem at the professional minor league baseball park. The owner of the ball club is a prominent member of the Chamber, a contributor to our Chapter, and an advertiser in our annual show program book.

Our Chamber participation is part of our marketing and public relations program that builds bridges, creates relationships, and leads to performing opportunities.

Coffee Table Book

On page 124 of the"Coffee Table" book the Co-chair of the Millennial Portrait Project writes:

New Jersey Governor Christine Todd Whitman was photographed on her farm in Hunterdon and provided an introduction to the book.

Included in the project were photographs of some of the best known historical sites in the larger community, photographs of some of the best known artists and residents of Hunterdon County, and photographs of two representative performing arts groups from the County.

The groups selected to be photographed by Walter were The Hunterdon Symphony Orchestra performing in Deer Path Park, and the Hunterdon Harmonizers in the Flemington Borough Park.

We are proud to be included in the publication that appears in homes, businesses, and libraries throughout the area. Being recognized as worthy to be included is a tribute to our public relations effort and is a direct result of our net working at Chamber of Commerce events.

Radio Show

The show has been used by Joe Connelly to put in a plug for Platinum when scheduled to sing on an area show and by Jack Pinto to plug an Easton Pa. Show.

Broadcasts have included live performances by Magic Moments from the Hickory Tree Chapter of the Sweet Adelines, thus including the female side of our singing.

This past year live singing to a small audience of about 50 was initiated for the station by Taylor and Stadtmauer with The first "A Cappella Showcase" which was held on June 15 and featured Hampton Avenue, the Toronto, Canada based 8-member vocal jazz group and The Fabulous 40's, a new mixed foursome featuring two-time gold medal winner Tom Felgen. One of Dick Taylor's greatest thrills was hosting "The Persuasions", the legendary group that has performed together for 37 years, and cut 23 albums. As Dick tells it:

We were present to photograph The Persuasions with Dick and Dave. The pictures have been made available to promote the radio station and thus to promote our show, the Harmonizers, and barbershop generally.

As long as their energy lasts we expect Taylor and Stadtmauer, together with new addition T J Barranger, to continue to promote barbershop music from downtown Sergeantsville, New Jersey to the world.

Most Improved Chorus

We also recognized that one of the major goals of the Society is to promote quartet singing. The Harmonizers took this goal to heart, and formed four new quartets this year to participate in the Division contest. This meant that 60% of the chorus was in the quartet competition — one of the highest percentages on record for the society according to our president Dick Taylor!

Our first step was to put together five groups that could deliver Singing Valentines in a satisfactory fashion. By mixing and matching with some of our more talented singers handling more than one voice part we were able to meet the demand developed by our Valentine marketing effort. We continued with these five groups with each learning two songs they could deliver on the Division contest stage. Regular time to practice and perform was allocated. Internal coaching was made available to the newer quartet singers. We sang for another chapter in preparation for contest.

The long and short of all of this effort was that we had a higher percentage of our members singing in quartets in the May 12 Northern Division Quartet Contest at the Parsippany Hilton contest than any other chapter (to the best of our knowledge) and we escalated our feeling of fellowship among our singers as we supported each other, and sang together as a chorus at a level that earned us the designation of being the "Most Improved" chorus in the contest.

The designation gave us the opportunity for another promotional step. A photo was taken of three of our members with the trophy awarded and one of our members was drafted to write a story of the weekend. A satisfactory color photo combined with the good writing of Jack Gardner delivered in the form of our usual press release in our usual bright red envelop delivered the result found behind Tab #7. Of course now the guys in the Hunterdon Harmonizers are beginning to expect front page color photo coverage for all the things we get involved in, now and in the future.

Medical Events

We also perform at the "Lights of Love" ceremony at the Hunterdon Medical center at holiday time in December as a free performance. We performed this year on December 6, three days before our Holiday Show. We promoted the show. We were included in the news releases sent out by the Hospital public relations department as featured performers for their event. The audience included people who have made donations to the hospital and are in a position of providing support to non-profit organizations. Last year photos of our performing, in color, appeared in two newspapers that covered the event.

This year we added another event to our health and medical related events — the Relay for Life for the American Cancer Society and the Cancer Survivor's Dinner on Friday June 9 . The event is a fund raiser and a celebration of cancer survivors. The Harmonizers were asked to perform at the event by people who had heard us perform before, perhaps at the Medical Center event. One of the selections was I'll Walk With God, a moving, and we think appropriate piece for the event. I am told there were tears in the eyes of more than a few people who heard that performance.

We issued no press releases and took no photos ourselves, but the event was a public relations achievement for us and for barbershop. As you can see from, we were photographed and included in the coverage of the event. The article describes the event so I will not repeat the detail. We were also included in the advance publicity for the event. We have been asked to return for 2001.

After our holiday show we were asked to put on a performance for the residents of the Lyons Veterans Hospital in near-by Somerset County. The Flemington American Legion was providing them with a pizza party for the holiday and wanted to include some entertainment for the event. We did perform for a large group of mostly African American veterans who were in the process of drug rehabilitation. They appeared to be a sad group, but it was not long before they seemed to really be into the music and the performing. There was great applause and a standing ovation from those able to stand when we finished. In fact they did all they could to keep us with them, singing all sorts of old songs until we finally had to go. In terms of public relations the event established a warm feeling between the hospital and the people living in it and the members of the Harmonizers. We hope it also caused the local members of the Legion to appreciate us more than ever.

Craft Fair Project

The Harmonizers have tried to instill in each member of the Chapter the importance of being aware of the value of promoting the chorus all the time as a means to build membership and to obtain performing opportunity and build audience. We have made good progress in that regard so that our public relations effort is not a one person operation.

For example, last year the Chairman of the event demonstrated his awareness of the need to pay attention to the public relations opportunities and the public relations elements of his job. The Express Times, a newspaper published in Easton Pa and circulating in the community, called the Chairman in response to a press release that had been sent out to promote the event. They asked if they could post a banner to promote their project "Celebrate 2000" near the court house steps where we normally perform. He agreed, in exchange for their agreement to send a reporter and photographer to cover the event. We know that something different in a performance attracts attention and makes for a good photo opportunity. Our music director included in the performance program our singing a song that involved wearing tropical hats and flower leas. These elements gave the photographer just the opportunity he needed to capture a photo his editors thought worthy of the front page of the publication.

This year we performed on the steps of the Historic Union Hotel. One of our members who was not singing with us took photos, as did the wife of one of the other members. They were distributed to local publications and used on our web page and used by some of our quartets to promote themselves.

Some times we will custom write a story for a publication based on a discussion with their people. For example one paper said it would run something, but wanted a particular angle and their writer was not available. We accommodated them with a re-write of our release to their view of the event.

Another, in this case The Courier News, wrote about the event, but to our disappointment did not include anything in their story about singing at the craft fair. They do at least give us credit for organizing the event. A follow up conversation about the omission produced the information that their writer had to leave before the singing, so did not include it in his story. His timing was such that he was present between quartets, so he missed that too. But at least we were covered to some extent and continue to foster good communication with the publication. We learned a little more about the need to "assist" writers with their story when we can identify them.

An Arts Organization

The Hunterdon Harmonizers have explored, as a source of funding, arts grants. The first step is to have the grant givers agree that the seeker of grant funding is an arts organization and fits in their category of organizations they will benefit. It is not difficult to obtain small sums of money from local political based re-grant organizations. It is a greater challenge to obtain more significant funding on a direct grant basis from foundations and state political grant givers.

The Hunterdon Harmonizers have been fortunate in obtaining annual grants of small sums from the County Cultural and Heritage Commission in Hunterdon County. They have also been working on developing a standing directly with the New Jersey State Council on the Arts as an Arts Organization within the definition of such organizations.

They have received special money from the State for the purchase of equipment. That funding was achieved through the development of a relationship with their local assemblyman and state senator and persistence in the application process. Their legislators joined them at a rehearsal one evening and were included in a photo that was then circulated to and published in some local publications.

We have also received direct state funding for our Youth Event. Our next step, in our persistent effort, is to obtain direct funding in the form of an operating grant as an arts organization. These are grants given for a three year time frame and can cover 25% of the operating costs of a not-for-profit organization. In the meantime we will continue to seek special project grants and other arts grant funding as money becomes available for which we may qualify.

We are pleased that the State of New Jersey recognizes us as an arts organization by including us in the publication Discover Jersey Arts, a Resource Guide.

Holiday Show

We have tickets printed and some flyers in time for our fall craft fair. We have an audience of about 2,000 for the craft fair. We cannot pass up the opportunity to begin promotion then. We usually include one holiday song in the craft fair show. Our MC announces the show and that tickets are available. The telephone is switched over to the ticket chairman for the show as soon as the first flyers are in circulation and the show is announced at the craft fair. We have a drawing at the craft fair for two free tickets to the show to build our mailing list of people who might be interested.

A mailing is prepared to go to our mailing list. We sell reserved seats based on a first come first served basis. We try to sell a third of the seats with that mailing. People who have come before want the best seats and know they get them if they sign up early. This past year we added our ability to accept credit cards as a means for payment for Singing Valentines. We now offer the use of credit cards as a means of payment for all of our events.

The news release is drafted and reviewed by the show producer. Pictures are taken. This year we pulled out all the stops by putting two top hats in the picture. We took photos with evergreen backgrounds during a break in the proceedings while at COTS in the hills of Pennsylvania. Our red envelope packages were assembled and delivered or mailed to our mailing list soon after.

We also took photos at the rehearsal of the "Harmonizer Kids" who would be in the show with us. We know nothing sells like kids. And we know that pictures of kids are likely to get published.

We performed on "Dicken's Days" in the community where the show was scheduled to be performed on Saturday, November 25 after Thanksgiving. We promoted the show during the performance. We put flyers up in the stores in the community.

The results of our press release surpassed our expectations. We got a full color cover on the Weekender, A Recorder Community Newspaper on December 2, and an inside story with two more photos taking up most of that page. We got a different large color photo on the cover of the Hunterdon Marketplace on December 6, with a continuing story inside. We got a small color photo on the cover of the Hunterdon Observer on December 2, a large black and white photo taking up most of the page in Today In Hunterdon for the week of December 7-13, and got a story and one of the kids photos in the December 7 issue of the Hunterdon County Democrat in their Arts & Entertainment section. The Courier News put us in their December 6 issue with a story and a color photo.

We were part of the Holiday Parade in the evening of Sunday, December 3 in downtown Flemington just before the show. We rode on a flat bed truck as part of a scene our show producer had worked out with the owners of the truck. We had a sound system and lights. People from the truck company walked along beside the float and passed out small flyers about the show in red and other small cards in green inviting men to sing with us any Tuesday evening.

The float was one of more than 50 in the parade. We were among boy scouts and girl scouts, high school marching bands and other performing groups. The parade organizers knew to place two quiet floats between each performing float. When we got to a reviewing stand we stopped and performed for the dignitaries. We were also performing for the television camera we knew would be there. The parade was broadcast on cable television during the week that followed before our show. The MC for the parade was a friend and very kind to us in his remarks about the Harmonizers and he promoted our show, by arrangement with him, for us. We had moved the show from last year when it was a sell out in a 900 seat facility to a 650 seat facility where we scheduled two shows. We almost had a sell out again. We learned that our publicity broke a little late. People are very committed at the holiday time of the year. We need to be earlier so as to be the chosen event for the day, or we need to run our show a week later. We also used only part of our mailing list to promote the show. We need to make better use of it.

But all in all the show went well. We had a very good and appreciative audience. People have continually been telling us they saw the publicity in the paper. Many people have said that they will be there next year.

We collected more names for our mailing list at the show through a drawing for CDs. We put an advertisement in our program book for Singing Valentines and another one to recruit singers to be guests.

Miscellaneous

Web Page

Memorial Day Parade

National Anthem

It looks like this will turn into an annual event. In fact we have been asked to sing twice in 2001. The opportunity is to sing before an enthusiastic crowd of 6,000 to 7,000 people. We get to promote membership and barbershop singing each time we appear. The name of our group is up on the score board. We sing during various breaks in the game from our seats in the stands. We can pass out our promotional literature to prospective members, and we do so. We get guys singing tags with us.

Family Picnic

Historical Society of Early American Decoration

The result is that they were asked to, and did, record the theme songs and jingles, an irreverent parody of radio games shows, on WNEW's Game Show Radio (102.7 FM, broadcast from the Empire State Building every Sunday, from 8:00 to 10:00 PM). We never know what leads to what, but learn to keep our eyes our ears and our minds open to marketing and public relations opportunities.

Capitol Steps at RVCC

The college people took pictures of us performing and included several of the photos in their web site promoting the theater. We have improved our friendship with the theater management and the college administration. We were paid with tickets for the show and tickets for another show in the spring.

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