Your bulletin is PR

Too often chapters overlook the fact that their chapter bulletin is one of their most valuable PR tools. A clearly written and conscientiously edited bulletin can speak volumes-not only to your members (your internal customers), but also to your other district chapters, your district officers and to your community (your external customers).

If your bulletin is informing and motivating your own members (why else do you have a bulletin?), then it will also inform and motivate your customers to want to come to your performances-and it might even recruit a new member or two! And that, my friends, is PR.

How can you reach these external customers? By building an effective mailing list. Almost every bulletin editor I've talked to mails his bulletin to his chapter members, and a few extras to other editors who want to exchange bulletins. But to get more PR bang for your bucks, you must think about whom else needs to see and read your bulletin. My mailing list includes (in my own order of importance):

• The local newspapers' arts and entertainment editors (two daily and four weekly papers).

• All of the local periodical publications (six local trade/business publications, and two monthly magazines).

• Twelve local radio stations.

• Three area arts councils.

• Five local TV stations.

• Seven area branch libraries.

• Three area chambers of commerce.

• The local convention and visitor's bureau.

• Eight area high school libraries.

• Two local college performing arts departments.

• All the chapter bulletin editors in my district.

• All the chapter presidents in my district.

• All of the district officers.

  These are just our own local organizations and people who get a monthly reminder of who we are, and what we are doing. Don't miss out on this opportunity to be known. Stop being the best kept secret in town. It's not at all uncommon that I get a phone call asking for follow-up information about an article that someone read in our bulletin. Two years ago, we had an article published in the local daily newspaper in its entirety-complete with chapter bulletin credit, by-line and all!

  There are other benefits to plumping up your mailing list. Once you are mailing 75 or more bulletins first class ($24.75)-you can actually mail 200 at the non-profit bulk rate for less money ($24.00). Our chapter's mailing list is up to 254, and I could add more if the budget permitted. For comparison to your own area, our Augusta chapter is in a metropolitan area of a little over 200,000. A little browsing through your yellow pages will surprise you with how many media outlets there probably are in your own area.

  The only shortcoming to increasing your mailing list is the cost of printing-and that can be substantial. Depending on the size of your bulletin, it's .04 per page for Xerox or about twice that for Kinko's 11"x17" b&w photo quality, and you're talking big money for anything more than that.

  The key issue here is the PR value for your bulletin budget. Maybe your board can shift a little of the PR budget into the bulletin for this purpose. Other options are to prioritize your mailing list and alternate mailings-one month just to members, the next month to the whole list. Be creative, but give it a try. The recognition that your chapter gets is well worth the effort and the cost.

  

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