The next step is to narrow down the demographics of target audience. Now you may be thinking, I want all of the women of the church to attend! Yes, you might, but think about this: Is an event that will have appeal to mothers of preschoolers going to have the same appeal to single working women and to elderly widows? Some events are broad, and some events are narrower in their focus. When marketing, the first rule is know your target audience. Think about the commercials you see on television. Do you see the same commercials on Monday Night Football and Ally MacBeal? Of course not! Even though both run on Monday nights, the target isn't "Monday evening TV watchers" but generally men vs. women. The target audiences are very different, so the producers of the show pick commercials that will appeal to the types of people who would likely watch them.

Radio works the same way. Radio stations have a defined target population. Here in Providence, the Oldies station runs very different music than WBRU, which appeals to college students,

so the products that are advertised on them will appeal to the population. Different than those two would be Lite105, which tends to have a broad appeal with women ages 30-50. If you were going to promote a product about financing your child's college education, the oldies station would be a better target choice than the college station, even though the topic is college, because it is the parents who would be more likely to be listening to the oldies station.

Once you know who you want to come, you need to determine the places you might find them. If you are focusing on women within the church, you'll want to limit you promotion to within the church and it's newsletter. If you are trying to reach outside of the church, consider the group you are targeting. If your event is directed to a group of young mothers, good places to promote it would be playgrounds, preschools, grocery stores, and kids resale shops. If your outreach is to working women, you'll want to put posters in take out places, gyms, salons, and dry cleaners. If you are promoting a singles ministry, consider posters in bars and gyms.

You need to think: where are these people likely to go? If you are considering other types of advertising, which we'll discuss later, be sure to select a source that matches the demographics of your population.

Once you know who you would like to attend, you need to determine why they would want to come. Let's face it, "food, fun and fellowship" has ambiguous meaning outside of the church, and will have little attraction to a seeker. You need the wording of you message to be catchy, but it also needs to make sense to your target audience. "Food, fun and fellowship" might attract the women of your church, but "Ladies Night Out" will have a better draw for those on the outside. If your target is young mothers, a ladies night out will have strong appeal, especially if you are able to provide babysitting for the single mothers.

As you are planning your event, you want to think about what the people will gain as a result of coming, or the benefit of attending. Sales people may know the features of a product, but will promote their benefits to entice you to buy it. The WIIFM principle (What's In It For Me) is key. You need to sit in the place of your target audience and create a message that will answer that for them. Sell the sizzle, not the steak.

Once you know the purpose of the event, who you want to come, and the WIIFM, you are ready to start promoting. Promoting something works best in stages and with repetition. Think about the commercials you see on television. When McDonalds is promoting a new sandwich, they don't show one commercial and consider the job done. You'll see the same commercial over and over, and you may also see billboards, magazine ads and radio spots with the same themes.

There are three levels to consider: awareness, detail and sign up. In a church setting, awareness can occur with an announcement in the bulletin with "save the date for xyz" several weeks or months before the event, depending on the size of the event. Marketing firms often create awareness with billboards with a partial message, then a week or so later add more information. The awareness arouses interest, and in the case of people with busy schedules, allows them to save the date.

Awareness is also a continuous process. Think about the image your church has in your community to the people outside of the congregation. Are you just "that brick church on Park Street", or are you "the church that runs that great kids program every year and always seems to have something going on"? Flip through the community section of a newspaper and look for articles about the honor roll students at a private school, or the nice thing the Rotary Club just did for the local needy people. Those types of things present an image to arouse awareness and have been deliberately put there to promote the group. When you think Lions Club, you think projects for eyesight, because they consistently do things related to vision, and make sure you know about it. Make sure the image for your church group is visible in the community by submitting press releases about happenings when they are upcoming, as well as after the fact. The how-to of press releases will be detailed later.

The next section of promotion is the detail level. Once people are aware of an event, you need to ensure that they know the details and what they need to do to attend. Do they need to buy tickets? Sign up? What does it cost? Where and when is it happening? Think about when the circus comes to town. A week or two before the event the street poles are plastered with colorful signs announcing the details. With your events, you'll need to determine what kind of lead-time you need to prepare for the crowds. Will two or three weeks be enough or do you need six to

eight? You'll also want to consider if the flyer blows off of a bulletin board and lands in your neighbor's yard, she should know exactly what to do if she wanted to come seeing the poster out of context.

The final stage, sign up, would include people registering by signing up or purchasing tickets, and personal contacts of people inviting other people. When we promoted an outreach event it was largely successful because we have key leaders asked to invite ten people to join them. Make sure your tickets or sign up sheet match the theme of your posters. This is called branding, and utilizes the powerful effects of visuals connecting pieces together. Young children learn how to "read" signs for fast food places because of the consistency of the logos. Dunkin Donuts' logo is all words, and it isn't long before little ones know that orange and pink set of letters means dounts.

Internal PR can be achieved in a number of ways. Again, think about your target audience. A great place for flyers about women's events is in the ladies room. For young mothers, put signs by the nursery and hand out a flyer as the little ones are picked up. Post your flyers around the building, and pop a mini version in the bulletin. If you have a church calendar, make sure your secretary knows about it and includes it on it, as well as in the newsletter and announcements. Don't forget your church website if you have one.

Send tickets to key meetings with Bible study leaders. Ensure that you have several people in varied groups with tickets so there is an easily accessible person for everyone to get their ticket from. You can always have a table in the foyer after service.

External PR is a little trickier. Mom and Pop type of stores, such as dry cleaners are usually quite willing to post flyers for you, and perhaps even keep a stack of flyers on the counter for you. (Just as an aside--are you inviting the people who own and work in businesses near your church? They're your neighbors too! A Vineyard Church I know of hosts a free barbecue every year after work for all of the neighbors in the industrial park their building is in. It's GREAT publicity.) When you approach major national chains, they are more reticent, and may have policies prohibiting posting flyers. It never hurts to ask! Remember to choose places that your target audience is likely to visit.

Most papers also have a What's Happening calendar that lists what is going on in the area. There are specific deadlines for these lists, normally 2-3 weeks before publication. These What's Happening lists are also all over the internet, and you can normally post your event for free. Try sites that would be equivalent to boston.com, oso.com or projo.com for your area. In Rhode Island, the major paper's What's Happening section goes online on the newspaper's events section. Follow the format of the events that are listed when you submit your item, and be sure you are clear in the purpose of your event in your listing. You may even want to suggest the possible categories your event might fit into based on the groupings in the list. Cable TV stations also have a community type bulletin board you can post to for free. Call your local cable provider and find out what their deadlines and policies are.

If you have some money to spend, you can send a mailing out about your event. If you have regular attendees, create a database of names and addresses, and continue to collect them at all of your events so you can add names and update your mailing list. You can purchase mailing lists from a mailing house (look under mailing in the yellow pages). List cost anywhere from 2-10 cents per name, depending on how many you buy. If you're looking to target the surrounding neighborhood of the church, you can buy a list for the zip codes that touch your zip code. Be wary of these lists. Some will sell you unlimited use of the names, and others will sell you sheets of one time use labels. Mailing lists are also not always completely accurate, which explains why you may sometimes get mail for the people who lived in your house before you moved in six years ago. If you send out more than 200 pieces of the same piece of mail at the same time you can use a bulk mailing permit if your church has one. There's a cost for securing this, but the postage is substantially reduced. Be forewarned though, that bulk mail is the last thing to be handled in the post office, so allow extra time if you mail this way.

The final bit of external PR is to purchase advertising. This is very costly, and can hurt you in the long run if you don't do a really good job with it. Work with a professional graphic artist for a print ad, or an ad agency for a TV spot. This is quite expensive, and usually cost prohibitive for ministries. Print ads are priced by inches of space, TV commercials by length of time. The next time you flip through the paper notice the number and types of ads you notice. If you aren't reading them, neither is everyone else! Someone may notice it, but don't expect people to come beating down your door if you have a 2x3" ad in the Thursday paper. If you do decide to put an ad in the paper, consider a weekly paper over a daily, since they tend to lie around a bit longer than the singe shot of a daily paper. Be sure to have a chat with the ad department and make sure you don't get placed in the obituary section either.