RE: Advertising and Marketing advice
From: Eileen McCourt (emccourtmindspring.com)
Date: Thu, 30 May 2002 14:30:12 -0600 (MDT)
Eileen from Oak Creek Commons (currently chair of our marketing
committee).


Having a website is essential.  It is one of our most effective
marketing tools.   We also advertise in alternate journals; we have
received very solid leads from the local Sierra Club newsletter,
parenting magazines, and local alternative press.  We also have
presentations about once a month that we advertise in the local press,
with fliers, and calendar listings in the local press.  We create direct
mail pieces about every 6 months (when we have a new calendar) and use
mailing labels purchased from The Cohousing Network (who can provide
localized labels targeted to certain zip codes), and/or our own database
labels of contacts.  We go to every festival and farmer's markets in our
area, too, which are good PR and give some contacts.  

We have a marketing consultant, who garners a lot of PR exposure for us,
and helps with presentation content and continuity.  She has encouraged
us to have an event associated with most of our advertising, which seems
to work pretty well, even if the event is just the availability of a new
calendar. 

I would say that most of our members (we have attracted about 35 members
and associates altogether, some of whom have moved on) have come from
one of three points of contact - direct mail, local presentations, and
our website.  Targeted advertising supports those efforts, but in
itself, would not be an effective tool for us.  

Of course we have a marketing budget that supports all of this. It has
been as high as $3500/mo, but right now we have $2,000 a month.  Even
when we had a development pause about 18 months ago until we reached a
certain number of members, we maintained a marketing budget and even
intensified our marketing efforts.  New members are the engine that
drives the development project to timely completion, and ultimately help
to contain the cost of the project.

I use a very rough rule of thumb that it costs $2500-$3000 of marketing
money to attract each solid member who contributes their 5% and even
invests additional money in the project.  Of course, at the very
beginning, a group will not have this kind of money to spend, but a
marketing budget should be a top priority.  We have 26 full equity
members and have spent about 75K to get them.

--eileen

Eileen McCourt
Oak Creek Commons
Cohousing in Paso Robles, CA
http://www.oakcreekcommons.org




-----Original Message-----
From: cohousing-l-admin [at] cohousing.org
[mailto:cohousing-l-admin [at] cohousing.org] On Behalf Of pattymara [at] 
juno.com
Sent: Thursday, May 30, 2002 7:04 AM
To: cohousing-l [at] cohousing.org
Subject: [C-L]_Advertising advice

Dear List,
Once again, Chris nails it right on the money.  Advertising is a waste
of
money, in conventional, print ad formats.  The alternatives worked for
us, the local public radio station volunteer time (with plugs, interview
shows etc) worked for us, and the "posters in the right places" worked
for us.  We advertised in the Cohousing Journal for a couple of years
with a quarter page ad, because the price was very affordable, but I'm
not sure if it hooked us any hot buyers.  We just felt good about
supporting the journal.   

This all happened over four years ago when Tierra Nueva was in our
marketing phase.  In the past year, we have had a couple of resales, and
the owners used the classified ads on the cohousing website.  They did
get responses from that.   I have a feeling that a group website, with a
link to the national cohousing website, is one of the best ways to get
the word out.   Getting the address of your website out:  alternative
press, public radio, posters in the right places.  It's all a circle.  

coheartedly,
Patty Mara
Tierra Nueva, central CA coast  















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