Cohousing-L Mailing List: Re: Best Places to Advertise for New Members

[Sharon Villines (sharon]

On Dec 1, 2008, at 8:21 PM, Craig Ragland wrote:

> add a lot more to this after talking with about 30 people about how
> they are marketing their forming groups.

What forming groups are doing doesn't provide information about what  
gets a group to sold out and moved in. I think a better source of  
information on advertising is to find out where the people who  
currently live in cohousing heard about cohousing, what propelled them  
to take the next step of attending a meeting, and what helped them  
commit.

There are millions of opportunities to advertise, some relatively  
inexpensive and some very expensive. If groups can focus their efforts  
on the few venues that are most productive it would save a lot of time  
and money.

Learning about groups over the internet is quite likely to be more  
prevalent in 2008 than it was in 1998 but was that information in an  
ad or in the Cohousing Directory? From a link on a blog? Or the result  
of a search on cohousing and the name of a town or state? There is no  
money required to make a group visible on the internet.

What kind of people does a Google ad bring in? How many move in and  
stay?

Like the very expensive Utne Reader ad that produced many queries but  
no takers, there are a lot of "great ideas" out there. Which ones  
worked?

Sharon
----
Sharon Villines
Building Community in Coops, Condos, Cohousing, and Other New  
Neighborhoods
http://www.buildingcommunity.info