Roland, a junior instructor in Idaho, asked me what he could do to get more shooters on the line at his home range in Coeur d'Alene, Idaho. He felt that he needed to invest some of his time helping to get shooters on the line so that his weekends working shoots would be maximized coaching and getting the word out about April 19, 1775 to more folks in his neck of the woods.
One thing he started doing was putting up the 8.5x11 AR girl sheets with shoot information taped to the bottom. He periodically replaces the bottom sheets with updated versions. Also there is contact information slips on the bottom for people to tear off. Roland put his cell phone number on those slips in addition to the Project Appleseed website so people can get more information. If you notice the sample picture below, some of those slips have mysteriously disappeared. (This lets Roland know how effective each poster is - people are reading them and tearing off the slips.)
Another thing Roland has done is sent press releases to the local papers. Western Rose wrote the original press release, I doctored it up a little, then Roland changed the places and dates. He has been called by one of the local papers and has given them an interview about Project Appleseed. He now has a working relationship with one of the reporters as a result of that experience. I'm working on Roland to be persistent about sending press releases to the local radio and TV stations. They can be a little harder to connect with.
Roland - you are awesome. Thank you for helping make Project Appleseed known to the people in the northern part of Idaho and the northeast corner of Washington. You decided to stop talking about promotions and now you are actually doing it.
- ShadowMan
PS - Coeur d'Alene had 21 shooters registered for their last event in May, more than they have seen in awhile. I'm working a homeschool convention for Washington State this weekend and I'm letting some of those folks know about the CdA shoots that will serve the NE corner of Washington. Roland, I hope some of them come and check out the next shoot in July.
PPS - The Medical Lake shoot advertised on the sample poster above has sold out with 20 2-day shooters. I don't have to send out press releases for that shoot because the range can't accommodate more than 20 shooters.
Quote from: ShadowMan on June 15, 2012, 01:26:28 AM
PPS - The Medical Lake shoot advertised on the sample poster above has sold out with 20 2-day shooters. I don't have to send out press releases for that shoot because the range can't accommodate more than 20 shooters.
Outstanding! Keep up the good work Roland.
UL
Great idea!
Quote from: ShadowMan on June 15, 2012, 01:26:28 AM
PPS - The Medical Lake shoot advertised on the sample poster above has sold out with 20 2-day shooters. I don't have to send out press releases for that shoot because the range can't accommodate more than 20 shooters.
Would sending out press releases stating something like, "There is a sold out Project Appleseed shoot coming up in July. You media folks should consider sending out a reporter to see what we are about" be helpful?
Quote from: ShadowMan on June 15, 2012, 01:23:54 AM
PS - Coeur d'Alene had 21 shooters registered for their last event in May, more than they have seen in awhile.
Actually, CdA had 34 individual participants at the April event which made the home range instructors really happy. We hadn't had to run two lines at CdA for quite a while. No doubt the numbers jumped because of better weather and good promotional efforts.
I'd just like to chime in and say how easy this was to do. If you want, PM me and I can get you the OpenOffice version of the half-sheet that you can modify for your area. All you need to do after that is print some off, cut em right, and tape em to the GunGirls.
Then you have an excuse to run to all the guns shops in your local area ;D.
I've also found that libraries seem to get the most tabs torn off.
As for the press releases, all it takes is a few minutes to track down your local papers and send something out. If you're interested, again, PM me and I have several press releases of varying length that you can modify for your area of operations.
I'm in Colorado and have limited internets for this week, and will be in DC the next week with no internet access, so it may take me a while to get back to ya, but I will do so eventually.
Roland