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Learn About Public Service Announcements (PSAs) |
By:
Evan Tyler |
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There are so many community events and fund raisers that occur in every community around the country. Some of the events are backed by corporate moneys and others are working on a very tight budget. No matter the size of the event or the budget organizers are working with each are faced with the same issue of letting the public know about the event so that people will attend.
For big events that have a great deal of money, advertising is not a huge issue. Money for advertising is simply budgeted in and traditional media are used such as radio, television, newspaper and billboards. For more elite events invitations are mailed. The events that are trying to raise money with little or no funds for advertising need to resort to more creative methods. A free resource that reaches many people is public service announcements. Local and regional radio stations as well as local cable television stations air public service announcements several times each day. Depending on the size of the area that you live in there may be different criteria for what will be aired as public service announcements. General guidelines that seem to cover most regions is that the event needs to help several members of the community. The fund raising cannot benefit one specific person, and is not a for profit event. This means that the organizers of the event are not raising funds for their business or to profit individually.
The public service announcements used to be limited to local print media or radio stations, however with local cable companies operating in most communities now there is also the ability to have the service announcement on television. Most communities have a local cable station where events of the community are posted. For some communities this included an announcer reading events and for other communities there is simply a scroll of events running on the television screen. The use of the radio and television is a great way to get an event advertised for free. Print media mailing campaigns and billboards are also very effective tools in spreading the word about your event, however the cost is quite high and there is not way to recoup the cost. Now that so many people have computers and printers it is inexpensive to produce flyers to place in local businesses. The last event I helped plan involved each committee member making ten flyers at home and distributing them. We were only a community of six yet this gave us sixty flyers that were posted throughout our community. Some local free publications will allow you to stick flyers in their paper, however this is becoming more rare.
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Article Source: http://www.friendsofvista.org/articles/article25343.html |
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