Marketing Your Program
Grow Your Membership
Let people know what you do … share your list of fun activities. This leads families to you. A great program plan isn’t enough – you’ve got to promote it in the Pack and beyond. As a way to share what you do, empower interested parents to be a team of New Member Coordinators – any parent who likes Scouting can spread the word. They can be a big help in letting people know what your unit is doing because peer to peer and parent to parent recommendations are the best.
Your Quick Start Checklist
Here is a list to make it easier to market your unit:
- Assign your Adult and Scout Webmaster (that’s an Eagle-level leadership position)
- Find a New Member Coordinator
- Find a social media volunteer – a student from a nearby college or a scout could do a great job here
- Find a PR volunteer – use our PR guide and templates to make this easier for a volunteer without experience in this area
Many hands make the work lighter, and these tips will make your unit stand out!
Free Marketing Opportunities
- Websites – any or all of:
- Your own unit Website
- School Website (Can you link there? Can you post announcements, pictures, video?)
- Church Websites
- BeAScout.org
- Google Maps
- Local community websites (neighborhood, town/city, local news like patch.com, and more)
- BSA District Website
- Email Marketing – any or all of:
- Current members
- Prospective members
- School Email Communications (ask if you can add stories, pictures, video and contact links – enlist parents to communicate with other parents at their grade level)
- Church email blasts (ask if you can add stories, pictures, video and contact links)
- Local community email lists (many neighborhoods have Yahoo or other email listservs)
- Social Media – Where do your families live and share online? Facebook, Instagram, Pinterest, Twitter, Blogs, YouTube, Evite, Signup Genius? Other sites?
- Be where your families live, and empower your families to share with their friends and their groups
- Don’t let your families think “only the leaders can post”.
- Encourage them to post – and give praise in comments when they do (“what a great picture” “that was a fun event”)
- Be where your families live, and empower your families to share with their friends and their groups
- See the Scouting America Social Media Playbook for tips, and the Social Media Guidelines
- Social Media on Steroids – Facebook Ads and Geofencing – you might be able to use “geofencing” on Facebook to target parents (for a nominal fee to Facebook). This is probably of most value right before your unit Sign-Up Events and other Fun or Welcoming Events.
- The Scouting America National Marketing Team broadcast this video about Geofencing, Search, Social Media, Peer-to-Peer Recruiting – here is the PowerPoint slide deck from that presentation.
- Basically, on your Unit Facebook page, go to Ad Center to create a standard marketing campaign. When you set up an add, you can alter the audience by age and location, with as narrow as a one-mile radius. More at this website.
- Here’s a How to Set Up a geo-fencing Facebook Ad Group YouTube video recommended by Membership Chair Laura Lerman from Northern Ridge District.
- Newspapers and Local Media. You may be able to get your Pack’s news in the local “hard” newspaper and/or their online space.
- News organizations and other groups love content – whether newspapers or community groups or churches, schools, etc.
- To help give them content they can use quickly, try our PR guide and templates
