School supply drives are excellent initiatives to allow financially strapped families to help their children attend schools. Many families struggle to get supplies for school for their children, so they suffer in their studies. However, a school supply drive ensures that even the less fortunate students get their supplies and can study easily.
A school supply drive is only effective if an appropriate number of people step up and contribute to the cause. And this is possible if you effectively promote your drive and inspire contributors to step up and donate to the drive. There are many things you can do in that regard. Here are our top tips to promote your school supply drive online.
Share Flyers And Posters
Posters and flyers are classic marketing collateral with a plethora of uses. While they are mostly used conventionally where they are handed out to people or put up in places. As the world shifts to digital marketing, so has their use also shifted. Flyers and posters are now used online in various places, such as official websites, social media accounts, forums, etc.
To promote your school supply drive, you will be making flyers that invite the public to step up and donate to your school supply drive. You will tell them where they can contribute and in what capacity. The poster will have a bold logo, timing, place, and the supplies you need. This flyer is the best way to get all the essential information across in an effective way to your contributor without fluff or clutter.
You can make these flyers with Postermywall and their school supply drive flyer templates. These professionally made templates will make your designing job a whole lot easier and allow you to get work done in a fraction of the time. You can even create several flyers at a time and use them in various places. That way, you’ll have other options.
This is a good example of the kind of flyer you can make. It has an appropriate background with a bold text informing the reader about the subject. It outlines the dates the drive will be held and what items are needed. Something like this can work for you as well.
Mention The School Supply Drive In Email Newsletter
Chances are that you’ll be affiliated with a school as you do this. If not, then contact the local schools around the community and talk to them about featuring information about the school supply drive there. These newsletters will likely be sent to parents of students studying in these schools. They are your target audience who will likely step up to help other students in need.
Newsletters are often counted as an email marketing strategy with a high investment return. This means that you are likely to get a good response by contacting hopeful contributors and donors with newsletters sent over email. You’ll deliver the essential bits of information such as the location where the donors can drop off supplies, timing and dates, and the supplies you need.
Reach Out Via Social Media
Social media accounts for most internet traffic at any given time. This means it is the best way to reach your target audience: parents, school staff, and other students. These community members come together to help students who are financially struggling to attend school and get their supplies.
Share the marketing collateral that you would have to promote your school supply drive on your social media accounts. Further, share these posts in groups and on pages for your school to ensure maximum engagement with the community members. The flyers you created will work best here as you can share them as the post itself. This works best on social media platforms like Facebook and Instagram.
This example shows something along those lines. The post shared here is a flyer that can be printed and distributed to the public. The manager for the account took a digital version of the flyer or poster and shared it on Facebook. It’s easy to see, easy to understand and gets the message across with little clutter. Something similar can work for you too.
Use Hashtags
Hashtags are search terms that allow social media platforms to categorize and track content. It collects posts tagged with a specific hashtag and shows them to users searching for that term. For example, someone searching for #schoolsupplydrive will see all posts tagged with this specific hashtag.
As such, you must use these hashtags and other relevant ones with your posts to ensure maximum visibility. You can also use #schoolsupplies and #supplydrive in combination with the earlier hashtag. This will cover all bases and ensure you have well rounded reach.
Testimonial Videos
People like seeing that their efforts have yielded results. Chances are that you’ve already held a school supply drive before. As such, there may be children you have helped previously during the last school year. Contact their parents and get them to record a short video testimony describing how the school supply drive helped them in getting their children the education they needed.
In case this is your first time hosting a drive, look around your school and find students who benefited from earlier school supply drives. Ask their parents if they can record testimonials with the students sharing their experience with the school supply drive. This will help people who are on the fence about contributing get confident, step up, and donate to make a difference.
In Conclusion
Since a school supply drive is a small community-driven event with little to no opportunities for a profit, you will likely rely on low-cost or free marketing strategies. The tips listed above are easy to do, and cost next to nothing, but they have wide reach and great results when done correctly.
You must follow all the tips listed here to ensure maximum effectiveness. As long as you do this consistently, you’ll be able to create adequate awareness and get a good response from the community.