Marketing for DLC

I’m a member of the DePaul Linux Community. We usually hold events each quarter, and this quarter is no different.

Last year we determined that we need to do more marketing. All we’ve ever done is post fliers up around campus, and the results have been decent. Unfortunately no one wanted to be the main person responsible for marketing. Since that time, I have learned quite a bit about running a business, and I know that marketing is definitely something I’ll need to get better at if I want to do well. I volunteered this quarter, partly to help the group and partly to practice my marketing skills.

I recently finished Jay Abraham‘s Getting Everything You Can Out of All You’ve Got. At one point he describes direct mail. When I thought of direct mail before, I thought of junk mail, or snail mail spam. It still is for the most part, but I also see that it can be a valid marketing too. It’s still unsolicited, but the marketing message is in its entirety, allowing the reader to get the full message. It’s supposed to have a higher response rate, and it makes sense that it should, especially over fliers.

Today I wrote an email and sent it to a number of faculty members in the CTI school of DePaul. It basically provided the information about the different events, a link to the website, and a blurb about the mailing list we have. It suggested actions to take, explicitly asking for them to post a section of the email on the announcements page of their class websites and making in-class announcements as well.

Unfortunately our first event is only a few days away, but hopefully the turnout will still be improved by this email alone. And it also sets the stage for the next few events.