PTA-UK ADVICE – PROMOTING YOUR PTA ADVICE Promoting your PTA

The way you choose to promote your PTA to encourage parental support behind the scenes and event attendance is fundamental to your success. Taking time to think about the approach you adopt will ultimately pay dividends.

TOP TIPS 1

Recruiting new committee members, getting more volunteers to help out at your events and making sure enough supporters attend your events are all different messages and require different communications.

2 More and more PTAs are using

social media. Facebook is probably a good way of reaching your members whereas Twitter may be a better way to reach local businesses.

3 Make a friend at your local paper.

Find out about their copy deadlines, how much notice you need to give them and if they want photos. And don’t forget the letters page as an easy way to squeeze in something about your PTA.

4 Kids are probably the PTAs most 5 Learn from the success of other

valuable asset when it comes to promoting your PTA so get them involved.

PTAs rather than reinventing the wheel. PTA-UK has a growing online selection of great PTA examples including lots of promotional materials.

Know your

audience Rather than taking a scattergun approach, carefully target your audience. Whether you want to reach your supporters, engage local businesses or get more support from the school you will be most successful when you take a targeted approach to your communications.

Have a clear

message “We want your support” just isn’t specific enough. Make it clear what type of support you need. “We need two helpers for an hour to help out with Santa’s Grotto at 2pm” for example. Tell them what you are going to achieve You will be more successful if your supporters know what they are helping the PTA to achieve rather than simply adding to your fundraising success.

34 PTA-UK Magazine November 2012

Repeat, repeat,

repeat Get your message out there with sufficient notice and be prepared to repeat it endlessly.

Be a registered

charity Becoming a registered charity with our help is relatively easy and it can help your PTA stand out from the crowd when asking for support in your community. Charity registration also clearly says what you are doing is for the benefit of others plus it’s an official stamp.

Celebrate your success and say

thank you To sustain the involvement of your supporters, celebrate your achievements and always remember to say thank you.