People First Ltd – Easyread Marketing Report: July 2012

1. Our needsWe developed and piloted our Easy Read training, this service is now fit for purpose. Although we had a steady flow of requests for this service, we wanted this service to play a key role in sustaining People First, as well as meeting our organisational aims and therefore needed to increase the number of requests through marketing.

2. Options availableInitially we brainstormed information with people within our organisation of ways we could market this training and at whom we should be aiming this training. We decided that one of the key ways of promoting this training would be through contacting Local Councils in London.

We started to make contact with London Councils, seeking the key contact and letting them know about our training. We felt that they would be a key target for the marketing of our training as we know they have lots of contacts and a high need for this training. It was not practical to go and visit each council to promote our training so we emailed them to find the correct person to contact, who deals with equality and accessibility; we got their emails and phone numbers to contact them directly.

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During the course of our marketing we got in touch with the Media Trust, which offers a free service to charities, whereby charities and marketing/media experts are matched in order to offer advice and support in marketing. With our match Alex, we looked at a range of different ways of marketing and considered points such as:

Who to target: we had a very broad list of possibilities; our main consideration was whether we knew the contact and if they had contacts in our target area. We had to consider the public sector, private sector, partner charities and our existing networks.

How to contact people: by phone, email, or arranging a meeting etc.

What to say and our key messages as it is vital to get the point across as to why we are doing this training, making sure the personal value and principles of People First are clear.

How to engage with our target audience and considering how we use this information to market the training.

3. Chosen strategyWe decided that we would take 2 approaches, we decided to continue contacting key people within London Councils and informing them of what Easy Read is, why it is important, and the training that we offer.

We also decided with the Media Trust’s support that we should take a second approach to target the public

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sector as this is where many of our contacts lie, and combine this with possible partner charities and our existing networks. We decided that it would be good to meet with key contacts that have large networks of people within our target market to promote our training. The key contacts that we meet with, and present to, will then promote the Easy Read training on our behalf in a range of different ways.

We decided that when meeting with our key contacts we would present a very short, emotive and thought provoking story from Ray’s (our Training Manager’s) point of view. This would tell the key contact exactly why we are offering the training and why Easy Read is so important. Our message changed a lot through practising it, we realised that although we knew why we were doing the training and the value on a personal and policy level, this didn’t come across as effectively as it could have. As Alex said “Ray’s personal story is a very powerful way to engage with our target audience and considering how we use this information to market the training is key”.

We learnt several things through working with Alex, which made us choose this strategy, these include: Meeting face to face is a much better way to

communicate (as well as Ray communicating most effectively in person)

Telling the story from a personal perspective gives a stronger message to the person

Targeting people we know who have higher positions in work and lots of contacts is the best use of time, this is because they have hundreds of

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contacts and if they recommend or support what you do then this is a lot more effective than you personally contacting hundreds of people

4. Work carried out We have been in contact with all London Boroughs,

have the key contacts and are at different stages with each council with respect to providing training. We have got the contacts and have emailed them our information, we have had some success, in that people have said they will put the information in their newsletter, send it out to their contacts, put it on their website, etc. We are still waiting for some replies.

We have met with Alex 6 times over the past 2 months, before and after each meeting we have been preparing and editing our strategy and key messages.

We have perfected Ray’s story and we are now ready to present to key contacts.

We have decided a short list of key contacts that we have and arranged 2 meetings whereby we will present Ray’s story and ask for support from their organisations/bodies.

We have set monthly dates for training and have had interest in the next 2 training dates; we have also had a request for in-house training for 12 people from a third sector organisation.

The next step after meeting with the key contacts will be very much different i.e. some contacts may say yes we will support People First by inviting them to do a presentation in front of our contacts about the training, or others may simply email their contacts or put the training information on their website. This is a much

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more long-term, relationship building approach to marketing.

In our initial bid to the ODI we costed the purchase of directories to give us information about potential organisations and departments. But now, after working with our marketing mentor we realise that this Is not the best way forward, and that a much more personalised approach, which is more time consuming, is much better in terms of result rather than firing off 1000’s of leaflets to people we don’t know and who don’t know us or understand the importance of Easy Read. We are therefore putting extra time into the intense, personalised marketing of Easy Read, rather than buying the directories, although we will still be providing information in a targeted way.

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