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Need your ideas for guild promotion, advertising *free or low cost*


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Hi everyone. I recently became my local (non profit, of course) quilt guild's "Publicity Director" and I need some sage advice and ideas on how I can promote our guild to the general public. Especially our local fair that will be happening in early August. Any thoughts are greatly appreciated. Thank you.

Shana

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Displays---back the booth with gorgeous quilts. Wow them!

Demos. Many people have never seen how quilts are made. Have a member bring a machine and sew some four patches using bright novelties or pretty batiks. Then sandwich the blocks and do some FMQ. People are fascinated by that! Someone could demo hand quilting. Be kind when people say their grandma used to quilt or that they love the "blankets".

Have an eye-catching poster showing the numbers--how many people quilt and how much $$$ is spent by quilters.

Have a table showing samples of your charity work--photos of recipients, charts of the numbers and types of quilts you've donated, and samples of charity offerings.

Have a postcard or large bookmark printed with all the Guild information anyone would need--how to join, when and where you meet, what good things you bring to the community, etc. This is a great refrigerator reminder for those who might want to join and also those who might want to support you by sponsoring your good works.

If your smiling face will be there, your natural enthusiasm will draw people in, my friend!  :wub:

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Great ideas, ladies thank you!

I am also looking for ways to promote our guild through advertising to the general public. (e.g. Craigslist? Newspapers?) Do you have suggestions for how to promote to spread the word about our guild and the fair? For example, one of our local quilt shops donated a new sewing machine (Babylock Rachel) for our youth grand prize quilt at the fair. What can I do to help promote and encourage youth to put quilts in the fair? Need some advertising ideas. Like perhaps I can contact local 4H to encourage kids to put in quilts in our fair.

Thanks for all ideas you have to suggest.

Shana

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Instead of encouraging kids to enter a whole quilt, see if the Fair has time to do a block contest, sponsored by your group. Getting the 4H involved is a way to reach lots of kids. Pick an easy block (Churn Dash or Nine Patch maybe) and provide the focus fabric and instructions to be placed in a bag to offer as a kit. The piecers can make as many blocks as they can from the fabric provided. The kits can be purchased for a nominal amount or the materials donated by the Guild and handed out for free. The blocks are "judged" by your guild and simple printed awards given out. Then the blocks can be made into a quilt for a drawing or raffle next year at the Fair in your booth. If you get enough blocks, save nine or twelve for the quilt and bundle the rest to put in a drawing for all participants. Wouldn't it be nice to make a block and win enough back to make a quilt?

The logistics would include finding a quilt shop or the Fair office to hand out the kits. I don't know if you have enough time to arrange this, but our County Fair does this every year (for any age) and they usually have a hundred blocks handed in. They started selling kits last week for the Fair in August. If it's too much to try this year, get a committee to maybe plan for next year. 

 

To get the word out, try the local paper, the 4H website, and the Fair website. And of course, any fabric sellers in the area are usually happy to find new customers and may promote it in-store and on line.

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My group made a Raffle Quilt for our Fair with the proceeds to go to a 4-H/FFA member for college..........only problem was, we couldn't get the 4-H/FFA kids to go out and sell tickets. They even kept the tickets in the 4-H office and when we would go over and ask for some to sell, they didn't know what we were talking about.     They could have made a lot of money .  Their group leaders weren't any help either.   They would sell 1 or 2 tickets and bring the rest back.  Even in our little town/county, they could have made $3,000 + easily, but just wouldn't do it.   Our group sold tickets while we were at the fair and barely sold enough to cover the cost of the quilt..........which we donated.  We figured we put a lot of time and effort into making the quilt and donating it that we shouldn't have to sell the tickets too.  We stopped doing it.   People would come in with their $6.00 jug of pop, but would act like you cut off their arm asking for $1.00 to buy a raffle ticket.   The quilts we made were always a large Queen size, too.

Our local paper wasn't much help in promoting us or the quilt show or the raffle either.........they would put pictures of every chicken, rabbit and pig shown, but not a word about the quilt show or the Open Class quilts.  The prize money for the winning cinnamon roll was 10X more than the Best of Show prize in Open Class.       Go figure.  We did a quilt show at the Fair for 10 years and every year we would have people come in and say.........."we didn't even know you were here !"........We were the first building to come to on the grounds after entering the gate and had 2 big red/white/blue signs on the building, too.   haha 

 

So, Shana, I hope your 4-H kids have more gumption than ours do...........same for their leaders.   One leader actually got mad at us for even asking them to sell tickets !   

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We have had good luck with 4-H--but the quilting leader is a guild member.

 

We have also begun a partnership with a local middle school in a "less advantaged" city neighborhood.  A teacher there had begun an after-school sewing group to HUGE response.  In this day of no home ec, these young girls came from families without a sewing tradition but wanted to learn the basics of sewing and begin to create things for themselves.  (They are also big fans of Project Runway.)  We invited them to a guild meeting to show what they were working on and gave the group a large check to purchase some machines since they almost all share the few machines that the teacher/group leader had personally.  (One girl's family had given her a machine for her birthday--to her great delight.) (We also had many many bags of scraps and unwanted yardage that they received with delight.) The students who the group selected to come (only four could fit in their teacher's car) were blown away by our show and tell--they had never been exposed to quilting and all wanted to try!

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Hi,

 

Some ways to promote your local guild:  have some of the members of the guild put together several talks about quilting/guild.  They can go to local groups; like the veterans groups, nursing homes, groups like Kiwanas, Rotary Club and give talks.  Do you have local women's groups, newcomers groups or women's groups that meet at churches.  Most of these groups are grateful to have someone come in to talk about their group or hobbies.

 

Do you have a local homeschooler group?  It is probably too late in the school year to contact your local schools to talk to students but homeschool groups may meet year round.

 

Can you have someone from the guild write an interesting story to submit to the local paper.  Our local paper will print a more extensive story from publicity information that they receive. 

 

Does your local quilt guild have a website or a page on facebook?

 

Good luck, Charlene

 

www.quiltblessings.com

 

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Our guild holds classes at two different local libraries with guild volunteers teaching the basics of making a quilt  Each student goes home with a quilt.  These sessions are held two days in a row.  50 kids participated this past year, and we anticipate another 50 this coming June and July

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For free advertising of a quilting event, I take a picture of things from the event. A 4H'er picking up fabric for a block, or pretending to sew a block with quilts in the background. Then I write a little story that tells about the event and submit it to the newspaper. The newspaper web site has a local news tab where you can send things in. Sometimes it ends up on the front page! Free advertising! If you are not good with computers you can just call the newspaper and see if they are interested in the story and they will arrange for a reported to come and take a photo...before the event preferably!

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When our guild donates quilts to local charities we make a 'photo opp" out of it and send pictures to the local newspaper to share the story.   This month we are donated two quilts to the family getting the Habitat for Humanity house this year and will send that photo to the paper.  Good publicity for us and the Habitat program...and it's free!  :)

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Our Guild made a quilted cover for a car.  Then they let it set at various places around town, up in Raleigh at a big doings, and of course in front of the Civic Center where we now hold our shows, and in front of a local quilt shop..

 

You can check it out at................   Hearts and Hands ECA Quilters Guild  on Facebook.

 

You would be surprised at how many men it drew in. 

 

Best of luck to your guild and it's show!

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