[vox] Advertising LUGOD on Unitrans?

[Al Lenaburg]

I agree with what Greg says, makes allot good points.

On Thu, Jul 23, 2009 at 9:41 PM, G Fitzgerald<gfitzgerald1024 at gmail.com> wrote:
> I _very_ strongly feel this would be an irresponsible use of our funds.
> My thoughts echo Bill Ward's: To be blunt, I think we'd significantly
> decrease funding which has taken years to build, and I think we'd
> draw very few "new" people (certainly few who would "stay" long-term),
> and it would likely be years before we recovered the expenditure.
>
> Assuming our balance is roughly $960
>
> $960
> -$100 to be on-hand at all times to avoid fees: $860
> -$60 (annually) for required post office box       $800
> -$505 for advertising:                                     $295
>
> 1) In my opinion, I doubt it would significantly increase our revenues.
> Assuming we average around $20 intake per meeting, it would take
> us more than 25 months, or 2 years, just to break even and recoup
> the expenditure.
>
> 2) If it were very successful, we couldn't handle the increased
> attendees. Consider our new meeting location can only
> accommodate a maximum of 30 people. We typically get a
> decent showing, and if we got another 10 - 15 people, we would have
> difficulty accommodating them.
>
> 3) It leaves us _very_ unprepared for future expenses.
> What if the new meeting location changes its mind/changes ownership?
> What if the library construction runs longer than anticipated? (Doesn't
> construction almost always run longer than anticipated?)
>
> We could find ourselves having to pay for meeting locations in short
> order, and this would likely be a challenge, even with our current funds.
> Assuming we could get a room for $50 per month, we'd need $600 of the
> $860 we have available just to meet for a year, not including expenses.
>
> If the projector bulb dies, or the projector itself dies, we could be looking
> at several hundred dollars in expenditures.
>
> 4) There are free, and more efficient ways to market ourselves:
> Twitter's free, social networking sites are free. Maybe volunteer in the
> community, offer to present on campus, ask a professor or two to mention
> us in classes as an organization where students can learn, and take on
> leadership/organizational responsibilities - they can help organize meetings,
> find speakers, improve their own speaking skills, work as a team, etc.
>
> Respectfully, I must _strongly_, _strongly_ advise against this. I'd be
> more than happy to brainstorm alternative ways to increase attendance,
> etc. There is no need to do this now, and doing so, in my opinion,
> places the financial future of the group in jeopardy, possibly leaving us
> unable to pay for necessary expenses such as meeting locations.
>
> Thank You,
> Greg FitzGerald
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
> On Thu, Jul 23, 2009 at 7:26 PM, Gabriel G. Rosa<grosa at ucdavis.edu> wrote:
>> On Thu, Jul 23, 2009 at 05:51:40PM -0700, Bill Kendrick wrote:
>>> On Thu, Jul 23, 2009 at 05:32:00PM -0700, Bill Ward wrote:
>>> > I would advise against purchasing advertising.  Advertising only works
>>> > if you have the budget to blanket a variety of sources.  It takes many
>>> > impressions of an ad to get people to buy the product, and you only
>>> > start noticing the ads once you've subconsciously absorbed it a bunch
>>> > of times, in most cases.  Advertising is a money game and you could
>>> > easily deplete LUGOD's treasury and find no new members.
>>>
>>> FYI, these would be ads that would be up on every bus in town, for
>>> at least 9 months.  ... Which, I think covers the "subconsiously absorb"
>>> part, doesn't it? ;^)
>>>
>>> (I see a LOT of students using Unitrans, and we're relatively unknown
>>> to the student population.  And, sadly, "NO POSTING" signs up at all of
>>> the deliciously crowded bus stops.  >:^P )
>>>
>>
>> Certain Unitrans lines (W, M, J, G) are *packed*, like 60+ students
>> packed like sardines, specially in winter quarter when it rains.
>>
>> You will definetly get plenty of eyeball traffic. Especially if you use
>> my banner ads ;)
>>
>> -G
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