Open Yourself Up

Part 3: Open Yourself Up
by Shonda Ponder

© 2002, Shonda Ponder

In Part 2, we discussed the importance of making your message easy to understand for potential recruits. In this part, we are going to discuss how you can keep those potential recruits and make them solid recruits. The best way to keep potential recruits coming back is to not only give them something they can understand, and is simple to follow, but to also allow them to interract with you so that they feel comfortable following up on the simplistic information given them.

How many times have you been to a website and thought it was great, but you felt uncomfortable about disseminating that information to others because you had no way to answer questions by those you would send the message to? For instance, let's say you are new to 2nd Amendment studies. You have come accross a great website with lots of information about the Constitution and the 2nd Amendment. You are totally supportive of gun rights. And, in your excitement, you copy and paste the message on that page to a number of people in your address book.

In less than twenty-four hours you have received three emails asking you questions about whether or not the 2nd Amendment is reserved only for the military and police.

Uh Oh.

Being new to 2nd Amendment studies, you aren't sure how to answer that, and their questions have caused you to formate your own questions in your mind. So, naturally, you return to that website that gave you that information -- because if you don't come up with an answer, your credibility has been shot among those you sent that information to.

You search the website, and you see lots of great information, but no answer to your question. So, in desparation, you search for someone you can email with your questions.

There is no email address to be found.

The potential recruit in this scenario is likely to never return to the site, and never recommend the site to anyone else, ever again. Your attempt at trying to send the message to the American People just lost a viable recruiter, and countless recruits to your cause has been lost.

Most people, on the internet today, use their email religiously. It is so much simpler to click a button than to handwrite a request and spend 35 cents for a stamp. And then, who wants to wait two weeks for an answer to a simple question? So, it would stand to reason that if you are looking to promote a message, you need to provide a simple, easy way of communicating with your potential recruits, and you need to be sure you look forward to that communication as often as possible.

When someone writes you an email and you don't answer it until a week later, many times, by then, the potential recruit has forgotten all about it, and any chance of sowing the seed that you planted into his mind is already gone. That is why you should take the time to answer each and every email that comes your way. (There are some emails that are not worthy of being answered if you want to keep the momentum of your message going. We will discuss this later).

So, let's look at where we are now:

1. First you have to have a product, idea, thought or service. Without this step, none of the others matter.

2. Then you have to make that product, idea, thought or service available to
the public.

The message has to be easy to understand, and simple to follow. There has to be a simple way of communicating with any potential recruits who have questions about your message Many times, a potential recruit will want to know who is giving them the
information that they have received, and what, if any, their ulterior motives for giving this information is. It is always good to have a section of your website dedicated to telling the potential recruit about yourself, or your organization. A good example of this would be the American Center for Law and Justice web site http://www.aclj.org/ . As you enter the site, you see a navigational column on the left side of the page that makes it easy to obtain only the information you are looking for. This makes it easier for potential recruits to find information that will help them decide whether or not they wish to join such an organization.

In the navigational column, you will also find a link that is titled, "About us" (or something similiar). After clicking on this link http://www.aclj.org/about/welcome.asp , you are directed to a page that explains in detail who the ACLJ is, and what they believe and promote on their web site. This is professional, quick, and easy to understand.

While we are looking at the ACLJ web site, let's look at the top bar. What do you see in the center? That's right, a great big "Contact the ACLJ". However, when clicking on the ACLJ contact link, you are taken to a page that gives the impression that if you are not donating to their cause, they don't want to hear from you. This may or may not be the case, but the impression is there. How many of you would continue to make an inquiry from there?

I remember an incident recently where, as media, I visited a certain website. On this website, I found some information I thought my readers would enjoy. But, in order to post their material, one of the requirements is that we had to have an email address so that the readers could make inquiries to the author about any questions they had. I was unable to find the email address on the website, so I wrote to the webmaster and asked him if there was a specific email I should use to contact the organization. I received a reply that gave me the Post Office box to mail any inquiries to. This just simply would not do, and the post never got posted on my site.

When dealing with internet media, most of the time you are going to see a requirement that any person who submits any writing has to have a working email address. The scenario above is a good example of why.

When getting your message ready for promotion to a wider audience, you should always ask yourself: "If it were me looking at my message for the first time, how would I react?" Nine times out of ten, your impression will be your reader's impression, and you will need to work to correct any problematic scenarios that may confront you in the future.

In the next section, we will be talking about problems you will encounter publicing your email, and how to fix those problems before they become problems.

This is Part 3 of "Promotional Skills for the Chronically Amateur"