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After our earlier discussion on here about GLASS, I finally got my thoughts down in a slightly more readable format and with a bit more added. Sent to some members of their board and put on their forum this morning so will be interesting to see the response I get. I'll post anything here.
Main change since last time is I ma naged to speak to the campaign manager at at the Campaign to Protect Rural England who has said they may be up for partnering with GLASS as part of their current anti-litter campaign which is cool.
Heres my mail. Its long so if you're going to read it get a cup of tea or failing that a pillow.
Dear
I joined GLASS a short while ago and would like to say thank you for the work you do. It is clear that there are many people trying to close our rights of way across the country so a common voice to rally behind is invaluable.
Having worked in the charity sector for most of my working life I do understand that it is hard to have an effective PR and media function on a limited budget and have to say that before actively asking about greenlaning and relevant organizations I had never heard of GLASS but I had certainly heard of the anti groups who seem to shout a lot louder. This is no fault of the organization and is often the case in these situations but I think it could be different.
My professional background is within senior marketing, PR and fundraising roles within the charity sector and I now do some consultancy work for various charities across these areas. I had a few thoughts about how you could increase your membership and therefore your income and also how you could increase the value of your brand with the general public. Apologies if you are doing/planning some or all of these ideas as I am only working with my own impression of GLASS and that of the small groups I have spoken to.
Obviously membership is very important for you and so far the main way I have noticed people hear about you is on the online 4x4 forums I am a member of. For example, if a new forum member asks for advice on greenlaning someone may write a post advising the new member to join GLASS. This certainly makes people think, but to truly make people wish to join they would need to see a benefit of membership. At the moment it seems that one of the main benefits is that you fight on our behalf to keep greenlaning alive and be the voice of the greenlaning community but this can be a difficult sell to someone who has never heard of you before and who cannot easily see examples of activity.
The power of forums as a communication, marketing and membership sales tool.
Internet forums are a huge and active part of the current community of 4x4 users and I’m sure that most of your area reps and indeed your members are members of at least one forum each (additionally to the GLASS forum)
Would it be an idea to ask each of your area representatives to:
1. Make themselves known as a GLASS rep to their forum (or to join one if not already a member)
2. Include this fact in their signature on the forum
3. Be your voice on that forum.
This would give you an easy, immediate and free route to your existing membership and potential members.
For instance, the recent Top Gear showing their handbrake turn, high revs version of greenlaning generated a huge amount of comment on the forums, with hundreds of people expressing their disgust, uploading copies of letters of complaint to the BBC, their response from the BBC and giving their personal views on how this will ‘fuel the fire’ of the anti’s. GLASS however seemed from what I saw to remain fairly silent (though I guess this may not have been the case).
In terms of the forums, if you contacted each of your forum reps and emailed them an official letter that they could copy on to the forum stating for example, GLASS opinion on the piece, what GLASS were planning on doing in response and suggestions on how their members/other 4x4 users could respond (i.e. a pre-written letter/email of complaint making it easy for large numbers to copy and paste their details and send it on) This sort of action would a) make people see that you are an active organization and b) would encourage a lot of people to join you.
It may also be a good idea to do similar updates like this via email to all your existing members.
Campaigning organizations like Greenpeace use this sort of email and forum mobilisation to great effect.
Such a negative piece, like that on Top Gear can also be a great way to generate positive publicity by responding to the press as an interested stakeholder in greenlaning.
Main change since last time is I ma naged to speak to the campaign manager at at the Campaign to Protect Rural England who has said they may be up for partnering with GLASS as part of their current anti-litter campaign which is cool.
Heres my mail. Its long so if you're going to read it get a cup of tea or failing that a pillow.
Dear
I joined GLASS a short while ago and would like to say thank you for the work you do. It is clear that there are many people trying to close our rights of way across the country so a common voice to rally behind is invaluable.
Having worked in the charity sector for most of my working life I do understand that it is hard to have an effective PR and media function on a limited budget and have to say that before actively asking about greenlaning and relevant organizations I had never heard of GLASS but I had certainly heard of the anti groups who seem to shout a lot louder. This is no fault of the organization and is often the case in these situations but I think it could be different.
My professional background is within senior marketing, PR and fundraising roles within the charity sector and I now do some consultancy work for various charities across these areas. I had a few thoughts about how you could increase your membership and therefore your income and also how you could increase the value of your brand with the general public. Apologies if you are doing/planning some or all of these ideas as I am only working with my own impression of GLASS and that of the small groups I have spoken to.
Obviously membership is very important for you and so far the main way I have noticed people hear about you is on the online 4x4 forums I am a member of. For example, if a new forum member asks for advice on greenlaning someone may write a post advising the new member to join GLASS. This certainly makes people think, but to truly make people wish to join they would need to see a benefit of membership. At the moment it seems that one of the main benefits is that you fight on our behalf to keep greenlaning alive and be the voice of the greenlaning community but this can be a difficult sell to someone who has never heard of you before and who cannot easily see examples of activity.
The power of forums as a communication, marketing and membership sales tool.
Internet forums are a huge and active part of the current community of 4x4 users and I’m sure that most of your area reps and indeed your members are members of at least one forum each (additionally to the GLASS forum)
Would it be an idea to ask each of your area representatives to:
1. Make themselves known as a GLASS rep to their forum (or to join one if not already a member)
2. Include this fact in their signature on the forum
3. Be your voice on that forum.
This would give you an easy, immediate and free route to your existing membership and potential members.
For instance, the recent Top Gear showing their handbrake turn, high revs version of greenlaning generated a huge amount of comment on the forums, with hundreds of people expressing their disgust, uploading copies of letters of complaint to the BBC, their response from the BBC and giving their personal views on how this will ‘fuel the fire’ of the anti’s. GLASS however seemed from what I saw to remain fairly silent (though I guess this may not have been the case).
In terms of the forums, if you contacted each of your forum reps and emailed them an official letter that they could copy on to the forum stating for example, GLASS opinion on the piece, what GLASS were planning on doing in response and suggestions on how their members/other 4x4 users could respond (i.e. a pre-written letter/email of complaint making it easy for large numbers to copy and paste their details and send it on) This sort of action would a) make people see that you are an active organization and b) would encourage a lot of people to join you.
It may also be a good idea to do similar updates like this via email to all your existing members.
Campaigning organizations like Greenpeace use this sort of email and forum mobilisation to great effect.
Such a negative piece, like that on Top Gear can also be a great way to generate positive publicity by responding to the press as an interested stakeholder in greenlaning.
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