Are you planning your fall Total Resource Campaign (TRC) now? One of the first things on your timeline is most assuredly to plan your communications with your members and community.

In the YGM TRC world, you know that all communications and promotions should be centered around your members. If the focus is put on how involvement in the TRC through sponsorships benefits the members and their businesses, that communication will be more successful than if it is focused on how the TRC helps the chamber.

Now, we know TRCs help chambers. They give you a deep dive into strategic planning. They give you funds for your budget for an entire year. They bring in new volunteers and new members.

But Total Resource Campaigns – if done well – are also really beneficial to your members because they allow them avenues of contact with their target audiences that they might not have otherwise had. Let your pre-TRC marketing reflect that.

How do you do that?

• Don’t simply announce in your newsletter/e-news that your TRC starts on whatever date. That’s boring and not informative.
• Tell the story of your TRC by telling the story of your members. And let them tell their own stories, either in print or video.
• Ask successful volunteers for the names of businesses they worked with that saw significant growth as a result of their sponsorships. Ask that volunteer to do a 60 second video interview with the business owner about how the sponsorship helped them reach their target market.
• Include information in your communications pieces regarding the different sectors that were reached in your last TRC and how your sponsorships helped your member businesses reach those sectors.

Above all, you cannot overemphasize in your communications leading up to the campaign that the TRC is about finding ways to best assist member businesses in furthering their unique missions. Find new and different ways to say that. Even if you grow tired of saying it, your members won’t grow tired of hearing it. Because for them, the chamber should always be about how you can be of service to them.

Do your communications pieces communicate the right messages? If not, now is the right time to discover that and make any changes necessary.

If you need any help with a communications review, let us know. We are here to help you.