Promoting my new group

How to start publicising your group

• Starting up a group is exciting and challenging. Why not consider sharing the journey and load by finding others to take on some of the work? A team that includes a media volunteer could be worth considering.

• Contact any Freegle group who may have members from your area on it and ask them to put an Admin  out to say you have opened a new group. Find your nearest groups by looking at the Freegle website [1]

• Email any local papers and inform them. Sample Press Release

• Contacting Councils is a good idea. Email your council (Recycling Officer if you have one) and ask if they would be willing to help too. Some councils now publish booklets of recycling agencies and will include us.

• Inform any Community groups. Sometimes on their websites there is a link you can contact.

Next steps in raising your group's profile

• Print some A4 posters - see Posters, fliers, cards - and ask local libraries, schools and community centres if they would put them up.

• Print some bookmarks (get thicker paper 160gsm or card) if your library will allow you to leave them for people to collect.

• Business Cards are useful. Vistaprint can be cheap if you are canny and get the free offers. 250 business cards etc. You have to pay postage and maybe a fee about £2 to upload the logo.

• It has been found that if you do have hand outs it is better to have them in doctors surgeries, take aways etc, where people will only pick them up if interested, or just some in your pocket to hand out to any interested parties. Estate agents are a good idea - they are often asked how to get rid of unwanted items in properties. Mail drops are costly and not very effective.

• Some schools may allow you to go in and talk about Freegle/recycling.

• If you know any teachers they may put up posters on the school notice board.

• If you live on a busy road consider having a banner of some sort

Find a source of items

People will use your group if they see that it's being used. So try to find items to freegle:

• Your own. It's a start, though there's obviously a limit to what you can do.
• People you know personally - freegle stuff on their behalf, and then use that to get them to join.
• Your workplace - freegle stuff from it rather than have them put it in a skip.
• See if any local shops (charity or otherwise) will give you left over items you can freegle.
  • For example, B&Q have a system for community groups to receive 'waste' (stuff they discard) from B&Q - you just need to pop into your local B&Q register with their 'waste to donate' scheme (simple form) and then once approved (they check out that you are indeed a community group/charity) you can have access to a plethora of goods and materials. The arrangements are run differently in each store so best to make friends with whoever you speak to at B&Q so they contact you when something good is available or let you have a rummage through the skips when you pop in. See here.

Ongoing publicity work for your group

Have a look at the Promotion section of this wiki. It has lots of ideas and resources on PR materials, how to go about contacting your Council, getting press coverage etc.

And don't forget online social media - promoting your group online is the fastest, cheapest and often most effective promotion! See Social Media Accounts for a list of national social media.

Back to Publicity