Just as important as planning your program is getting people to the event. Your promotion will depend upon your goals. If you are hosting a small party for your own friends and neighbors, you need only to send personal emails and make a few phone calls. If you want to invite members of the general community, local school boards, etc., you can use media and community outreach strategies in addition to contacting people within your own circle.

The Essentials

There are three essential pieces of information to include in any of the promotional strategies described below:

• A basic, brief description of your event, as simple as, “A screening of [episode title] the latest episode of the ACLU’s new television series, The Freedom Files, that explores [civil liberties issue]”;
• Your name (or the name of your organization) and a phone number and email address where you can be reached; and
• The date, time, and location of your Community Premiere.

Publicity Strategies

Email Invitation
Sending an email can be the cheapest, quickest and easiest way to circulate news about your event.

The tone and content of your email depends upon who will receive it. If you are sending to your own friends and family the format can vary widely and be highly personalized. You can also draft an email that you send to the members of organizations you know of or belong to or via various email listservs.

To easily expand your outreach, ask people who receive your email to forward it to their own friends and contacts. You can adapt the email template available here by inserting specific information about your event.

Of course, you can also send paper invitations to friends and neighbors if time allows and you don’t mind the cost of postage.

Phone Calls
Like email, phone calls can be highly personalized for family and friends. You might also decide to use phone calls to reach the people on a list of community contacts and activists or the members of another organization. Enlist friends and volunteers to help since calling a long list of people can be time-consuming.

Event Co-Sponsors
One of the best and easiest ways to expand your guest list, and to build momentum and excitement, is to partner with a local organization. By enlisting an existing group as a co-sponsor for your screening, you add that organization’s members to your own pool of potential participants and gain the benefit of whatever public exposure or media attention they may already have.

Some groups you might consider as potential partners for your Community Premiere include:

• Your local ACLU Chapter
• The local library or library association
• A community college, university, law school or academic department
• A local chapter of a civil rights organization or other community-based organizations
• The ACLU club or other student organizations on your campus
• Your church, mosque, synagogue or temple, or one in your community
• A Bar Association or other attorney organization
• A local meetup.com group
• Other groups that meet in your community

Media Publicity
Prepare a press release to send to reporters and news venues in your community. You can use the press release template to get started.

Send your press release twice: about one week before and again one day before the event. You should fax and email your press release to your local media, including TV, radio and newspapers. Try to send them directly to reporters who cover civil liberties issues, politics or local civic gatherings. You can find the appropriate contact information by visiting the websites for each media outlet or by calling their offices directly. You might also have a contact at a local nonprofit who is willing to share their media list with you. For example, it’s probably a good idea to contact your local Affiliate of the ACLU to let them know you’re reaching out to local media.

To make your press release most effective, it’s best to follow up with phone calls to make sure they received the fax or email and to answer any questions they may have. You should also send the press release to local advocacy organizations and other places you think people might be interested in hearing about your event.

The impact of your press release has a lot to do with where you live. If you are in a smaller town or a place where your event might be thought of as notable news, a reporter might call you to ask questions for a story or might even wish to attend the event. In a bigger town or city, where your event will be competing with many more events and stories, your best shot is probably to focus on neighborhood and alternative newspapers or other small, specialized media outlets.

Community Event Listings
Send details about your screening to the community event listings in local newspapers and local web-based bulletin boards. Although procedures vary, you are usually required to submit information about your event at least two weeks in advance and may have to pay a small fee.

Event Flyer
If you’ve missed the deadline for your newspaper’s community event listings or do not think a press release will result in much attention (or if you’ve already done both and want to do more), post flyers and posters in key spots in your community. Your flyer should contain the same key information as in a press release (including contact information and event time and location), but also must be visually appealing enough to grab someone’s attention. We suggest that you use the flyer or poster templates. In addition to these color templates, the poster is available in black and white for further ease of printing: poster (b&w).

Be sure to post them in places visited by members of your target audience. Tape flyers on bulletin boards at the library and grocery store, on your college campus, at work or your place of worship, and in coffee shops, restaurants and small stores. Make enough copies for friends and volunteers to post in the places they go.

NOTE:
From a community or grassroots organization?
If you represent an organization (community- or faith-based, library or grassroots group) and plan to draw more than 25 people to your screening, please contact info@aclu.tv. We have reserved some DVD’s for organizational screenings, and can help you have a successful event.