2 replies to this topic

[brokenportal]

I’ve gone through last year’s marketing and outreach list and put that into perspective in general. I also put it into perspective on the notes from the Michael Trice interview, and my own notes from listening to it through again. Some further insight I've put into this is that I found a really good 2 ½ hour lecture called the 13 Pillars of Internet Marketing, and listened to it through a couple of times. I also listened to a nice hour or so long lecture on social movements by Manuel Castells, on Michael Trice’s recommendation from the interview. I cross referenced this all with a draft list of marketing and outreach items, and deliberated on the items point by point with all of these notes.

I read about this kind of stuff all of the time anyways, it is almost always on my mind. Almost all of this process made for affirmation of things that I, or others around Longecity, have already had on our minds, but with focus on our current needs and the yearly budget.

So it’s in the ball park, maybe right on target, but let’s get some more insight, (adjustments, additions, subtractions) on this before we take it to the budget meeting.


The first three items here were pretty straight forward from all of this. Banners are a fairly safe staple, and we need to reserve money for member initiatives if we are to have them. These three are the main, basic conclusion.

• $2,000 for banner space - some that I have in mind and that were recommended by others are LEF, H+ newsletter sponsorship, Fight Aging newsletter sponsorship, a general health website, a general science website
• $1,200 for member initiatives
• $1,200 for member points

*The above, with choice to shift any remaining member initiative or points money over to banners, upon agreement, if needed.


The next four are slightly riskier things, but not by much.

• $100 to try Google ads from a different angle. Last year Google ads brought in the following:July 14^th - August 1^st - 105 clicks - 40,903 impressions - $0.95 per click - $99.63 total. Since I dont think that we can add much to the 140,000 unique visitors we automatically get, with Google or Facebook ads, that we could afford, I propose we try this again, but targeting people in related organizations, with an ad asking them to register, and linking directly to registration.
• $500 for books to send out to people in outreach, events, and other. We have been doing letter outreach all year again, contacting at least 1 or 2 people every month. We sent many books out in 2010, but these books largely slipped my mind in 2011. Everything about sending books is great marketing except for the price: it has word of mouth generating potential, creates good will, shows substance, spreads the word, can help create a market for the product, puts the Longecity product to use, makes use of that hard work, and puts it to the test.
• $200 for some Vimmortal to give out to supplements contributors. For the same reasoning as with books.
• $300 for auto sending post cards to new people. I think its valuable for us to try this out, for a few reasons, basically to test its effect, and to leave some information about the cause among people, from a new angle. We haven't tried marketing to people that haven't heard of the cause before, through snail mail marketing, that I know of. I would like to test its effects. Vista Print, and I'm sure many other places, offer this service. You can buy addresses for groups like big business, general consumers, baby boomers, and elderly. It costs around $60 for a list of 100 post cards to be auto sent.

*These last four with the option to use any money that may be reserved for them, for banner space, upon agreement, after the banner space budget money (if it is put into the budget) is spent.


The largest part of the list of things I noted while going through this were things that we can do for "free", with volunteer time. I posted those here.

[Mind]

I assume $2,000 for banners would be our banner placed at other websites, correct? Worth a try in my view (not sure how much money should be spent though), especially if we advertise at sites that are "friendly' to the goal of unlimited lifespans. We get some advertising, admittedly to a lot of people that might already be familiar with Longecity, but then the money is likely going to a like-minded organization.

$1,200 for thank you points. Sounds good, in order to evaluate the points system a bit longer.

$1,200 for member initiatives. Need more explanation.

[brokenportal]

Other websites and places on the net, yes. $2000 is about what the maximum that we could afford at this time for this endeavor seems to be.

Other places, like H+ and Fight Aging, reach to a lot of people that we don't. If they can meme new people half way in toward the notion of unlimited lifespans, in with the notion of technological advancerments, and progressive gerontology, then we help retain more of them for the cause as a whole by meming some of them in a little further. Its safer than reaching out wider at this time, and the more I think about it, probably the best way to broaden our base, so we can start expanding into new circles of people from there.

With members initiatives, Caliban has a topic for people to request money for projects here: http://www.longecity...oposals-thread/ I propose that we allow people to request up to $1,200 for the year. The reasoning for the amount is that it is also about the maximum it seems we can afford at this time for such a project, and really, it is about all this project needs at this testing and growth stage anyways.