Planning Successful Community Engagements

For the past 20 years, Promotions West has been working to engage corporations, government institutions and community-based organisations to understand how to connect with priority populations or as what they use to be called, communities of colour. Today we call it community engagement which can include anything from the development of social marketing or media campaigns, advertising, community outreach, ethnographic research or simply WOM, short for word of mouth connections.

One of the key ingredients in the recipe of working with specific populations is to develop and build trust. Over the years, priority communities have been raped by outsiders entering their communities offering gift cards and sandwiches for an invaluable amount of information on how they could make the community a better place to live and be healthy. In reality, many never returned once information was gathered and used, but not to benefit the audience answering all the questions and sharing great ideas. Why? Well, if you are a person of colour you will understand that this has been the norm for many years. It's called the old bait and switch game. Soon, those needing that information became wiser and started hiring people who looked like someone from the community they were attempting to reach.

What were the results? Same results, no one ever returned or helped to improve anything at all. Today, community members and stake holders are much smarter and aware of the games to rob them of their brilliant ideas. As a result, it's much harder to get into communities, regardless of what you look like or sound like. The secret is to be genuine when you go into any community. If not, you will be seen as a fake. Stakeholders and community members can smell fakes a mile away, trust me. The first few times you visit a community practice active listening to hear and to listen to what community members desire. Community stakeholders will tell you everything you need to create a successful campaign but most people don't listen. I have often shared my philosophy of the way we do business at Promotions West and it's simple. We have two ears and one mouth so that we can listen twice as much as we speak. It's important to be able to read non-verbal body language in the room at all times.

At Promotions West we have developed a guide to help organisations reach African Americans or Black populations. We are in the process of updating that guide to include reaching the Latinx communities. The guide is free and can be downloaded from the Promotions West website. We are in the process of developing a checklist to help community-based organisations to have a better understanding of how to drive their own communications campaign without being told what to do by outsiders smiling and offering them funding. From our years of experience working with priority communities all over the country, we have noticed that organisations apply and receive funding to create social marketing or social media campaigns and/or events to their populations. The checklist is being designed to assist agencies to consider specific items before launching a campaign. The checklist is being designed to reaching African American, Latino, Asian/Pacific Islander, and Transgender communities.

COVID-19 has been influential in how we all do business now. Across the country, communications with priority communities has failed because those communities always receive information as an afterthought. Many communities feel that it's on purpose. For every single disease, priority communities or people of colour remain at the top of the list. Just to name a few would include breast cancer, heart disease, stroke, lung cancer, asthma, HIV, coronavirus, and infant mortality rate to name a few. COVID-19 is providing us with an opportunity to redesign how we conduct business across the board.

At Promotions West we are in the process of creating public relations and marketing workshops designed to equip organizations with the tools to strategically develop their communications and project plans in reaching priority communities. Remember, ethnic media is an essential partner to engage when reaching out priority audiences.

As our audiences change, engagement can be achieved through social media networks such as Instagram, Twitter, Facebook, Snap Chat, TikTok, YouTube, Vimeo and blogging. A good way to organize your social media activities is by using Hootsuite, an all-encompassing app to promote your messages easier. There are a variety of similar apps that can also be used. We facilitate sessions with small to medium-sized organizations about social media and how to get started. Usually Promotions West will create social marketing pages, develop social media templates for key stories and events and develop a timeline with clear dates. After 3 to 6 months, agencies or organizations will feel comfortable taking the lead. It's our goal to educate, demonstrate and provide the tools for agencies to take the leadership role. 

Here are some helpful tips to reaching your audience:

Getting Started:

• After discussion with team members, identify who you are trying to reach and why.
• Define the project.
• List your goals and objectives.
• Brainstorm on creative ways to reach your audience.
• Develop a clear message that you want to deliver to your audience.
• Identify the amount of money that you are able to spend on this project.
• List any ideas on ways to promote the message (WOM-Word of Mouth, Outdoor Advertising, Radio, Television, Print, Outdoor Advertising, promotional items, mall advertising, community events, digital or via community outreach workers).
• Evaluation is key - Consider ways that will tell you that your project or campaign was successful
• Do you just want numbers of people reached so that you can check the box or are you interested in the impact on a community?

If you are unfamiliar with your audience, it may be helpful to conduct a community assessment or an ethnographic study of the audience that you are interested in reaching.  

You may: 

• Search for the meaning of social and cultural norms and views.
• Find reasons for the use of certain behaviours or practices.
• Examine social trends and instances like divorce, illnesses, etc.
• Examine social interactions and encounters.
• Better understand the roles of families, relationships, and organisations.
• Outline the areas where your audience is living.
• What is the make-up of the various communities? (Ages, Education, Countries people may be from or Regions of the country).
• Acknowledge the similarities and differences.
• Ascertain how your audience get their information or receive news.
• Develop a list community cultural events, fairs or potential community engagement events and plan on participating in those events.
• Include staff and board members in all discussions.

Goals and Objectives:

Before creating an event, you should develop a list of goals and objectives. Responding to the following questions will assist you in focusing on your event:

• What is the purpose of your event or campaign?
• What are the benefits for the community?
• What results or outcomes do you expect or desire?
• Is media coverage needed and why?
• How will the event be evaluated?

Active listening is extremely important to remember when working with communities. Often, we tend to not ask the people that we are trying to reach what they want and what are the best ways to reach them. Then we are disappointed when no one shows up or like the services provided. 

Remember, communities come together around food and family activities and share information with other community members. Don't make the mistake of thinking that communities don't engage with other communities. Everyone connects or intermarry with other groups of people and share information with each other. It will be beneficial in promoting your efforts.

The Promotions West guide will provide you with a number of ideas to be successful in reaching priority communities. Interested in more information about reaching priority communities, please contact us at info@promotionswest.com. Stay tuned, we are working on finalising the communications checklist that will be downloadable at no cost.