Project 2 wrap up!

OK. So project two was very eventful to say the very least. We started the project without a clue of what we were going to do. The only vision we had was our goal of promoting the recycling event, educating people at the event and recruit volunteers.

Over time is when our strategy really developed. Although, we were only a two person team we really worked well together and everything flowed very well.

Our 1st task was to use social media like Blogger, twitter, Yahoo groups, Myspace and others to promote the event and educate people. We researched into it and even attended some social media workshops to get an idea of how to use it. We decided to make a video about who we were, what we were doing, and promote our event and other social media websites. The video is at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3eIQ2ITqFYc. We gave updates and educational information on these sites daily. Plus, we even used direct email marketing to advertise our event to targeted recycling groups.

As we are managing these websites we also used other conventional marketing tools like press releases, newspapers, and so on. One of the most effective promoting activities we did was the recycling event we had at the Auraria campus. Our plan was to get students’ emails, phone numbers and have these students also promote the upcoming recycling event to their friends. How? We gave away slices of pizza to people who filled out “commitment cards” in which they would put their name, email address, and their phone number if they were interested in volunteering. Also, they had to text five friends to tell them about the upcoming recycling event. Not only did we have great success with this Auraria event but it gave us experience of what to expect on the actual recycling event.

Anyway, we did so much that I’m only scratching the surface here and talking about the “bigger” stuff.

March 7th recycling event:
So finally the day came to put everything we had been preparing and planning for to the test. We had “Thank you” cards to get people’s information and do a post recycling education program and survey them about the event. We had 5 volunteers come to this event and help us out. Of course everything started perfectly, NOT. In fact, when we first got to the recycling site at 6am we were already overwhelmed with so many cars lined up. We had no clue of where to start or what to start. Our plan went out the window. I saw Jesse panicking so I had to slap some sense into him.hahaha and remind him that we could do this. He relaxed a little and joined with me in an improvised version of our plan.

We had our DJ already setting up so we decided to make our little area more “official” by putting up our Comcast tent, and posters.

Now, for the improvised part we had a “three section” approach to our thank you card/education plan. First, I would talk to the people at the designated “official” area “educated” them and give them the thank you cards to fill out in their cars. Then I would tell them to give it to Cindy who was positioned further along in the line of cars (so we didn’t slow traffic down). She would give out prizes to people who gave her these cards. Jesse was the second person these people would encounter after me, and he would encourage them to text to a number to be entered to win Rockies tickets. After getting people subscribed their phone number he would thank people for coming and give them recycling education facts through phone text messages. We collected more than 200 thank you cards and did the post education program and survey with great success!

We definitely had a positive impact on the event!