The Organic Federation of Australia
holds an annual
Organic Fortnight Australia

A CELEBRATION OF ORGANIC FOOD AND FARMING

Friday March 25 - Sunday April 10, 2011

Awareness - raising events and promotions across the country.

Spreading the word - making sure people know about your event

The best event or promotion in the world will not be a success if you don't tell people about it. Buying advertising can be costly but the good news is that there are much more cost-effective ways of promoting your event. Try some of the following:

• Advertise locally - put up posters in your local shop or school or village notice board.
• Get included on local and national web sites that list events and activities.
• Talk to your local box scheme about putting information about your event in their boxes.
• Send a mail-shot with contact details on the back to local groups and organisations and ask them to inform their members.
• Hand deliver flyers to people in your area.
• Contact your local media outlets and let them know what you are up to.

Attracting the media to cover your event

Getting in the media is one way of raising awareness about your event.

• Whilst it may be out of reach to run an advert, editorial coverage is free, and will often have more impact - provided you can get a journalist interested.
• Local press and radio are interested in items from small business, especially if there is a local angle.
• If you approach radio make sure that you are prepared to do a live interview.

The best way to communicate your event to the local media is to send them a press release (morning is best) followed by a call in the afternoon to make sure they've received it. The key to getting your press release accepted is to include something of interest or usefulness to your readers. Avoid blatantly self promotional pieces. The press release needs to contain the information journalists will want to know about the OFA's Fortnight event.

If you would like to write your own release, the following tips may help:

• Make your writing clear and factual, providing details of dates, times, prices and activities (it sounds obvious, but it's surprising how often people forget to include this essential information).
• Provide some background information such as details about the OFAs Fortnight for example:' the OFA Organic Fortnight Australia runs from Friday March 25 - Sunday April 10, 2011. You can learn more about what is on during the OFA's Fortnight by reviewing our Events Calendar
• Provide a contact name, telephone number and email at the bottom of the release.
• Ring the publication(s) you are sending your press release to and get the name of the appropriate editor/journalist e.g. news, food, woman's interest. The contact address and telephone number of your local paper will be inside the front cover or on the letters page. Telephone your contact a few days after sending details to see whether they can use the story or if they want further information.

And finally… Enjoy it! We wish you every success in your event. We hope this guide has been useful. Please tell us how you got on afterwards, and don't forget - if you've taken any pictures we would love to see them, and may use them on our website and in other publicity to inspire people for next year's events.

Good luck with Organic Fortnight Australia!

Adapted from: http://www.soilassociation.org/. We are grateful for permission given by the Soil Association, UK, to make use of its material.