How Marketing Can Prevent Fires

Marketing support can help all aspects of a business or charity. We recently heard how it is helping Cambridgeshire ACRE reach the volunteers they need to bring greater fire safety to Cambridgeshire.

Cambridgeshire ACRE is a rural community council that works alongside local rural communities through a wide range of programmes designed to target specific rural issues or specific rural needs. Established in 1924, Cambridgeshire ACRE has vast experience in providing valuable services to local communities and connecting people to enable them to identify and reach their community goals.

After successfully managing a community volunteering project to help residents in need make the switch to digital TV, Cambridgeshire ACRE was asked to manage a new home fire safety initiative by the Cambridgeshire Fire and Rescue Service. The new project required recruiting volunteers to promote home fire safety messages and identify those that might need referring to the Fire Service for a home fire safety check. They were disappointed with the response they were getting from their volunteer recruitment materials, so when their community advisor, Ed Aniskowicz, learned of Pimp My Cause through a third sector newsletter, they signed up to find a marketer to help. They contacted marketing member Zoë Neville-Smith, a Cambridge resident with experience in non profit marketing.

Zoë was very happy to support their project. She reviewed and edited their volunteer recruitment materials and gave advice on their overall strategy as well as giving them tips on how to monitor the success of their strategy. Ed says they have greatly appreciated having her support, "having a second opinion on our marketing materials and strategy greatly helped our confidence. Zoë helped us see what we were doing right and what needed to change."

Zoë is now giving feedback and advice on their new social media marketing strategy. Ed shared that it is particularly helpful to be able to get advice from someone who has experience in monitoring the success of social media marketing activities. It will help them make sure they are using their time and resources in the most efficient way.

Zoë hopes to continue supporting their marketing activities. She said, "I was really pleased when Ed from Cambridgeshire ACRE got in touch - it was especially nice to be able to help a charity in my local area. The exercise of designing a volunteer recruitment programme tapped in to skills I hadn't used for ages and it was brilliant to apply myself to a different industry. Pimp My Cause is a great concept and I hope more people sign up to give some of their skills and time to help small charities who really do benefit from it!"