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Members Area for Pgm Bk Ad Soliciting

WORDING SAMPLES         START HERE         LIST OF BUSINESSES         AD OVERVIEW       PRICE SHEET

EASY STEPS TO INVITE BUSINESSES:

  1. Think of the businesses(*) you patronize
  2. Go to the members web page (to “register” that you would like to contact this business)
            www.Reger150.org/solicit
  3. Enter a business name
             (to let us know you will contact them)
  4. Contact the business:
              adapt your invitation wording from our starter samples
  5. Follow up with the business and ask them to sign up (and pay) at
              www.Reger150.org/ads

(*) Hair stylist, lawyer, tax/financial, insurance, restaurants—
you give them plenty of business: ask for this favor in return (it helps them too!)

The Details (Part 1)

WorcAGO is producing the only US celebration weekend, with concerts and lectures to celebrate the birth of Max Reger. Planning started in the Fall of 2022 by a Festival Committee. As you might imagine, logistics, planning, and finances need help in many areas.

With membership help, this Festival will be a meaningful and successful event not only for our WorcAGO chapter, but also for many organists and organ enthusiasts across the wider region.

Each Festival attendee will receive a high quality 28-page+ program book containing concert programs, organ specs, performer bios, and special Reger commentary – a commemorative keepsake. Ads for local businesses will fund its printing as well as other festival costs. We are pursuing some grant funding and patron donations, but those will not cover everything.

YOU can help by asking one or several businesses or services you patronize to support the WorAGO by buying an ad in the Festival program book. We hope to focus this advertising campaign in April and May in order to plan our budget more effectively.

We have several tools you can use now to ask a prospective business to place an ad. Our goal is to sell $15,000 in ads. 

We are confident that the MAX REGER FESTIVAL 150 will be a huge success in bringing historic live music to our community. We also hope to over-achieve our budget goals and fund future WorAGO programming and bring more great music to the Worcester area.

The Details (Part 2)

A Festival ad gets a business’s name in front of a potentially new customer. Dentists, real estate agents, lawyers, financial advisors, insurance agents, restaurateurs, etc. all want to expose their businesses to potentially new customers.

MEMBERS’ TOOLBOX – We have collateral materials to help you approach places you patronize:

  1. In your web browser, navigate to www.Reger150.org/solicit to “register” that you’re contacting a particular business – this online self-service bookkeeping saves our committee many hours of manual paperwork.
  2. A magazine-quality brochure – Advertising Prospectus  (PDF & hardcopy)
  3. An Advertiser Information sheet with ad size and price specs for your prospective advertiser – ads start at $250. 
  4. A set of tips to help YOU approach businesses with confidence and ease

HOW TO SELL AN AD – There are several methods for contacting your potential advertiser – choose the one that you’re comfortable with and that fits your relationship with your business.

In order of effectiveness

    • In-person –  a large white envelope has been sent from WorAGO with one set of printed materials you can hand directly to a prospect.
    • Email – watch for an email with a cover letter template that you can personalize or use as is (personalized is better).
    • Social media – copy and paste your personalized cover letter to your prospect.
    • US Mail – mail one of the brochures and price sheets to your business of choice (postage is $1.74)

VERY IMPORTANT TIP – it will be crucial for you to follow-up after your initial contact to avoid your proposal being forgotten, misplaced, tossed, etc. So please follow-up within 7 days of your initial contact.

STILL MORE – To encourage AGO members to sell as many ads as you can, we are offering two prizes:

    • The most ads by dollar-value
    • The most ads by count
    • (in the case that the same person has the top in both categories, the second highest will be awarded the ads-by-count prize)

Selecting the businesses you want to solicit:

  • Think of those whose owner (or staff) you know, and have a good relationship with – businesses WANT to get their name out in the community, AND they want to thank YOU by granting this favor.
  • When you decide on the business(es) you want to contact, please utilize the online tool by entering the name of the business to let us know you’re contacting them – this will help prevent duplicated efforts of contacting the same business.
  • If you need more suggestions, we have a list of categories with important businesses/organizations in our area that have not yet been solicited. This can help jog your memory.  We’re hoping this will trigger a match that YOU would know someone in that organization to contact… (and speed you on to winning our prize)
  • Note that the “local” audiences will include a wide geography within Massachusetts and New England – thus businesses can be anywhere.

OUR GOAL – Our advertising goal is $15,000 – that’s just sixty quarter-page ads: 
            twenty members sell ONE ad, and another twenty members sell TWO ads. 
The deadlines will approach sooner than you think – so please start thinking and asking now!

We are confident that the MAX REGER FESTIVAL 150  will be a huge success in bringing historic live music to our community, and we will over-achieve our budget goals. 
(Extra monies go to our chapter’s programming to bring more great music to the Worcester area!)

 (Click for PDF)