Successful outreach is about listening, and not just about spreading the word. Click through to learn how to submit your outreach questions for future Outreach Tip articles, and learn some simple, no-cost ways to gather feedback from your stakeholders.
The Outreach Tip of the Week is an ongoing series about how to use branding, marketing, and public relations techniques to build better relationships with your stakeholders. What would you like to see covered in a future Outreach Tip article? Do you have a question, or is there something you’d like to learn how to make, like a poster or press release?
Whether you’re an outreach committee member hosting a community event, or a board president trying to increase attendance at your meetings, we want to hear from you. Send your suggestions and questions to annmarie@empowerla.org, for the chance to be included in a future Outreach Tip post.
Easy Ways To Gather Feedback From Your Stakeholders
A suggestion box is a no-cost addition to your meetings and events that’s easy to make. It can be placed at the entrance next to the stack of Speaker Cards and sign-in sheets. Make sure to put a sign or label on the box, to let stakeholders know that suggestions going into the box should not be about items on the meeting agenda. If they want to comment on agenda items, they should fill out a speaker card.
To ensure you can follow up with stakeholders’ suggestions, it’s a good idea to create a suggestion box form they can fill out, that would have spaces to enter their name and contact info, as well as a few lines to explain their question or idea.
Make a spreadsheet where you can enter the suggestions and contact info you collect, so that you have everything stored in a format that’s easy to share. It is helpful to assign a person or team to routinely follow up on suggestions every month, so your stakeholders know you have heard them.
Some questions and suggestions may require time to do the research required to formulate a meaningful answer. One way to maintain your Council’s reputation for responsiveness but buy some time to do this is to send a quick stock email in response, such as, “Thank you for your recent suggestion. We will get back to you in more detail as soon as possible.”
You can also create a digital “suggestion box,” too, that can be linked to your website’s Contact page or posted on social media. A Google Form is easy to create, and free if you have a Google Gsuite account. The form can have fields for stakeholder name, contact info, and suggestions, and when it is submitted, the information will automatically be uploaded into a spreadsheet. If you don’t subscribe to Gsuite, a keyword search for “fillable forms” will bring up other free or low-cost form generating apps.
Remember, if there’s a topic you’d like to see covered in a future Outreach Tip article, we’d like to hear from you. Just send your suggestions and questions to annmarie@empowerla.org.
