This section is designed for unions that may not have a lot of experience developing communications programs.

How you can do more for less

Labour organizations rarely have resources to equal those of governments, companies or opposing lobby groups. That means we have to work harder and smarter, and get full value from every dollar spent.

Here are a few tricks we’ve learned. Some require the luxury of time – which we know is often in very short supply – but many can save you money no matter what the circumstances.

Working with an agency
Gathering information
Getting things produced
Planning and buying media

Working with an agency

Our time is what we sell. The less of it you use, the less you pay. Here are some ways to use less without sacrificing quality –

Whenever possible, prepare a written brief. We can provide you with a template that helps make sure that all the key information is covered.
Send us the brief, along with any background material, before we meet. That gives us a chance to review and understand the project. When we do meet, we’ll be informed and able to ask more intelligent questions.
Have all key people at the briefing meeting so that everything gets aired. If Locals are involved, have them available by phone.
Share your budget with us. We won’t automatically spend all of it. We will be able to focus on what’s achievable with the resources available and not waste time on unaffordable ideas.

Gathering information

Exploring existing research results is often a good place to start and we have a number of good researchers. A phone call to other labour organizations can also yield results.
Primary research – focus groups, polling, etc. – can be very helpful but it’s also very expensive. Look into sharing costs with like-minded organizations.
Make sure that the research technique is right for your objectives. For example, on complex issues, one-on-one interviews can be more revealing than focus groups, and the cost is about the same.

Getting things produced

Get buy-in at every level as we go along and avoid last minute changes.
Anticipate where the key people will be when the final approval stage comes and make sure they’re reachable.
Don’t forget your legal counsel if what you’re doing is contentious or provocative.
Make sure all approvals are in before broadcast production takes place or film is prepared for print ads. Changes after that are very expensive.
Do English and French production at the same time.

Planning and buying media

Use one company to do your media buying and creative. On significant media campaigns the commissions that advertising agencies receive will cover some or all of the costs of account service, planning and creative.
The further ahead you can book radio and television, the better deals you will find. If you try to buy late and availabilities are tight, the station sales reps will rob you blind.
If you want to reach the entire province or country, television can be very effective. If you want to hit certain cities, it gets more difficult to buy efficiently. With the spread of cable and TV networks, buying single markets is harder than ever. For instance, Global will make you buy the whole province. CityTV is seen on cable almost everywhere in Ontario and you pay for it. MuchMusic and other specialty channels are national.
Newspaper is best for reaching the largest number of people in the shortest period of time. However, less than 1/2 of a page in newspaper usually isn’t worth the money. There’s not enough impact.
Radio lets you target communities and gives you frequency. People will hear your message a number of times and that helps make it stick.
Online advertising can be very good at reaching a clearly defined audience. However, Google Adwords are the only effective format.
You can’t cancel the first two weeks of radio time you book. You might be able to delay it by a week or two. If your program is cancelled and you don’t have anything to run, you can donate the time to charity.
You can’t cancel the first four weeks of TV time booked.
You can’t cancel the first 90 days of billboards booked.
Significant volume discounts are available for newspaper. If you are thinking that you may have additional print advertising in a 12-month period, consider asking for a volume discount rate based on an estimate of what you might use in that 12 months. If you don’t reach the minimum lineage needed to qualify for the discount, you’ll receive an invoice at the end of the 12 months adjusting the rate to what you actually used, but at least you gave yourself the opportunity to save money.
Radio and TV stations will often bonus rather than discount. With a significant buy, you may be able to negotiate 10-second messages on traffic reports, a closed captioning credit, etc.