HOW WE DO IT
We are fortunate to have as our partners at the University, Extended Studies
(at many schools called Continuing Education) with a 5 person marketing staff at our disposal. Our Liaison is a faculty member at the University and she provides guidelines on University policy and procedures as well as serving as a member of the volunteer OLLI Board of Directors.
Extended Studies handles all OLLI funds, pays bills, reconciles accounts, provides enrollment services, assists in preparing mailings, designs and develops all marketing materials including the website and face book page, and their IT department provides tech support. (Trade shows)
They do for $7000 yearly, work which has been estimated as $60,000 in value.
We don’t pay for our building nor do we pay our faculty. We have only a part time paid secretary.
LOW KEY – due to our excellent curriculum and very reasonable fees,
Gaining members is not a problem so that we may concentrate our efforts on handling our expanding membership numbers, which have doubled since I joined in the summer of 2008.
(Anecdote on why I joined OLLI to segway into catalog)
LOW COST a. Print Catalog – designed for us by marketing – Spend your money here. When you tell someone we have a lot of classes, they smile politely. When they see the course offerings in our catalog, they are blown away. The catalogs cost us $2.50 each and are distributed to members, libraries, and senior living facilities. b. Fliers – These take the place of 4 typewritten pages of classes.
1. They can be ready before the catalog is in print
2. They are less expensive – 11 cents. Hand these out at shows and
Reserve catalogs for those who display interest.
3. Suitable for bulletin boards.
4. Lists all classes and info: phone#, physical address, web site info.
c. Brochures, less than catalog, free bookmarks good for Dr. offices

d. Free print advertising
1. Extended Studies puts out, 2 to 3 times a year 75,000 catalogs giving us a half page description of our classes with all our registration information.
2. Newspapers, free notices placed by our marketing staff
- press releases inviting all to our events, with $45. yearly paid memberships. Sent 2 to 3 weeks ahead.
media advisories sent a few days ahead inviting media and news directors to send reporters to cover the event to come out in print/broadcast after the event has occurred.
(THE BIG ONE)
3. Golden Pages – Many cities have a version of this which informs seniors of local services and housing and nursing facilities available in the area. e. Personal appearances – awareness building –done by members of our all volunteer board. Most of our appearances to local groups charge no table fee. Senior Fest, which charges $350 is entirely made up of our target audience and is well worth the exposure.
To membership – make sure they know what you do and what they can do to help.
Community Leadership Groups – You are informing those beyond the ones listening to you.
Senior Adventures – put on by regional transportation group, intended to show seniors how they can get to your events using public transportation.
AARP Job Seekers Resource fair – People out of work for so long, bored people, prime for our available scholarships.
Senior Fest – any targeted group vs. Women’s Expo.
Senior Living Groups- in house program competition, transportation
Retired Public Employees – They think they’re busy, we give them more than busy. “Curiosity never retires.”
It has been so much fun to talk to you about our wonderful product!
In our surveys I particularly enjoyed reading about the “It only takes one“program and the idea of stealing from other OLLI catalogs!