A successful event requires proper promotion, both on and off campus. The Farmwalk would have been better attended if it was better advertised. There are so many forms of advertising from the local radio to promotion signs from companies like https://www.supercheapsigns.com/promotional/economy-a-frame-signs which have great benefits. This event was a main and important event that should have had a high head-count. A lack of mass-spread advertisement caused there to be fewer people.
With two events in one day, the Open House/Beyond Farmwalk on Sunday, April 17, didn’t seem to feel crowded even though there are more than 21,000 students enrolled this semester.
Pierce College celebrated it’s annual spring semester Farmwalk, which is a way to allow the community to learn about the rich agricultural history of the college. However, this year’s traditional event was different, adding an Open House at Rocky Young Park that showcased the programs and services the college has to offer. With the addition to the Open House, some people were unaware of one location or the other. We should have distributed the funds we received this year more effectively.
The budget for the Farm Walk this year was $85,000, and marketing was $27,000, according to Public Relations Manager, Doreen Clay.
The school spent approximately $21,000 on commercial ads on the radio station KIIS FM. Why couldn’t we expand to other stations, why focus on one radio station? Some students and faculty use bus transportation and didn’t get to hear the commercial ads or listen to different stations, so how are those people suppose to know about it if doesn’t reach to them?
Like the summer and fall semester ads we see on bus stops and the commercials on television, creating any of those would have brought in a bigger audience because more people would see the ad.
The flyers that were placed around campus – made through somewhere similar to MyCreativeShop – should have been sent to students mailboxes to inform them prior of the event. This would’ve allowed students to invite family and friends in advance
More advertising in local weekend newspapers or other college newspapers would have been a good way to reach to a larger audience.
Students are constantly checking their emails, sending the ad to their Los Angeles Community College District emails would have been another cheap alternative to promote the event.
If enrollment was down this semester, we should’ve used more funds to organize a better promotion plan for the Open House/Beyond Farmwalk to get more student to enroll.
With 113 community colleges in California, it would have been useful to send out flyers or emails to some of the campus’s around Pierce to bring in students from other colleges to see what Pierce has, that their campus does not.
The community has been coming to the traditional Farmwalk for the past 40 years because it’s one of the only places in the valley you can get up close and pet farm animals.
Sometimes change is good, but if the Farmwalk was successful before, why add the Open House? If the goal was to bring in more students we should have promoted both events more than the previous years.
For the first time in 40 years, the Farm Walk admission was free, due to a budget already developed in the agriculture department. There was a $5 entry fee before, and the money raised at the Farmwalk went toward the farm.