Choosing the most desirable presentation topics and scheduling them for convenient days and times is the first step toward motivating members to attend workshops. Draw them in further by offering creative (not costly) incentives – even token rewards attract crowds.

Choosing a Workshop
Analyze the needs of your community, SEGs, and field of membership and choose workshop topics accordingly:

• Since tellers and member service representatives are on the front line of member communication, ask them to be particularly aware of the issues they hear about most.
  
  
• Ask members directly for what they want, and compile the results. This can be done online via your website, through newsletter surveys, in person at the teller desk, in select focus groups, or through communication with SEGs.
  
  
• Take note of the topics past workshop attendees have requested on evaluation forms – if they went to one, chances are they will come to others.

Scheduling

• Schedule evening workshops for Tuesdays, Wednesdays, and Thursdays; these are the days most people prefer.
  
  
• Hold workshops at times that are most convenient for your members. Evening workshops are typically from 6:00pm to 7:30pm, but you may choose to alter it to suit the majority of your member’s schedules. If many of your target audience work in close proximity to your workshop site, you may want to schedule it earlier, for example.
  
  
• Avoid scheduling workshops during weeks when there is a major holiday.
  
  
• Consider holding the workshop at your SEG rather than the credit union; your members won’t have to go anywhere, making it more convenient to attend.
  
  
• Some workshops gain the highest attendance in specific time slots. Raising Money Smart Kids, for example, gets the best turnout mid-day at a SEG, rather than in the evening at a branch, since parents often want to be with their children in the evenings.
  
  
• Attendance for evening workshops peaks during daylight savings.
  
  
  

Incentives
Make sure everyone knows about the rewards of attendance long before the workshop date by including a description of them with your marketing efforts.

• Have food and door prizes at the workshop. This is a very effective technique to bring in repeat participants.
  
  
• Offer a small monetary award that will be deposited into an attendee’s share account if they attend a workshop.
  
  
• Offer a financial reward or other benefit to the credit union employee who inspired the most people to attend. (To track referrals, there is a space on the workshop evaluation that asks how the participant heard of the event.)
  
  
• Encourage staff members to attend – and offer a small reward for coming.

Countdown Calendar

Advance and continuous workshop promotion is fundamental to achieving high member turnout. The detailed Countdown Calendar will help you organize and plan all of your marketing efforts.

At least one month before the workshop:

1. Download the workshop announcement and publish it in your newsletter.
   
2. Post the workshop announcement prominently on your website, and keep it there until the day of the workshop.
   
3. View the sample flyer, and include it with mailed account statements.
   
4. Email the sample flyer to contacts at SEGs and community groups for distribution.
   
5. Make sure employees know about the workshop so they can begin to promote it verbally and distribute flyers. Add it to meeting agendas and in internal memos.

Note: If you know in advance who the workshop presenter will be, download his or her biography from the workshop presenter profile list, and include with the announcements.

Two weeks before the workshop:

1. Place your customized workshop flyer in prominent areas of the credit union.
   
2. Remind tellers and staff who have direct contact with members to promote the workshop verbally and distribute flyers.
   
3. Send an email blast with the workshop announcement to your members.

Three to four days before the workshop:

1. Call those who have reserved a space to remind them of the workshop.
   
2. Make a final reminder to tellers and staff who have direct contact with members to promote the workshop verbally and distribute flyers.
   
3. Send a final email blast with the workshop announcement to your members.