Would you be in the hobby today without the ARC? Let’s “Get the ARC word out” to the loner reefers!

[camellia]

When I started this hobby I didn’t know about ARC. I’d check Craig’s List for coral sales. It just so happened I ended up at the current ARC president house who introduced me to ARC. Funny thing, because of my lights, he wouldn’t sell me any of his corals. He had a big beautiful SPS tank. Upon leaving he bagged me a small frag of Digitata, it thrived and was kept as a staple in all my tanks.

Recently while looking around for a new tank on OfferUp, LetGo, Nextdoor..., not one of the reefers I chatted with had ever heard of the ARC. Surly you’ll agree, being associated with a club full of amazing, knowledgeable people is hugely helpful in numerous ways. ARC has so much to offer, lets get the word out about ARC to the loner reefers!
Has ARC saved you when you’ve had tank issues?

Our hobby of keeping a healthy, thriving reef tank is not a simple task. It requires in-depth knowledge, patience, can be a cash-cow and is very challenging at times. It’s easy to get frustrated when our tanks aren’t doing well and we don’t know why. Having ARC to turn to for help, knowledge or to share the “highs and lows” in your experiences, makes this hobby much more fun.

Let’s come up with ideas to implement and broadcast the ARC to the unaware fellow reefers!

 

[camellia]

One idea I’ve thought of is posting on the three sites mentioned above:

Coral, fish, aquariums, reef tank knowledge and friendly fellow reefers $.01

ATLANTA REEF CLUB has it all, come check it out!
atlantareefclub.org

Also, if we can bribe our sponsors, Petco... to post flyers with our clubs information, that would be a big help.


All input welcomed.

 

[jcook54]

I'm speaking for myself here and I think it would be awesome if you came up with something to post on those various sites. It took me a few years to find ARC but once I did, my experience in the hobby grew and grew. We've got a good group of core volunteers and I know folks have stepped up to further ARC's presence on social media but I never would have thought to put anything on NextDoor or the others you mentioned. What do you think @FutureInterest ?

 

[FutureInterest]

I'm not even sure what offerup, letgo, and nextdoor is. I'm out of the loop for sure. I'll google them shortly.

Our supporting membership overall has actually increased this year which is a first in a LONG time... as it's otherwise been declining for 10 years or so... so we're finally trending in the right direction.

Most people you run into at our sponsors have no idea we even exist. Some of our sponsors don't want them to know frankly... and it makes sense. Our new sponsorship agreement does have clauses for allowing us to post flyers for events and also to put some door stickers or signs up. We've met some resistance from some sponsors on that and others have embraced it.

As for other media platforms, I've been posting all our events on craigslist and @godawgs24 has done a great job of posting on all the relevant facebook groups. If we can post more elsewhere that would be great. So yah how else can we get the word out? Looking forward to hearing more ideas we can implement. Really appreciate you starting this post Deb

Does Petco allow people to post flyers there? I've seen people buying mixed saltwater there and it just makes me cringe...

 

[Suescuno]

I been in the hobby since 2012 and always “tried” to make it to the local club. (I lived somewhere else before Atlanta). Then I meet a member of the club (through Craig’s List) and that turned off the awkwardness off of going to a members meeting. I became a member at the holiday party and I have already paid my membership. I’m amassed of the help and the prices of the corals for sale through the club (very good prices!!!). So let’s spread the word about the club and think BIG!! Like host MACNA one year, bring coral scientist to give talks at our coral swaps, etc.

 

[camellia]

It is totally understandable why the stores don’t want to advertise for ARC but in reality most all of us support our local stores from time to time.
Those that do not know about the club (I’ll bet) are more likely to quit the hobby when they have a tank problem. That most definitely isn't benefiting anyone, local store included.

Lol too funny! Offer Up and Letgo are the newest way to sell things like craigslist but easier.

Nextdoor is a social app for your individual neighborhood and surrounding neighborhoods within a radius of ... miles. So my post will only reach people very local to my home. Mine is actually 34 neighborhoods.
However if all members posted on “their Nextdoor app”, it would be seen by a huge market of people!

 

[Anthony king]

I think a club instragram would be a good way to get the word out to the younger audience as well interest new parties considering the visual is one of the most appealing parts of the hobby. When you look there are a couple of hashtags but nothing official or that points to the club for information.

 

[bzb]

Great topic.

I believe partnership with local businesses is key to the club truly thriving and expanding membership. I completely understand any hesitation, but it’s just a matter of -ahem- marketing to them, as well. Quite a few options there to establish better partnerships, and good business people would never view a nonprofit club truly as competition.

First, brand identity definitely needs to be established. Logo aside, there’s quite a few pieces to brand identity.

Largely it’s a matter of what goals match up with the ideas the BOD has. How would these goals align with what we want the club to be known for? Goals for the club beyond the basic mission statement and by-laws... perhaps these kinds of things are already on the site somewhere, and I’m just too lazy to look it up. For example: generating further donations/membership funding for membership perks, creating a larger presence and convention, or producing charitable programs for the community. (Or why not all of the above?)

Speaking of charitable programs, that has the greatest potential to generate interest. Not only does it provide a great deal of satisfaction for members, it can provide opportunities for media coverage, viral postings, and an opportunity for others in the club to become re-energized by this kind of activity.

IG can be very effective, but you need someone on that thing constantly.

Nextdoor is much more difficult because of the “locked down” nature of the neighborhoods - but it can certainly help salience for the club.

Few ideas:
- Table days at Petcos. They have partnerships with local cat shelters, maybe they’d be willing to host us a couple times and see what kind of response we can get.
- Partnership with Georgia Aquarium, perhaps having a “discount day” for our members and getting a booth inside the Aquarium for a day or two.
- Partnership with Zoo Atlanta, same as above.
- Align with clubs at local colleges, potentially have a liaison at the college for a sub chapter.
- Find low-cost/free community events that we can setup a booth and potentially do fundraising (for example, some sort of children’s activity for donations, such as a fishing game or the fish bowl ping pong ball toss for a sticker with the club logo). We could also give away chaeto during those events!

Obvious ones after the brand identity is established:
- T-shirts and hoodies with prominent club logo and URL
- Car stickers/magnets
- Signage for sponsors

 

[Doberman13]

I think some amazing ideas have been mentioned above. I am not sure if this exists or not but do we have a way of knowing where people have heard of the ARC? Basically when you sign up for an account or membership is there a questionnaire in order to distinguish where you learned about ARC?
I know I found out because of one of the Craigslist posts right before the expo this year. Once I did a Google search the first thing I saw was the post about Jin giving away free coral. I was sold and signed up immediately.

 

[Anthony king]

I think some amazing ideas have been mentioned above. I am not sure if this exists or not but do we have a way of knowing where people have heard of the ARC? Basically when you sign up for an account or membership is there a questionnaire in order to distinguish where you learned about ARC?
I know I found out because of one of the Craigslist posts right before the expo this year. Once I did a Google search the first thing I saw was the post about Jin giving away free coral. I was sold and signed up immediately.

Thats how i found out October of 2018

 

[bhodges82]

I brought up this idea in our new sponsor agreement layout for the local fish stores. I suggested that we make it required to display a small sign in the store stating that the store is a proud sponsor of the Atlanta reef club, this way all patrons would be able to see our name. We all know about fish stores around us, not all of their customers know of us. I thought this idea would be great for our club and we could get new members that we couldn't reach before, but unfortunately some of the stores REALLY didn't like the idea and felt they would be advertising a local club that undersold them in livestock. This made me pretty mad actually, they claim to be hobbies and business owners, but their actions are all business. I agree that some coral is cheap here, some fish get sold at a fraction of local cost, but there is a plethora of information here and a community that is willing to help when things go wrong. I remember what it was like before I had the club, asking your local fish dealer what to do about your issue, time and energy wasted away and I got horrible advise because I didn't know better.

Rant is over.

If we as members wore ARC branded shirts, hats etc when we went in to local shops we would be walking talking billboards for arc. Bumper stickers on your car, parked close to the door. They won't have a choice but to let us in. We could even carry business cards like little billboards hand out.

 

[bzb]

Just have to develop the WIIFM (What’s In It For Me) a little further and figure out how we can overcome their specific objections. Promoting a non-profit, local club that encourages patronizing these stores is in their best interest... they just have to see how/why.

 

[bhodges82]

Just have to develop the WIIFM (What’s In It For Me) a little further and figure out how we can overcome their specific objections. Promoting a non-profit, local club that encourages patronizing these stores is in their best interest... they just have to see how/why.

I would think being able to directly advertise to their clientele would be a great benefit, most of our sponsors don't take advantage of this feature. I am not going to give up on this idea, I like the input. It's hard to sell to a salesman.....

 

[sharis100]

We found out about the ARC by chance. We happened to be at a local lfs and ran into Justin. He was very kind to let us know about an upcoming meeting. We had no idea about the ARC prior to that chance encounter. Attended our first ARC meeting and became a supporting member ever since . Instagram and bumper stickers and everything y’all have mentioned sound like great ideas to spread the word!

 

[FutureInterest]

I think some amazing ideas have been mentioned above. I am not sure if this exists or not but do we have a way of knowing where people have heard of the ARC? Basically when you sign up for an account or membership is there a questionnaire in order to distinguish where you learned about ARC?
I know I found out because of one of the Craigslist posts right before the expo this year. Once I did a Google search the first thing I saw was the post about Jin giving away free coral. I was sold and signed up immediately.

Thats how i found out October of 2018

Glad to hear my craigslist spamming actually brought in some quality active members! It encourages me to keep it up and for us to pursue other avenues for sure. We could even be as obnoxious as the sky diving business that plasters their bumper stickers all over the place.

A lot of good ideas here. Great suggestion @Doberman13. I went ahead and added a required field on registration which asks for that information. That should help us figure out what is working and what is not...

 

[FutureInterest]

We found out about the ARC by chance. We happened to be at a local lfs and ran into Justin. He was very kind to let us know about an upcoming meeting. We had no idea about the ARC prior to that chance encounter. Attended our first ARC meeting and became a supporting member ever since . Instagram and bumper stickers and everything y’all have mentioned sound like great ideas to spread the word!

Nice job @jcook54

 

[FutureInterest]

I'd like to hear other suggestions on this and then we'd like to setup a committee to review the ideas and begin implementation. If you'd like to help out, please message me or post here.

 

[camellia]

Count me in!
I‘ve come up with a few ideas, one we do already, as the generous reefers here:

1. Post pictures of a few mother colonies with title “Free Frags” on all these “social media” sites where non-members are looking and shopping for reef supplies.
In the details/description, put a link to our website.
Then in the “New Members forum” add a sticky thread for “Free Frag pickup information” with additional club info and monthly meeting information.

*** Would love others to “Post Here” how You found the ARC!

 

[ZapataInc]

I found ARC through a FB group called "Georgia Reefaholics" I was asking questions through that group and was so excited bc I was getting feedback from some people. Then I saw a shared post about an ARC event. The first person that I met was Jin and he really sold me on becoming a supporting member. And that's all she wrote. Now whenever I'm out and about or on FB and see someone ask a question I direct them to ARC. This club has helped me in so many ways. I've meet so many more amazing people. Thanks to everyone here for being you.

 

[FutureInterest]

I'm so glad you shared that. Ben and I received a lot of criticism for creating "Georgia Reefaholics". The argument by some uninformed folks was that we were creating a competing entity to ARC. Seriously... That the president and a trustee shouldn't be doing that... of course what they failed to understand was that georgia reef junkies, the largest local fb group had just banned ARC from making posts on their group. This was months before the expo and of course that means there's a whole section of folks that wouldn't even see our facebook posts advertising the expo. So Ben @godawgs24 and I formed reefaholics to give people another local reef friendly site and frantically ran a bunch of promos where I gave away a bunch of corals to boost membership.

Of course since we ran the group, we always post ARC meetings on there and other announcements so we can get the word out to those that are part of it but not part of ARC's fb page. The fact that the group actually pulled in a quality member like @ZapataInc is enough justification for me for our efforts.

@camellia I think this question of where you heard about ARC would be a great thread in itself. It would definitely help us understand what worked in the past. I'd like to keep this thread for suggestions on your OP if possible .