4 Effective Ways To Market Your Fire Department
When it comes to fire department marketing strategies, there are many options you can take. If you are working for a fire department, it’s likely that you’re there to protect the community and you may or may not have a background in marketing. That’s ok! Marketing strategies do not have to be long and intricate. In fact, as it relates to fire department marketing, we think simpler is better.
We’ve put together a list of effective ways to market your fire department below:
- Fire Department Goals: There are so many messages that a fire department may want to express in marketing efforts. Every department is different and has different goals. Our suggestion is to form a small team of people from your fire department that put together a list of goals that could include everything from recruitment and retention to fire safety tips for the community. Once you have your goals set, you will be able to determine your strategy.
- Create A Website: most businesses and organizations have a website. An online search is one of the most common ways that people do their research today. By creating a website for your firefighters and community members, you create a place to showcase information. It is up to you what information you would like to include, but we have a few suggestions below.
- How community members can get involved in your fire department. (This is where you can ask for what your needs are!)
- Background information about your fire department
- Recruitment information.
- Information about how to contact the fire department for non-emergency inquiries.
- Safety tips for your home.
- What to do in a fire emergency.
3. Invest In Social Media: We say this time and time again, social media is where the eyeballs are and that is why you should have a presence there too! No matter what message you are trying to get across, creating social media accounts for your fire department will get your branch seen.
4. Tell Your Story: In any marketing or communications strategy, you should be thinking about the story you want to tell. It’s important both for your reputation in the community and to help recruit new firefighters! We are living in a time where there has been a dramatic loss in the number of men and women that want to become firefighters. By telling the story about the history of the department and the firefighters themselves, you would be positioning your department to attract interested community members to your force.
You can tell your story in many ways. Here are just a few suggestions:
- Pitch a story to a local newspaper or radio program.
- Include a firefighter’s story on your website.
- Include storytelling in your social media strategy.
We hope this was a helpful start to your marketing strategy. If you are looking for a fire department marketing agency that has decades of experience, give 9-ONE-1 Marketing a call today at (484) 673-0385 to start the conversation about how we may assist you in your marketing needs.