Spread the Word

How can you spread the word about what you’ll be up to?

Create your own personalised Children’s Heart Federation poster

If you really want to get your event noticed, you could create your very own poster or flyer. Here are some poster design tips:

  • Think of your audience – what will they be most interested in about what you want to tell them? What style of poster will they be drawn to?
  • Research locations for your poster – where do your target audience spend time? Where do they go for information? Your poster will be competing with others for attention – how will you make it stand out?
  • Look at examples of other relevant posters. What are the strongest design ideas?
  • Decide on the size, proportion, and shape. Some public notice boards (e.g. hospitals and libraries) don’t put up big posters. Better an A4 poster that goes up than an A3 poster that gathers dust.
  • Less is more! Decide the key information to get across, simplifying to the absolutely essential items:
  • The poster has to grab people’s attention – try one or two strong visuals, big text and simple bold fonts, clear space and borders.
    • Strong colours can attract attention. Make sure that there is enough contrast between words and background colours to make the poster easy to read.
    • A contact website or phone number on the poster gives people a chance to find out the whole story – avoid cluttered posters with lots of small text or pictures.
  • If necessary, produce scaled-down versions of the design as flyers or cards to fit in a wallet.
  • Test the poster on some people from your target audience. Make changes to make it more effective for that group.
  • Get someone with an eye for detail and good spelling to proofread the poster. Check that it answers all the necessary questions: what, where, when, who, how, how much, why?

You could also contact CHF HQ if you need help with designing any materials for your event.

The Internet and Email

Using online services is one of the quickest and easiest ways of spreading the word:

• You can use social networking sites, such as facebook and twitter to let all your friends and family know about our event.  Don’t forget to also put the details on the CHF network pages. 
• You can email all of your contacts with details of what you’ll be up to and keep them updated with your progress.  This is also a great way of letting people know how you got on after the event.

Local Media

Using the local media to promote your event is always a good idea.  Get in touch with the newsdesks at local papers and radio stations and try to get them interested in your event.  You could even invite the press to attend your event on the day.  For a little bit of help, we have out together some information on how to create your very own Press Release.

Work Media

If you work for a company with an internal website, magazine, or newsletter, don’t forget to ask them to include details of your event.  They might be keen to even get a few pictures from you.

And remember, if you have created an online fundraising page at www.justgiving.com, always pass on the address details to everyone so that they can sponsor you!

The Children's Heart Federation invite you to view the CHF Supporter’s Guide to Writing a Press Release which contains information that should help your fundraising get the attention it deserves.