Burned Alive (Haunted House)-Campaign ProposalCave Spring Volunteer Fire Department

Kelsey Monk & Kristen Perdue

Table of Contents

Situation Analysis………………………………………3

Research………………………………………………...3

Planning………………………………………………....4

Execution………………………………………………..7

Evaluation……………………………………………….9

Timeline (GANTT Chart)………………………………11

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Situation AnalysisBackground

Since 1942, Cave Spring Volunteer Fire Department (CSVFD) has been providing the SW communities of Roanoke County with fire suppression and fire prevention services. CSVFD has approximately 60 active members with whom volunteer on a six day rotation with their designated duty team, helping to provide coverage to the Cave Spring and surrounding communities 24/7.

Issues at Hand

Cave Spring Volunteer Fire Department relies heavily on community support. Donations from community members and businesses help to provide the funding necessary to equip our volunteers with protective gear and state-of-the-art equipment. Therefore we need the communities help in providing adequate funding.

CSVFD strives to serve the members of our community with fire suppression and prevention. As a prevention tactic the department hopes to educate the public on fire/weather safety.

Lastly, the community understanding of the department as a whole is lacking. Therefore it is in our best interest to educate the public on who we are as a department and what we do for their community.

The idea of the Haunted House touches on each issue individually, although it may not fix the problem completely it will help defuse many of the situations at hand.

Research

Adequate Funding Analyze what tactics CSVFD has used in the past and decide what works and

what isn’t best suited for our needs. Research what other Volunteer Organizations may be doing to make money,

see what is working for them and what isn’t, and compare our idea to what other companies had to offer.

Educate the Public on Fire/Weather Safety

Surveys will be used to asses the current state of fire/weather education among our county

While visiting schools to talk about fire/weather safety, analyze what they are receptable too the most and which they have a hard time understanding

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Research Fire prevention programs and asses other departments who have done similar safety education for their public

Educate the Public on CSVFD- Who We Are and What We Do

Surveys will be used to asses the current state of fire/weather education among our county

While talking with community members ask them about their local fire department assessing their knowledge

Research Volunteer Departments, other than your own, and analyze what type of things they had to do so that they could grow in community support

PlanningGoals

Our goal is to promote public safety awareness, while also using this time to build a relationship between the department and the community. While this event is strictly by donations only, we hope to raise money during the event to put towards necessities.

Objectives

Increase public knowledge on fire/weather safety by 20% Obtain at least 20 emails/ mailing addresses to send out our bi-monthly

newsletters Gain 3 pledges that have said they will donate $100+

Target Audience

Our target audience mainly focuses on two crowds, teenagers and families.

Alexis Smith Background

Age: 16 Education: Junior in High

School Location: Urban

Family: Mom and Dad, younger brother, older sister.

Communication: Text, social Favorite singer: Taylor Swift Favorite Stores: Forever 21,

Modcloth Fears: Spiders, snakes

Favorite Food: Pepperoni Pizza Favorite Book: Hunger Game

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Series Favorite Show: The Office

Motivation:

Personality Traits: outgoing, energetic, intelligent, personable,

social, dedicated, athletic, studious. Goals: get good grades, get into

college, go the championship with her doubles partner, get scholarship

for tennis, graduate high school with honors, become captain of the

tennis team senior year. Challenges: Time management,

social drama, balancing social life and tennis,

Marketing

Messaging: Facebook, texting, word of mouth, twitter, focus

on making it scary and not lame.

Pitch: Experience your worst nightmares come to life

Daniel Miller Background

Age: 43 Education: Doctor of Dental

Medicine Career: Dentist Location: Urban

Income: $100,000 Family: Married, father of two

boys (ages 9 and 11) Communication: Text, social,

email Favorite Musician: Bruce

Springsteen Favorite Movie: Forest Gump

Fears: not being successful, not being a good father, heights.

Favorite Stores: Davidson Men’s Clothing

Motivation:

Personality Traits: soft spoken, kind, funny, generous.

Goals: To be a good father, open up his own dental practice.

Challenges: balancing work and family, speaking his mind,

confrontation, easily stressed, can be seen as a push over.

Marketing

Messaging: Email, flyers, and word of mouth.

Pitch: A fun filled night for the whole family, come out to a

haunted house and a chance for your family to learn about

public safety.

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Specific Strategies

Set up an information’s booth, there the community members will be able to come by and inquire about the fire department and what it has to offer

Set up a Fire Prevention booth and/or fire safety trailer that will give attendees the opportunity to learn about public safety

The haunted house is also used as a scare tactic for public safety, show scenes that could happen in real life if you weren’t safety conscious

Have a “Fill the Boot” campaign during the event to raise money for the department

Take donations at the door of the haunted house Set up a Recruitment booth for interested parties who want to learn more

about volunteering Use interactive learning techniques, such as the fire safety trailer, to keep

kids interested in the lessons being taught

Execution

Step 1: Create a page on the website specifically dedicated to the haunted firehouse. This page will have a detailed description of the event; photos of the decorations as they go up, personalized messages from different Firemen inviting community members to join them, and information about the firehouse as well. The website will also contain links to Facebook, Twiiter, and Instagram, as well as the email address info@cavespringfire.org in case anyone who is not currently on the email list would like to join to receive the email updates. The page will go live on the first day of Fall, September 22nd, 2016.

Step 2: Create a Facebook Event. Cave Spring Volunteer First Department already has a Facebook Page that everyone can go like but we would make an event for the haunted firehouse. On this page we would make updates using mainly photos and videos of the haunted house. The event page would be created during the time the firehouse will begin decorating so sneak peaks and hints of what is to come would be posted to attract community members. Another feature of the Facebook page would be to post how each room of the haunted house relates to fire safety. Just enough information would be uploaded to gain the audiences’ attention but not give all the fun surprises away. Items would be posted on Facebook every other day until a week away from the event, where it will be then switch to post at least once a day.

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Facebook Example: Your deepest darkest fears come alive with the Cave Spring Volunteer Fire Department. On October 31st 2016 bring the whole family and walk through the firehouse that has been transformed into a chilling haunted mansion. For our younger visitor we will be having fun interactive public safety talks with a few of our fire fighters. The doors will open at 5:00 pm and will run until 10:00pm, we will be taking donations at the door all proceeds will go to the Cave Spring department. For more information visit our website at cavespringfire.org or call at 540-772-2043.

Step 3: Boost Add on Facebook. In addition to creating a Facebook event we will boost an add on Facebook. This will allow us to choose the audience we want to reach and make sure it is attracting people who may not yet have seen the Facebook event. The first boost will take place at the start of advertising in September for four days. The second boost will come for the week leading up to the event.

Step 4: Tweet Using the Cave Spring Volunteer Fire Department’s existing Twitter account we will tweet every Friday leading up to the event. We will be using the hash tag #burnedalive in order to spark people’s interest in the event.

Twitter Example:

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Step 5: Create an Instagram. We will be creating an Instagram account so we can show the fun elements of the haunted house. Not only will we post the basic event information, every other day as the decorations go up a photo or video will be posted to show the transformation of the firehouse. Through Instagram we will also be introducing the different themes of the rooms that relate to public safety. Each time a new room is created a photo will share a glimpse of what it looks like as well as releasing a fact about public safety that corresponds with it.

Instagram Example:

Your deepest darkest fears come alive with the Cave Spring Volunteer Fire Department. On October 31st 2016 bring the whole family and walk through the firehouse that has been transformed into a chilling haunted mansion. The haunted house will run from 5 to 10pm. We will have fun interactive public safety events for our younger crowds.

Step 6: Create a Constant Contact account dedicated to the haunted firehouse. This email list will be comprised of the community members who are on the Cave Spring monthly email update list. This Constant Contact page will show festive pictures, basic information, and contain links to our social media. We will send an initial email and then a reminder email.

Constant Contact Example:

Step 7: Social Media Challenge. Each week on Friday we will hold “Share, Retweet, and Like” challenges. We will post the information we wish to be shared or liked

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over the different social media channels. The first person that shares, retweets, or likes it will get to have an active role in the haunted house (someone who gets to scare the guest). The three runners-up each week will receive Cave Spring give away items at the event.

Evaluation

In order to see how successful the campaign was will evaluated multiple different aspects of it.

As Admin we will be tracking the number of shares our Facebook posts get. We will see how successful are campaigning was based on how many individuals shared it on their personal page.

With Facebook we will also be looking at how many likes and comments our posts are getting to gauge how many people are viewing the event.

An important element on our event page will be the attending, maybe attending, or not attending options. This will allow us to see not only if we are reaching people but also making them want to come to the haunted house.

A great tool will be the Facebook Boost because we will know how many people and who we are reaching since we will be selecting our audience.

With Twitter we plan to see how many people are not only retweeting us each week but also how many people are utilizing our hash tag.

We plan search Twitter’s Top Tweets following our post each Friday to see if people are talking about the fire department.

With Instagram we will look to see how many people are not only liking our photos but commenting on them as well.

After we send our Constant Contact emails we will look for a spike in our social media in order to see if those are leading people to follow us on other sites.

During our social media challenges we will look to see how many people are participating and if we are getting more followers from the shared information.

On the day of the event we will be able to see how many people attend, which will be the true teller of how successful our campaign was.

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