5. Planning phase

• Determine your target audience
  You must determine your target audience. Is it the whole community? Schools? Restaurants? Local stores?
• Determine who will do what
  Determine roles within your group. Someone should be in charge of developing communication materials, others should contact the media, and others should check to see if permits are needed for the types of activity you are planning.
• Determine cost
  Figure out all of the cost involved in implementing your activity, including printing materials to hand out, telephone calls, giveaways or materials needed for specific activities (e.g. if you are going to clean up the city you will need gloves and garbage bags). Come up with a budget and make sure you can cover it.
• Set a date
  Be realistic and set a date that allows you enough time to plan your activity. You may want to select a significant day like: Kick Butts Day, World No-Tobacco Day, or the Great American Smokeout.
• Let people know about the event
  Plan to launch your communications campaign two-weeks before the event. Use posters and flyers, but also word of mouth. Tell your friends, be enthusiastic about it and let them know it will be a great event. Develop messages that will motivate thousands of youth across your community to take action in the fight against tobacco. Be proactive. Go to your school, clubs, sports teams, community center, parks and even the streets to get the word out. Promote your event and try to recruit new advocates at other popular locations—concerts, sporting events, the mall or the movie theater. Hand out information to let people know how they can get involved—place, time and event—all the details! The key to recruitment is to communicate the details of your event to as many people as possible—let everyone you can think of know what’s going on! Make sure you are portraying everything as FUN, youth-led and exciting to be a part of! Also, let them know the benefits of getting involved. If there are some giveaways available for your event, make that clear —everybody likes free stuff and food!

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