Guest Writer | Ginger Rozmus

Get to know your organization

Effective marketing relies on accurate information about an organization’s internal composition, external position in the market and target audiences.  But you don’t have to hire a big expensive research firm to find out this information.  Conduct an audit yourself, capitalizing on your closest resources – clients, donors, volunteers and staff.  Hold one-on-one interviews, focus groups, send out personalized questionnaires or phone them.  This will help bring people closer to you and increase their sense of value within the organization, and will allow you to find out what’s working and what needs to be improved.  Your ultimate goal is to uncover how you could do a better job serving your target audiences, which will make your organization more sustainable in the long term.

Conducting a SWOT Analysis is a good way to understand your internal and external situation while providing focus for marketing activities.  Gather a group of key stakeholders together to brainstorm the following for areas:

1. Strengths:  What advantages does the organization have? What does the organization do well? What relevant resources do we have access to? What would other people see as our strengths?
2. Weaknesses:  What could the organization improve or work on? What do we do poorly? What should we avoid? What do other people see as our weaknesses? Do our “competitors” do something better than us?
3. Opportunities:  What are some interesting trends? Changes in government policy? Changes in technology? Changes in social patterns, population profiles, lifestyle changes? Other events we could link up with?
4. Threats:  What are some obstacles we face? What is our “competition” doing? Are there changes in technology that could negatively impact us? Changes in social patterns, population profiles, lifestyle changes that might hinder our success?

Market with a ‘mission.’

An organization’s mission is the fundamental base from which all marketing activities should evolve.  If you already have an accurate mission, great!  If not, or if your current mission needs to be revised, this should be one of your first steps to creating a strategic marketing plan.  Ultimately a mission should include the following components:

1. Stakeholders or groups served.
2. Need or cause being addressed.
3. Strategy for addressing the cause and serving stakeholders.

Once the mission is in place, you should be able to draft clear and relevant marketing objectives that will allow the organization to reach its goals.

Segment your sites

We all know that the days of marketing to the general public are about as common as an 8-track player in an El Camino.  It’s virtually impossible to set your sites on everyone so segmenting your marketing strategies is critical.  In the non-profit sector, you will likely have four main stakeholder groups: clients; donors; volunteers; and constituents.  Within each of these groups you will have current and new target audiences – keeping current stakeholders satisfied is just as important as attracting new ones because they will become key sources for funding and spreading the good word about your organization’s mission in the community.

The better you know and describe your stakeholders, the more effective your marketing activities will be.  Come up with profiles of your internal and external ideal target audiences by determining demographic and psychographic characteristics and customizing marketing efforts to meet their specific needs.  These characteristics could include:

•          Current and/or potential role within the organization
•          What they know or don’t know about your cause
•          Charitable giving habits, history with the organization
•          Income level, social status
•          Age, sex (if applicable)
•          Where they live, work and play (recreational activities)
•          Lifestyle preferences
•          Motivational factors, what’s important to them
•          Career and family status

A common misperception about target audience segmentation is that an organization is limiting itself and alienating other potential targets. This simply isn’t the case because you will have far greater success with strategies that reach individuals and groups in ways that are meaningful to them.  In addition, most marketers (and fund developers) will say that it’s easier to strengthen ties with people whom you already have relationships than it is to attract new ones.  Having said that, there is always room for growth!  You should always be reviewing and revising activities to see how well they are working with your target audiences, and as your organization evolves you can add new groups to the mix.

Make ‘measurable’ moves

Just like a game of chess, each move counts and strategy is everything.  But unlike the game of chess, a non-profit’s success isn’t usually measured by cornering a king.  Instead, track your successes and failures along the way by setting measurable goals that you can review regularly and revise as required.

For profit organizations, measurement is usually fairly straightforward… how much did sales increase and how much money did you make.  For non-profits, the answer isn’t so easy because your sole “raison d’etre” is not to make a profit but to solve a community issue.  And unless you completely eliminate that issue (every non-profit’s dream), measuring success from this perspective is virtually impossible.  That’s why setting measurable goals, some of which are non-financial, is important.

An easy way to set goals is to make sure they are S.M.A.R.T.

• Specific:  Your goal should have its expected outcome stated as simply, concisely and explicitly as possible.  This answers questions such as; how much, for whom, for what?
• Measurable:  A measurable goal has an outcome that can be assessed either on a sliding scale (1-10), or as a hit or miss, success or failure, complete or incomplete.
• Achievable:  An achievable goal has an outcome that is realistic given your current situation, resources and time available.  Goal achievement may be more of a “stretch” if the outcome is tough or you have a weak starting position.
• Relevant:  A relevant goal should help you on your mission or your “bigger” objective.
• Time-bound:  A time-bound goal includes realistic timeframes.

 Of course, financial targets can also be part of this mix because a marketing plan should be closely aligned with your fund development goals.

Brand, brand, brand

While we normally think of branding as a strategy for large corporations like Coke or Nike, the same principles are important in the nonprofit sector, where there is ever-increasing competition for attention, for concern for a particular cause, for board members, volunteers and donations.  Increasingly non-profits are embrac­ing branding as a way to communicate their message and improve their develop­ment activities.  Branding is simply a marketing term used to describe how de­signers approach identity.  It’s more than just a logo; it’s the communication be­tween your organization and its target audiences.  For small organizations, your values may be considered your brand.

If you discover during your audit that the public has a misconception about your organization’s mission, you can use your new marketing strategy to communicate the correct and current information to your target audience.  Many organizations may undergo “re-branding” if priorities change.  Smaller non-profits that are undergoing significant growth may need to develop, through this planning cycle, a clear “brand” for their organization.

According to Dr. Heribert Meffert, Chairman of the Bertelsmann Foundation, brands are anchored, unmistakable images of a product or service in the minds of customers or other relevant target groups.  There are three primary purposes:

1. Risk Reduction:  Reduce risk of making wrong decisions (safety, continuity, trust)
2. Psychological Advantage:  Create a psychological benefit (prestige, group membership, self-expression, self-fulfillment)
3. Information Efficiency:  Simply information management (origin, differentiation, orientation, recognition, interpretation)

So how do you create a brand identity? The process won’t happen over night, and once you’ve determined or enhanced your identity, it needs to be shared and embraced – both externally and internally.  To start, keep in mind these three components:

1. Look:  The original brand came from ranchers who burned distinctive marks on their cattle to set them apart from the herd.  So today, many brands are associated with symbols, or a certain graphic look.
2. Lore:  A symbol is meaningless unless it represents something people know and believe about you.  You build the lore of your brand with consistent messages.  Newsletters, Web sites, brochures, speeches and other tactics should consistently present not only the same logo and colors, but the same messages reaching all audiences.
3. Life:  The brand will fail if it is only an external message strategy.  It is vital that the branding messages come from your mission and values and resonate in the culture of the organization.  Branding is not an exercise in creating an image, but in reflecting reality and, ultimately, earning a reputation.

(Source:  “Nonprofit Leader”, Tim Penning, APR, October 2003)

Assemble your communications toolbox

1. Media Kit:  To respond to media requests and inform media of newsworthy items for your organization or cause.

• Media Releases: To inform media of newsworthy information – stories with proximity, prominence, conflict/drama, timelessness or timeliness.
• Media Advisories: To announce an upcoming event for media to attend.
• Pitch Letters: To pique the interest of an editor, producer or organi­zation leader by proposing an idea, article, interview or seminar.
• PSA’s: A public service announcement about the work of your organization.
• Biographies: Additional and relevant information about key spokespeople, likely the ED and Board Chair.
• Fact Sheets: A spec sheet on the services you offer in a clean and simple format.
• Print News Clippings/Broadcast Contact Sheet: To help you ana­lyze and keep track of your media coverage as well as build credibility.

2. Collateral Materials:

• Brochures: To describe your organization or services within it.
• Newsletters: To inform your target audiences about new developments.
• Web site: To disseminate up-to-date information and act as a first point of contact.  Web sites can also be used to build constituent loyalty.

Guest Writer