marketing

You are currently browsing articles tagged marketing.

Content, distribution strategy: Marry them young

May 25, 2010 in Ideas by Betsy Garside | No comments

Reading along the other day (magazine of the International Association of Business Communicators) and this snippet caught my eye:

“…they believe they are only responsible for producing content. It’s someone else’s job to distribute it.”

This is the tip of a classic iceberg, often found floating around nonprofits: “If we write it, they’ll read it, right?” Or, “I’m finished with the project, here’s the publication.”  Or, “That’s the communication department’s job.” That sense that the program or development work lay in researching the issue, or defining the policy position, or creating the content. That feeling that getting the message out to someone, or having a plan for activating a key person or audience, or being in charge of a distribution strategy, is not really part of the project, it’s an add-on.

This is like carefully wrapping a beautiful present, not labeling it, then leaving it at the curb and hoping that someone delivers it to the person for whom it’s intended.

Not only is distribution or a marketing communication strategy part of the project, the results of that strategy are usually why you’re doing the project in the first place. You want someone to read that report and be moved to action, right? So when you sit down to plan out the research report, or magazine, or website you are going to produce, here’s a great question to answer right then and there: Why?

“I’m going to produce a 48-page study on the effects of trees on urban spaces.” Why?

“We’re revamping the entire website.” Or “We’re setting up a separate website for the international division.” Why?

“We’re going to get that new intern to tweet for the organization.” Why?

If there is content, there must be a strategy for delivering it — with impact — to its intended audiences. Without that, you’ve just created a great paperweight, or designed a website that no one will visit. “Why?” isn’t the only question to ask; it is, however, a great place to start.

Tags: ,

Seth Godin jabs nonprofit marketing

September 16, 2009 in Ideas by Betsy Garside | No comments

It’s a good thing when a great marketing mind takes a look at nonprofit marketing. In his post yesterday, The Problem with Non, Seth Godin got actively upset about nonprofit marketing. In a general way, I’m with him: The social-good sector has to change the way it thinks about marketing.

In the specific, it seems Seth jumps over some realities. U.S. nonprofits operate –and are measured and regulated — inherently differently than corporations; they build community on a different basis. Marketing an organization or an idea is not exactly the same as marketing a company or a product. And that’s fine . . . so long as organizations embrace strategic approaches to marketing that have been proven to work in this sector. There are good examples out there of groups using old and new media strategically and well, blending the time-tested with the shiny new approaches.

For many years, to “market” meant running a direct mail program, then maybe having a website too.  If your organization is doing only that today, it is losing ground. Now — as the lines between philanthropy and program development get fuzzier, and the marketing opportunities widen out into totally new channels — is the time to revisit what it means to market your organization or cause.

I’m perhaps more of an optimist than Seth. Every day, I see organizations tackling this challenge. This is not easy, for all the internal and external reasons Seth cites (and then some). So I say, kudos to any and all organizations out there who are defining more ambitious new strategies for marketing. It’s work worth your time.

Tags: , ,

How to break down marketing silos at your nonprofit

August 15, 2009 in Ideas, News by Betsy Garside | No comments

I spoke at the Bridge Conference here in D.C. in July, tackling something familiar to ANYONE who’s done marketing at or for a nonprofit: Silos, those pernicious, often impenetrable walls that divide and thus limit marketing efforts by development, membership, program and communications staff.

To prepare, I went and talked to several very smart people who’ve been successfully marketing their organizations. “How do you break down silos, or work around them?” I asked. “What causes them in the first place, and does knowing where they come from tell us anything about solutions?”

The answers I got were thoughtful and very pragmatic. And when I arrived at the Bridge Conference, I faced a roomful of people who needed those practical strategies. We turned the session into somewhat of a workshop (it was very early in the morning, and none of us wanted me to stand up there and preach). My stated goal was for each of us — myself included — to walk out with at least one new idea. I certainly did, and the participants told me they did too. The silo-busting ideas in the room were fantastic, ranging from strategies relating to personnel management, organizational alignment and — my favorite — the value of giving something up.

The bottom line is that an organization operating in silos is less efficient than it could be with both its program and marketing dollars. Staff who are thinking about strategic marketing — and those in that conference room ranged from mid-level to CEO — are aware of the missed synergies. They know that they are dribbling away the power of a unified brand every time stories don’t quite match up, or the website and the e-newsletter look different, or the ask from development is different from the membership ask.

So for all of you who want the most power out of your organization’s marketing effort: What’s YOUR latest silo-busting idea?

Tags: , , , ,

Unmanaged nonprofit brands: The Sharpie speaks

June 2, 2009 in Ideas by admin | No comments

I was talking to a friend at a good-sized nonprofit here in DC last week. “We don’t really have a brand,” he said.

Don’t really have a brand, I thought. That’s not possible.

A organization’s brand is, simply, what someone thinks of that organization. Those “someones” are everyone who uses your services, donates money, sees your newsletter, reads your newsletter, stumbles on your website, hears about you in line at the coffee shop. Your brand is their perception of you.

So it’s not that you don’t have a brand. It may be that you aren’t managing your brand.

Think about it. You’ve got a Sharpie on your desk. Oooh, you think: Bright colors, thick lines, artwork on the pen looks like it’s from the 70s, great for posters, stays on the wall when the two-year-old gets hold of it. But basically, it’s the pen you want when you’re addressing the outside of a package. You and I may have reached that conclusion ourselves, but I am also pretty darn certain that Sharpie figured out their niche and has been telling us that they are the go-to pen for shipping. Sharpie (or Sanford) is managing their brand.

“Ah,” you say. “We are not a Sharpie, we are a nonprofit.” Yet are you not trying to do roughly the same sorts of things: Be the organization to fill a certain function or niche, have people buy into your message, have people recommend you and come back to you again and again?

You don’t have to manage your brand the same way the Sharpie brand-manager does. You don’t even have to call it “brand management.” But you are competing with Sharpie and all the other advertising messages out there for the limited time and attention of your audiences, and you’re probably doing that with a lot less in marketing dollars. Managing your brand is not just smart, it’s efficient.

So the statement of last week — “we don’t really have a brand” — becomes the question of the moment: “What is our brand, and who’s managing it?”

Tags: ,

If we’ve already hit bottom, shouldn’t you start marketing?

May 27, 2009 in Ideas by admin | No comments

The pundits say that March 6 was the official bottom of the market. That was — hang on — about 12 weeks ago. So if we’re officially on the way back up, isn’t it time to rev up your marketing?

There are a majillion analogies — the turtle coming out from his shell, the veil lifting, the light breaking through. Basically, people are starting to feel a bit better. And that means they may be more receptive to your ad, your e-mail campaign, your direct-mail piece. They may read your newsletter and think about supporting you again.

What are you doing to take advantage of this?? Are you rethinking your in-house ads? Doing audience research? Revamping your website? Getting everyone together in a room to talk about your summer and fall message themes?

If you need people to pay attention to you — for whatever reason — now is a better time to catch their attention. And if you want them to buy what you’re selling, now is a great time to make sure you’re out there with the strongest message possible.

Tags: