Download Marketing Essentials for a Non-Profits Marketing Basics “Marketing

Marketing Essentials for a Non-Profits
Marketing Basics
“Marketing is the process by which organizations create customers. It is the whole organization seen
from the point of view of the customer.” – Peter Drucker
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Marketing is the devices through which an organization creates value for its customers.
Human behavior is motivated by the goals they seek (dreams, hopes, economic ambitions, etc.).
o Seeks goals in three dimensions: Emotional, Functional, Economic
o Emotional are higher order – more complex and pursued over time
Marketing strategies propose the means by which our customers can achieve their goals.
Solutions should do more than just create value – must create unique solutions to the most
important problems (in competitive world).
In a competitive market: organizations compete over aspects of buyer’s knowledge
o How to define category (where consumers place you: reference point)
o How brands are perceived within this category
o Value of differences within the category and how they choose between the options
With limited resources, you simply cannot target everyone with your service, you must define
your target audience (segmentation):
o Understand who (demographics: age, gender, education, income, etc)
o is engaging is what behavior (usage: how consumer interacts with your service)
o and why (psychographics: personality traits, lifestyles, attitudes, motivations)
So, what? Why should we care?
Marketing strategies and objectives that are strategically positioned can support your non-profit to:
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Keep your mission and message in front of your customers and your competitors.
Integrate your organization’s vision with those of the community when you are perceived as an
involved agent of positive change.
Expand your leadership role as a stakeholder in the community.
Demonstrate your interest and desire to be involved in community needs.
Open doors to form alliances, increase existing partnerships and nurture champions.
Coordinate various creative, cost-effective approaches to share your success stories with your
community in your own voice.
Attract short- and long-term resources to include employees, volunteers, funders, and
prospective board members.
Build community goodwill with small businesses and other non-profit organizations that serve
the neighborhoods and communities.
Evaluate and improve the quality of the services offered and demand for those services.
Collect and assess information gained from your marketing to help you decide whether or not to
take advantage of new, need-based opportunities (new funding streams)
Generate pride in boost morale among staff within your organization.
Develop Marketing Plan
A good marketing plan helps your organization to define its goals and develop a series of activities to
achieve those goals. The key to writing a good marketing plan is to keep it simple when you start, but
return often to revise and update your marketing plan. Your marketing plan should:
First: Craft your message
Do you know your message? Do people care about your cause? Is it unique in some way? Have you
determined what separates you from the guy down the street? Have you created your brand? Before
you promote your cause, message or your brand – you have to develop one.
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Describe the Unique Solution Your Organization Provides
What services do you provide to the market. Often described as an elevator pitch, you should be
able to quickly describe your solution to a prospect within 20 seconds. Think about this as your
purpose. What need was identified in the market that led to the development of your solution.
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Define Your Target Market
Too often organizations see that their solution can serve the needs of multiple markets and they
go off trying to be everything for everyone. Ultimately this may lead to failure because they
overextended themselves and didn't successfully meet the needs of any market. Choose a welldefined market and stick to it until the market dictates a change.
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Write the Benefits of Your Services
When organizations describe their products and services, they often talk in features, or
advantages, when what the customer really wants are benefits. Features describe a product, or
service, but the benefits help your customers understand how they'll use it, and most
importantly why they will use it.
Next: Create your B.H.A.G.
Dream big. Get out a whiteboard and come up with some Big, Harry, Audacious Goals for your
marketing plan. If you had all the cash in the world and a hundred staff, what marketing efforts would
you employ? Radio? Print? Digital? Television? Internet? Whatever. Just dream big.
Then: Take inventory
Let’s be honest, your nonprofit has limitations…you also have opportunities and assets that are uniquely
yours. Do you have more time or more money? Do you have in-house talent that can “do” the things
you’ve included in your B.H.A.G. marketing ideas? Take inventory of your assets (things that help you –
budget, staffing, know-how) and your limitations (things that you have to overcome – budget, staffing,
know-how). Then, incorporate this reality into your planning – that way you can expect realistic results
from your marketing plan. Could use SWOT, market and competitive analysis format here.
Now – Write your communications plan
Taking into account your brand, your B.H.A.G.s and your realistic inventory, begin to craft your
communications plan. Take your budget and determine how much of your B.H.A.G. you can get from
your budget. Next, determine what marketing efforts can be done with your staffing and know-how.
This is where you might consider an outside creative design or marketing firm. Now, take all this and
write them down on a delivery calendar making sure that your budget is spread out to fit the calendar.
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How will You Position Your Products or Services
Take a position and defend it. For your customers to make a decision, they need to know what
you have to offer and why it is different from your competition. We see this most readily with
consumer product as companies seek to define their products and build their brand. Your
positioning defines your location in the market and will drive your price and how you market
your products or services. Finish the statement "we want to be known as ____________" and
you will have the first piece of your positioning.
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Define Your Marketing Methods
How do you plan to tell the world about your products and services? We refer to this as the
integrated marketing communications plan. The communications plan defines the methods you
will use to promote your products or services, for example, advertising, online marketing,
and/or public relations. For each of these aspects of the communications plan, you'll need to
choose the proper deliver vehicle, budget and resources to implement them. The best
communications plan is an integrated program that works together to promote a consistent
message to your customers.
Finally – Optimize your plan
Failing to put testing methods in your marketing efforts (such as landing pages, unique URLs that tie to
your website, unique phone numbers, google analytics, etc.) is a great way to waste your marketing
dollars. After all, you would hate to have gone through all this for an effective marketing plan, just to
see it flop because you didn’t measure success along the way. Testing let’s you see real time results and
helps you shift gears on a dime.
Integrated Communications Plan
The best marketing plan in the world will fail if you are unable to get the right message to your potential
customers at the right place and time. An integrated marketing communications plan matches your
available budget of time and money to the most effective means for distributing your message.
What Does Integrated Mean?
An integrated marketing communications plan has all parts of your tactics working together. For
example, if your marketing communications plan calls for print advertising, the same theme of your
print ads should be reflected on your web site. If your customer gets the same message and visual clues
in both places, they are much more likely to comprehend your marketing message. By doing this, you
will build your brand with that customer who will remember you when they are ready to buy.
Elements of the Integrated Marketing Communications Plan
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Web site: What does your web site say about your company? Is it informative and easy to use?
Your web site is available at all times, is it ready to speak for you when you are not available.
Media Strategy (media relations, advertising): Choose advertising medium(s) that gets your
message to your target audience where they are likely to receive it. Use consistent, repetitive
approach to build awareness and recall. This not only includes advertising but: opinion editorial,
press releases, features, guest columns and speakers bureau access.
Marketing Collateral: Brochures, newsletters, direct mail, flyers/posters, annual reports,
fundraising material, white papers. Your materials build and define your brand and provide the
customer with an important look at your positioning and messages.
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Online Marketing (social networking): This includes SEO enhancements, facebook, twitter,
blogs, e-newsletters, etc. Your customers are online and you should use the appropriate
methods to reach and retain them.
Public Relations: In the non-profit world and especially York County, your public image is
everything. Strategies here are all about positioning your organization in a positive light and
sharing your message to colleagues and potential clients/customers. Efforts include: Trade
shows/events, networking, activity involved in social/community concerns, volunteering, etc.
Budget and allocate resources: Your integrated marketing communications plan must have a
target budget and resources assigned to each element of the plan. Depending on the size of
your budget, you will probably need to make trade-offs between methods to achieve your goals.
In addition, you need to have the internal, or external resources aligned to carry out the plan.
Evaluation: All work plans and action items require that you put some systems in place to
monitor and evaluate your efforts. One level of monitoring will let you know whether or not
you have taken the actions that you outlined and if these were completed within the
timeframes established. The other level of monitoring will let you know whether or not the
strategies and objectives you incorporated in your marketing plan are giving your organization
the desired outcomes.
The key ingredients to each of these tools are that you have a consistent and concise message to your
key audiences. There are two tools you can use to accomplish this:
 Create a Marketing Map for your Organization
Show your organization at the center then draw lines out to show the various audiences you
deal with such as donors, board of directors, governmental organizations, staff, media, etc..
Under each audience, show the tools you use to communicate with those audiences (email,
mail, newsletters, magazines, personal meetings, press releases, word of mouth, etc).
 Create a message map for your Organization
At the center, write a key message. It should consist of 21 words that you can say out loud in
seven seconds and include the key information you would want every stakeholder to know
about you. Then include peripheral messages around the key message that reinforce your key
message, such as the history of the organization, the impact your organization has on the
community, the approach you take to get your job done, the way you do your work.
Sources:
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http://www.rd-marketing.com
Kellogg on Marketing; edited by: Alice M. Tybout; John Wiley and Sons,
Hobooken, NJ., 2010. ISBN: 978-0-470-58014-1
Lecture at Maine PR Council, April 20, 2010: Developing a strategic communications plan for
your nonprofit organization, by: Nancy Marshall, MarshallPR (www.marshallpr.com)
Contact:
Michael Froning
Program Coordinator
Coastal Healthy Communities Coalition
(207) 602-3504 or [email protected]