Results from the 2007 Getting Attention Nonprofit Marketing Survey provide a snapshot of key trends and benchmarks for nonprofit marketing and communications drawn from communicators working in or with nearly 350 nonprofit organizations and foundations.
Here are some of the key findings:
- Only 37% of Nonprofits Track Marketing Impact, but without that Data You’re Driving Blind – Implement a Marketing Evaluation Plan Today. Over 60% of you don’t evaluate the impact of your communications work, so you have no idea what’s working and what’s not, or how to target your resources.Evaluation – which is challenging and limited in terms of branding and building awareness but easily executed for motivating action (giving, advocating, volunteering, requesting more information) is just as crucial as getting your campaigns out there.Strategies range from the purely qualitative – such as a communications audit and audience research via focus groups – to the quantitative such as counts of unique visitors to Web page A versus page B, or advocates who emailed their representatives in response to e-campaign A vs. e-campaign B.Without it, you’re basically throwing your marketing resources into thin air. So build evaluation into every marketing budget and job description. Here are some quick tips on evaluating your nonprofit marketing: How to Defend Your Marketing Budget and Marketing and Communications Audit 101. I’ll continue to cover evaluation in future issues of Getting Attention. Let me know – specifics, please – what you need to learn most about.
- Most 2007 Marketing Agendas Focus on these 5 Opportunities: Over 50% of nonprofit communicators are focused on two or more of the following initiatives this year:
- Targeting campaigns to specific audience segments
- More audience research to track ROI and impact (Not outputs – press coverage or letters mailed – but what one respondent calls “uptake” – how campaigns build awareness and/or motivate action)
- Training colleagues, volunteers and board members on marketing plans and messages (they’re marketers, too). One respondent strategically calls this her “internal marketing campaign.”
- Better integrating now confusing silos of communications – so that general program and organizational marketing is coordinated with fundraising, membership and volunteer communications.
- Experimenting with Web 2.0 social networking channels to find out what works, and what doesn’t – from MySpace to podcasts and video blogs.
- 2006 Marketing Successes Many and Varied – from Surpassing Fundraising Goals and Gaining Leadership Buy-In to Consistent, Pithy Messaging. 95% of respondents had one or more significant success to report. Almost 80% cited three or more significant marketing successes. Examples include:
- Launching a blog
- Developing, and using, a communication calendar
- Attracting some new and engaged board members
- Creating new earned income streams
- Placing high-profile op-eds
- Garnering colleagues’ trust
These are just a very few of the hundreds of marketing successes cited by survey respondents. They show me how many ways its possible to increase the impact of your nonprofit’s marketing, even without an increase in resources.
- Nonprofit Marketers Want to Hurdle these Barriers Faced in 2006.
- 55% percent of participating communicators cited lack of resources and leadership support as the greatest barriers to marketing success.
- 32% cited lack of clarity in messaging and marketing agenda.
- 52% are frustrated at not meeting fundraising, media coverage or other marketing goals.
- Single-Pointed Focus on Strengthening Ties with Target Audiences, but few Innovative Ideas for Doing So – Get Cracking on Scouring the Marketing Landscape. Over 35% of the nearly 400 survey respondents cite strengthening relationships with target audiences as a top priority. But few have strategies in mind to make it happen.Remember, strategies don’t just come to you. You have to invent or discover them. I urge you to start (and keep) scouring the for-profit (and nonprofit) marketing landscapes for best practices, and the wider world for jumping off points for messaging, and trends critical to the issues your organization covers.
- More on Survey Respondents
- These findings are derived from survey responses provided by 347 communicators working in, or consulting with, nonprofit organizations and foundations.
- Survey respondents work in a variety of positions as follows:
47% Marketing and Communications 15% Leadership 15% Fundraising 6% Board Members 17% Other Roles - They work in a broad range of issue areas:
29% Human Services 25% Education 20% Civil Society (civil rights, community, advocacy, philanthropy) 17% Arts & Culture 9% Other (international, spiritual, service) - The data was collected January through March 2007, via an online survey.
