Great news: Komen has restored its funding to Planned Parenthood.
Follow-up Update here

Susan G. Komen for the Cure (Komen) has struck out again. Komen has acted imperiously and (much worse) carelessly against the best interests of its core stakeholders—women who benefit from its support of breast cancer screening, treatment and research—to please its major donors and nurture its political connections.

In jettisoning its mission to improve women’s health, Komen opened up the door for the ready-to-roll Planned Parenthood (PP) to step in and mobilize the network of supporters it’s nurtured and energized over recent months, who then recruited their friends and families (instantaneously, via social media) into a movement to protect women’s right to good health care—all in two days!

Busted nonprofit brand, Komen, yet again. Komen busted their brand in partnering with Kentucky Fried Chicken (dig into my case study and follow-up article and you’ll see what I mean), next in suing other organizations with “cure” in their organizational or program names, and now this. Three strikes you’re out.

Here’s What Happened

Here’s how the story is evolving:

• On January 31, 2012, the AP reported that Komen was stopping grants to Planned Parenthood. The grants were for breast screening for low-income women.
• Komen based its in its new policy preventing grants to organizations under investigation. PP is under investigation in Congress. But the holes in this justification are huge. Here’s one: Komen is funding another organization under investigation—Penn State—to the tune of $7.5 million.
• In an immediate response to this announcement, Planned Parenthood released a fundraising email to its network, which was already focused and energized by the extensive network-building PP has put in place over recent months. You can see PP’s email here.
• PP’s Stand with Planned Parenthood network took it from there to kick start a broad, outraged but hugely-productive response that swamped Facebook and Twitter. Social media tools plus the timeliness inherent in website and blog publishing enabled this groundswell of response to scale instantaneously.
• Meanwhile, radio silence from Komen. No proactive statement to take an active role in the conversation, no responses to the major news media, disappointed supporters or colleagues in the field. Nothing. (Update: Finally, 24 hours later, Komen released a guarded video featuring CEO Nancy Brinker. Brinker attempted to refocus the conversation on Komen’s care for women, but her stress on the organization’s trustworthiness and her caution to avoid dangerous distractions from the work at hand are laughable. She fanned, rather than diminished, the fire.)
• Planned Parenthood and its network filled this silent space with information on what happened, the relevance of the key issue (all womens’ right to quality health care) and what to do. Social media channels enabled the response (80-to-1 anti-Komen, pro-PP, according to Kivi Leroux Miller) to scale exponentially at a record-breaking rate.

Take a look at Kivi’s post for an overview of the conversation on social media and Beth Kanter’s online bulletin board of responses to Komen Can Kiss My Mammogram, the online fundraising campaign set up a.s.a.p. by Allison Fine.

How Komen Made Its Own Mess

“It is unconscionable that Komen would pull the healthcare rug out from under thousands of women who have no place to go but Planned Parenthood for breast exams and breast cancer-related treatment. It’s even more unconscionable that the winners of this decision are the corporate shills who will have that much more money to slap pink ribbons on yogurt and mixers in the name of breast cancer awareness.

“Mission accomplished, Komen. We are now aware of breast cancer. And now we are also aware that the Susan G Komen Foundation is more about bringing awareness to Susan G Komen and its corporate benefactors than it is about “Racing for a Cure”. Last I checked, a pink breast cancer awareness toaster isn’t a substitute for affordable chemotherapy, ” says The Guardian’s Lizz Winstead. And I couldn’t say it better.

Then Komen made it even worse by staying silent for so long, declining even interviews from major media. In doing so, and then saying not much of anything in its statement, they enabled PP to fill ears, eyes and minds,“ accidentally re-brandeding themselves as an anti-abortion organization,” according to Kivi Leroux Miller.

Komen’s failure to be honest, consistent and direct about the driver for the defunding undermines all their good work on women’s health issues, while staying out of the abortion issue morass.

What’s worse is that this behavior—refusing to be open, clear, direct and consistent about its decision making—is a pattern not a one off. Three strikes you’re out!

Komen underestimated the intelligence, focus and passion of its audiences, including those who love any woman anywhere. That’s lot of trust to lose.

How Planned Parenthood Triumphs, and So Do Women

Planned Parenthood’s PR team, well-schooled in dealing with pushback, is clearly stomping all over Komen, who was not ready for the backlash its received. PP is headed to surpass the Komen grant dollars it lost, and has generated significant support and publicity as it fills the gap.  It looks likely that PP will be able to continue providing its breast cancer services. Let’s hope so

But that’s just the tip of this iceberg. Planned Parenthood’s triumph comes from these strengths. It was (and is):

• Ready and waiting: PP is experienced in crisis management and has mobilized a strong team of grassroots advocates ready to go.
• Skilled in crisis management skills and tools: Crisis management 2012 necessitates social media focus, skills and network development. PP had all three in place which enabled the controversy to jump from a operational snafu to a national outrage within minutes.
• Honest and real: PP sticks to its brand—putting women’s health first—now and forever. I trust them now, I’ve always trusted them and I bet I’ll trust them tomorrow.

I ‘m eager to see how this controversy plays out and will keep you updated.

How would you advise Planned Parenthood to continue to build positive momentum, and Komen to repair its reputation? Please share your thoughts here.

Here’s more of Komen’s busted branding:

Part 1: Busted Nonprofit Brand: Anatomy of a Corporate Sponsorship Meltdown (Case Study)

Part 2: Guarding Your Nonprofit Brand and Guiding Your Marketing Partnerships: Principles to Follow

The stresses of the times are dramatically affecting your organization’s relationships, and that’s likely to continue through 2012. But there’s some very good news.

Despite today’s challenges, there is a way for your organization to build and strengthen vital relationships with the people whose help you need as donors, advocates, volunteers and more. Here are my guidelines for implementing a doable, proven strategy—getting personal to get relevant—that is your single most important key to marketing success in 2012.

Here’s what you know—The economy is stalled, with no improvement in sight. Jobs are scarce and instability is rampant. Beyond that, we’ve all been let down by people, institutions and processes we thought we could rely on for the duration—politicians and other leaders falling from grace, the swallowing up of social supports, and more.

What you may not realize is exactly how these factors can weaken your organization’s relationships with your supporters and prospects. Most people (and that means your target audiences, colleagues and leadership) are feeling:

• More anxious
• Less optimistic
• More skeptical of the ever-increasing barrage of content of all kinds, now delivered in more ways—online and offline.

As a result, their wants, values and preferences are changing. Your audiences are likely to be:

• More cautious, which means they are making decisions more slowly and donating the same or less
• Less likely to volunteer or participate in a program (or other non-essentials) due to budget and time restrictions
• Seeking to be understood, and the resulting connection
• Yearning for reliability and trustworthiness.

Your Solution: Get Personal to Get Relevant

Increased relevance is your absolute priority in 2012.

At a time of high stress and uncertainty, relevance is the only way to connect with your target audiences—marketing has to be more on target, messages resonate more intensely, and interaction has to incorporate choices and discussion (leave your megaphone at home). Since getting it right is rare, your doing so will be valued all the more.

It’s really very simple, and something you probably do on a personal level all the time: Getting to know and understand others with whom you want to build a friendship, learning what’s important to them and how their days go, then connecting with them by focusing on what’s important or interesting to both of you—via a platform (cell phone, text or visit), at a time that’s good for both of you. Once you get started, you factor in the way your relationship evolves to figure out the next step.

Similarly, your audiences have to feel you get them; that you understand their values, interests, wants and habits so that your messages and call to action are as meaningful to them as they are to you, that you note their responses (or lack thereof) to your outreach and adapt accordingly. You want them to think to themselves, “Yep, that’s exactly how I feel about fracking,” or “That donor’s quote is just like something I’d say.”

Your How-Tos

How to Get to Know Your Target Audiences
Here’s how to learn what’s important to your network.

NOTE: A vital prerequisite to effective personalization (you can’t be relevant without it) is having a system and processes firmly in place that ensure the quick, thorough and accurate tracking, logging and sharing of your audience profile or records.

1. Pinpoint three or fewer audiences
Those who can do the most to move your marketing goals forward in 2012, and who are most likely to do so.

Example—Target audiences for an animal shelter seeking to build its volunteer and donor base:

• Friends of current volunteers who are pet lovers
• Customers of pet-related businesses in the region
• Clients of vets in the region.

If there are meaningful and distinct groups within each audience (individuals linked by shared wants, habits, and/or perspectives that provide a stronger avenue of connection for you), segment them out (no more than three per audience).

2. Get to know your selected audiences and segments
Research their values, habits, preferences, dislikes, behaviors—including how they interact with your organization—then analyze your findings.

• Begin with each individual’s interactions with your organization, which you have (or will have) on hand. Capture and note elements such as:
• Time, date and level of donations
• Gift focus (general or program- or fund-specific)
• Event participation
• Volunteer participation
• Responses to various messages, content and formats.
• Move on to more meaty dimensions of your audiences—values, wants, priorities, preferences and interests. These insights will help you build the deep and really meaningful understanding that will enable you to connect with people at a core emotional level.

Here are six quick and inexpensive approaches to understanding your audiences’ perspective (links lead to detailed guidance):

• Develop personas or profiles that typify a member of each audience or segment
• Create an ad hoc marketing advisory group to call on—briefly—as needed when you need insight from your base
• Listen to what’s being said about your organization and team online
• Survey via brief online questionnaires, motivating participation via email and social media
• Collect information on interests and more via transaction (giving, e-news and event registration) pages and conversations
• Analyze your website usage and email stats to see who’s interested in what topics, when they read and more.

How To Capture, Manage and Share What You Learn
What you learn about your audiences is only valuable when you log, share and analyze it across your organization, in a way that’s easy to access and search.

Create, use and update regularly your robust contact database of records of your current network and prospects, where you can note all that you know.

Ask and train your colleagues to do the same. The more robust your insight into each person you’re hoping to engage, the greater your probability of doing so—if you base the form and focus of your outreach on these insights.

How to Use the Personal to Get Relevant

1. Personalize messages and content to connect
Take the understanding you’ve gained to hone your messages or content as specifically as possible to each individual, as you would in a conversation.

• Your insights enable you to craft emotional messages—we respond first through the heart, then through the head; the right brain decides, the left brain justifies—which works only when you really understand whom you’re speaking with
• Focus on the sweet spot—the overlap of your audiences’ wants and values, and those of your organization—in your messaging
• Write short. Give your network only what they need to motivate them to act, and nothing more.

2. Use the tools now inexpensively available to match each name with the right call to action
Core tools include your database, a reputable and flexible email service which enable you fine-tune your outreach:

• Segment by interest or other dimensions of your audiences: Send email A to the group of donors new in the last 6 months who don’t do anything else with your organization, and email B to those who are also volunteers.
• Test what messages, look and feel, and formats work best for each audience group, using A & B versions. Use results to shape future outreach
• Analyze your website, email and social media usage stats.

3. Go where your audiences already are
As the number of channels or platforms increases, usage patterns diversify. You must track and analyze how your network is interacting with you to ensure you’re in the right place in the right way.

The core channels for every organization are your website, e-newsletter and other e-outreach, and a Facebook presence (which must be nurtured to be of any value at all). Beyond that, your channels depend on where your audiences are, online and offline.

One 2012 priority is making your website and emails mobile device-friendly.

• Dig into your analytics (a.k.a. website and email stats) to see how many of your email and e-news lists, and site users, access these channels via cell phones and tablets.
• If that’s 20% or more of your user base, make the change pronto.
• Use these mobile design guidelines as a checklist for phone- and tablet-friendly versions of your emails and websites. Here’s another guide to mobile accessibility.

4. Stay consistent across channels
Make sure that your communications and conversations are recognizable in a flash across channels, offline and online. Consistent use of core messages and look and feel are cues to your audiences that your outreach is coming from your organization. That makes it easier for them to digest your content and act.

Inconsistency confuses, and confusion is one of the biggest barriers to attention and action.

Relevance Rules – What are Your Strategies?
I guarantee you that when you get personal to get relevant, you’ll engage more folks and strengthen existing relationships like you’ve never done before.

What are your strategies for getting to know your audiences, logging and managing those insights and putting them to work? Please share them here.

Now that you know what happens when control of your nonprofit’s message passes from your organization to your audiences, you’ve got to do something about it (see They Said What? for details). Here are three strategies that will ensure your organization works this all-voices-have-equal-weight conversation to its advantage:

1.  Start To Monitor All Channels, All the Time

Your nonprofit may have once counted on a clipping service to capture print and broadcast coverage of your organization. But what’s equally – if not more – and comments on your org – on websites, Twitter, Facebook, blogs and other channels.

Effective listening will help your org: (hat tip to WeAreMedia.org)

• Be able to better serve your target audience by knowing what they’re saying to others and to you.
• Be able to respond to and/or engage critics.
• Stay on top of the latest development in your area of work.

Here’s how you can automate a process to monitor online coverage – of your org, key leaders and issues, and the issue area in which you work:

>>Set up Google Alerts to alert you – via email – to content on your org and leaders.

In addition, you can use these alerts services for updates on coverage of keywords and phrases in your issue areas, and of partner and competitive organizations. Google Alerts does miss some mentions, but picks up a huge amount of relevant content.

>>Search Twitter every few days to see what’s tweeted about your org and other key terms.

>>Use Technorati - a search engine of blog content – to check for blog coverage of your organization.

Not all blog content is indexed by Google or Yahoo. Technorati is as comprehensive as it gets, at this point.

>>Check your nonprofit on Wikipedia.  If you haven’t already searched for your organization, on the Internet’s open source encyclopedia, do so today. Wikipedia allows users to research a subject and add their own information.

I just researched several nonprofits, and it quickly became apparent that there’s a lot of content here that didn’t come from those organizations. For example, the Sierra Club entry goes into detail on the battle of a reduction into its mission. The article’s accuracy been disputed but the main Sierra Club has not joined the conversation.

Look up your organization, and check back frequently (once every two weeks). If there’s something missing that people should know about, add it. You’ll have the option of registering as a contributor which allows you to remain an anonymous poster.

Wikipedia is a popular place. You can be sure that some prospective donors, volunteers, members and clients are learning about your nonprofit here. Make sure you know what they’re learning.

>>Use Google Reader (Or Use Another RSS Reader) to synthesize content from the blogs (and some websites) that cover your nonprofit or issues regularly.

Who has time to dive into a hundred sites or blogs on a regular basis? Tools like Google Reader enable you to easily read key content from blogs (and more and more websites) that you need to know about.

Once you identify the sources that cover your organization or field, Google Reader synthesizes all the new blog posts and website content on a single web page. You just read it, clip content (for later use) or email it to a colleague.

2.  Build Internal Support For User-Generated Content, Listening, and Active Participation

Once you start to scan, and find what’s out there on your nonprofit, you’ll have some proofs of the importance of nurturing this conversation (it’s going to happen anyway, so you might as well embrace it). It’s likely you’ll need to convince your boss or leadership why to support these conversations, and you have the data to do it.

But your work goes beyond support:

• Make sure you and your leadership are listening to what you hear. It’s all too easy to dismiss unwelcome comments as unimportant or one person’s opinion. The fact is that, if those comments are online, that opinion is accessible far and wide.
• Focus your communications on strengthening your nonprofit’s credibility. If your audiences don’t trust your organization, they’ll ignore what you have to say.
• Evolve your organizational voice to one that’s warmer and more passionate, so that your audiences will develop a more genuine connection with your organization.

3.  Participate, Participate, Participate – After You Develop a “Conversation Policy”

You’ve got to participate in the online conversations that are important – to show you’re listening, to add your perspective and, sometimes, to set the record straight.

It’ll be impossible for your organization to respond to every conversation about it, and a bad use of your time. Even though it can be so difficult not to shoot back a knowledgeable response to a cutting (and uninformed) remark, you want to ensure your response achieves what you want. And you need to ensure that your responses are consistent with your nonprofit’s values and mission.

I suggest that you outline, and train colleagues on:

>> What your organization will respond to:

• Format wise (blogs, message boards).
• From which organizations or individuals.
• On what topics.

>>Who will respond?

• Many organizations have one person responding, with colleagues alerting her to online “finds.”

>>What to say, in what tone?

>>When to step out of a conversation?

>>Which comments and conversations to report out to colleagues?

When you take these three steps to strengthen your nonprofit’s online presence (beyond your own site), you’ll ensure your org is aware of what’s being said about it, and participates when it makes sense. It’s a no-choice addition to today’s communications to-dos.

More messaging guidance

Messaging is one of the most overlooked and under appreciated nonprofit marketing strategies there is. That was confirmed in spring 2009 via our messaging survey of more than 900 nonprofit communicators. Just 16% of respondents said their messages connect with their target audiences (a.k.a. network)!

This is a huge loss, as effective messaging has significant ROI (return on investment). Creating engaging messages requires a minor (if any) financial investment and a moderate investment of time, and offers tremendous returns. But without messaging that connects, you’ll get nowhere with your marketing.

I hear from many nonprofit communicators who do believe in the power of messaging, but just don’t know where to start. This article guides you through crafting the four cornerstones of your nonprofit’s messaging—your message platform.

Three Must-Dos Before You Shape Your Message Platform

Take these three steps to ensure relevancy, the essence of messages that connect.

1. Clarify your top one to three communications goals—what you want to achieve; the action you want folks to take to get you there.
2. Identify whom you need to engage to do so (your target audiences; no more than three groups at the priority level).
3. Get to know what’s important to your network (wants, values and preferences) so you can articulate what’s in it for them and ensure no barriers stand in your way to engaging them, and learn how best to reach them.

The Four Cornerstones of a Nonprofit Message Platform that Connects

When you’ve completed the three must-dos outlined above, you’re ready to draft, or refine, your organization’s messaging.  These four components are the cornerstones of a strong message platform.

Be aware that although these elements are presented in a linear manner here, the message development process is cyclical rather than linear. For example, what you learn in building out your key messages and related support points may highlight an element that needs to be incorporated into your positioning statement. Design your timeline, and roles and responsibilities, for this process with that in mind.

1. Tagline

Value
Extends your organization’s name to convey its unique impact or value with personality, passion and commitment, while delivering a memorable and repeatable message to your network.

Definition
Running no more than eight words, the tagline is your organization’s single most used messaging component. An effective tagline provides enough insight to generate interest and motivate your reader/listener to ask a question, without providing too much information so that she thinks she knows everything she needs to and doesn’t want to read more or continue the conversation.

How to Use
Exactly as written in print, online and verbal communications, including business cards and email signatures.

Examples

• Organization: Homeboy Industries (workforce development and gang prevention)
• Tagline: Nothing Stops a Bullet Like a Job

• Organization: Houston Food Bank
• Tagline: Filling pantries. Filling lives.

2. Positioning Statement

Value
Connects your organization with those you want to engage by 1) linking it with what’s important to them; and 2) differentiating it from others competing for their attention, time and dollars.

Definition
A one to three sentence statement that positions your organization most effectively in the environment in which you work. It conveys the intersection of what your organization does well, what it does better and differently than any other organization (uniqueness), and what your network cares about.

Key components of your positioning statement are:

• What you do.
• For whom (whom do you serve).
• What’s different about the way you do your work.
• Impact you make (something tangible, like a stat, is compelling here, see example below).
• Unique benefit derived from your programs, services and/or products.

Most, importantly, this is not your mission statement. Your mission statement is internally oriented and serves as your organizational road map. Your positioning statement connects your mission with what’s vital to your network, so must be externally oriented.

How to Use
Exactly as written in all print and online communications (with the exception of the occasional narrowly-focused flyer or mini-site).

Examples

• The Legal Aid Society has worked for 128 years to stabilize and improve the lives of poor individuals and families in New York City. Over 900 Legal Aid attorneys provide free civil, criminal defense and juvenile rights advice and representation to 300,000 clients annually, tackling issues as diverse as eviction defense, Medicare rights and wrongful conviction. Through approaching complex problems with an innovative and holistic blend of legal and social services, The Legal Aid Society makes a real and lasting difference in the lives of its clients and their families.
• The Rural Women’s Health Project (RWHP) designs and delivers health education training and materials to help rural women and their families strengthen their understanding of critical health and family issues. By blending innovative techniques with a collaborative approach, RWHP has built a record of success in improving the health and well-being of the communities they serve.

3. Key Messages or Talking Points

Value
Succinctly elaborate on your positioning statement and provide the necessary proof required for validation, while enabling you to tailor your messaging to specific groups within your network.

Definition
A set of four to six key messages that build on the information conveyed in your positioning statement and respond to most common questions asked by your current and prospective network.

Most talking points should run no more than two sentences. Develop a set at the organizational level first; and follow (if needed) with sets for specific target audiences, programs and/or campaigns.

Be prepared with supporting points (a.k.a. proof points) for each talking point.

How to Use

• Use in both written and verbal conversation.
• However, talking points do not represent the exact words that must be used (especially in conversation), but rather convey the essential ideas to be conveyed. They can be customized for greater impact–to the specific interchange, the interests of the person you’re speaking with or emailing, and/or the topic of conversation.

Examples
Note proof points associated with the talking points in each example.

• Beverage Container Recycling
• Walk to School
• Texas Commission on the Arts

4. Elevator Pitch

Value
Enables you to transform any social contact (not just those that take place in an elevator) into a conversion opportunity (asking for more information, scheduling a call, etc.) in 60 seconds or less.

These are the four steps to get there. Start with step one and end with step four, but the order of steps two and three can vary:

1. The lead-in. This is where you introduce yourself and your role in your organization to set up the conversation. It’s intended to spark the interest of the person you’re speaking with.
2. The differentiator. This identifies your organization as providing a unique resource valued by the person you’re speaking with, one that deserves immediate attention.
3. The hook. This is an open-ended conversation starter that allows you to assess the prospect’s interest level.
4. The call to action. This is the request to schedule a follow-up call to discuss the matter further, make an online contribution or participate in a meeting on the issue, thereby making the conversion. Make it specific, clear and doable (e.g. don’t ask too much, especially in an initial conversation).

NOTE: It’s vital that the “pitcher” is adept at following the lead of his conversational partner to make the most of the short period he has. Role playing is an effective way to build this skill.

Examples

Hi, I’m Mora Lopez. I’m a senior at Santa Fe High School and a volunteer with Open Door. We host workshops at our school so that adults can learn English. We’re the only free adult ESL class in town.

Do you know that out of the 30 million adults who are below basic reading and writing levels, almost 40% are Hispanic? Our participants report back that learning English has made a remarkable difference in their lives, both professionally and personally, and we want to grow the number of students we can handle.

Can you join us next Tuesday night at the high school for a one-hour community brainstorming session on recruiting volunteers to grow the program?

19 Elevator Pitches for Good Causes
These video clips of elevator pitches for organizations like yours are useful models. You’ll know at a gut level what works and what doesn’t.

Now It’s Your Turn—Next Steps

Your next step is to inventory your organization’s current message platform against this checklist:

• What elements are in place as defined above (or near enough)?
• For those that are in place, were they created based on the three “must-dos” outlined at the beginning of this article?
  • If yes, you have some of the four cornerstones already in place.
  • If no, you’ll need to start at the very beginning, with your positioning statement.
• For those cornerstones you need to revise, or create for the first time:
  • Start with clarifying your communications goals.
  • Identify those you need to engage to meet those goal, and get to know them.
  • Start shaping your cornerstones based on this framework.

What’s holding you back from effective messaging? Please share your message development challenges here.

More Messaging Guidance

• The Tagline Focus Project — Small group and one-on-one learning (from your desk) to emerge with a tested tagline.
• Nonprofit Marketing Crisis: Survey Shows Messaging Fails to Connect With Key Audiences
• The 9 Questions to Ask: Is Stronger Messaging the Answer to Your Org’s Problem

Effective marketing is rooted in strong relationships with the right target audiences – those with whom your organization shares wants and/or values. No contest on that.

Assuming that’s so (it is!) content marketing—creating and distributing relevant, mission-based content to your target audiences—is the best way to strengthen those ties and raise the engagement level of your target audiences. It’s nonprofit marketing par excellence this year and going forward.

Content marketing is being used by nonprofits as diverse as The Arthritis Foundation, Environmental Working Group and Feeding America to 1) strengthen existing relationships and 2) acquire new donors, volunteers and other supporters.

Content Rules Rules – Your Core Guide to Content Marketing

I just finished reading Content Rules (partner link) by Ann Handley (Marketing Profs.com ) and C.C .Chapman. It’s a terrific how–to guide to shaping and maintaining a stream of content that is right for your organization, engages your target audiences, establishes your organization as an expert in your field and provides a reason for them to share your name and site, and come back themselves again and again.

That’s what the Environmental Working Group does so well with its safe cosmetics database, consumers guide to pesticides in produce and cell phone radiation guides; Feeding America has released two extensive research studies Hunger in America and “Map the Meal Gap.” These studies educate readers about the growing presence of hunger in America and detail food insecurity rates for each county, according to the Nonprofit Times. They show how crucial the organization’s mission is, engaging current audiences and opening the door for new supporters who might not have responded to more traditional marketing and fundraising outreach.

The Arthritis Foundation in Atlanta increases its membership appeal by offering a free guide to arthritis medication with a subscription to its Arthritis Today magazine. And the Nonprofit Times reports that The American Diabetes Association membership package includes a buyer’s guide to diabetes supplies, a subscription to Diabetes Forecast, and recipes for healthy eating.

Win-win-win-win.

That challenge is this – without a systematic approach – implementing effective content marketing is an overwhelming challenge.

Handley and Chapman lay out 11 rules for organizations to follow for content marketing success. Here are the 4 steps you need to start strong:

1) Build a Campfire

But put away your matches.

In the context of content marketing, a campfire is a metaphor for developing your content library. To build a successful campfire, you need to begin with ignitable tinder and gradually add more and more wood until you have a roaring fire. It’s the same with content.

But before you even start that campfire, you know what your goal is – to build a fire. You’ll need to set clear goals for your content marketing program, so you know where you’re trying to go with it—and the target audiences you must engage to meet that goal.

Most importantly, with so many channels, formats and types of content options “it is essential to establish a solid foundation for your content strategy rather than randomly gathering content and hoping it all ignites in the end.”

2) Keep the Fire Going

Starting the campfire is just the beginning. Now you have to keep it going.

So rather than thinking of your content creation/release process as a one off, consider it an ongoing process. Here’s how:

• Develop a broad theme, such as guides to environmental health or accessible summaries of the latest research on the disease your nonprofit funds research on.

And/or

• Work from existing content – particularly if your organization is producing content already on an ongoing basis, like the Environmental Working Group’s guides to healthy personal care and cleaning products or the Peak Performance performing arts series at Montclair State University’s program notes and recordings of post-performance discussions with the artists.

Then, rather than release the whole report or series at once, break it down into more digestible chunks that you drip out over time.

No matter which approach you take, always be on the look out (and ask – and train – your colleagues to do so too, this is an all-org effort). Look for relevant content generated by programs, audience feedback, research and other sources. That’s the content that your network will share with their networks, offering huge potential to grow your organizations base of supporters!

What information or story can you share with your network that shows your value and impact, rather than telling it?

3) Sparks are Meaningful – Do Something Unexpected

It’s important for your organization to be able to shake things up a bit with your content, as long as you stay within the comfort level of your leadership.

For example, if all your content is written, then make a few short videos or podcasts, or upload a photo slideshow. If you tend to write long, experiment with writing short.

When you make an effort to be more creative (without going overboard), your network will appreciate it greatly and are likely to pay more attention to these sparks. It’s human nature to be more engaged by variety than by repetition.

Content Rules shares a great example–Agilent’s “Puppet Chemistry” video. The company is actually one of the world’s premiere measurement companies, making products such as atomic spectroscopies, bioanalyzers, and liquid chromatographers.

You’d think that they would have a hard time trying to come up with engaging and creative content for their products. But, in creating this video, Agilent (which realizes that their products are not that accessible or interesting to most) showcases that understanding and its sense of humor. It worked!

4) Speak from the Heart—Be Human

It is absolutely crucial your voice is human, not corporate-speak or robotic. But in far too many cases, nonprofits reach out with inaccessible or off-putting content—whether it’s in a website, conversation, emails or letters.

So much content is jargon-heavy, depersonalized and/or just horrible. Here’s a example featured in Content Rules:

Communicative Health Care Associates (CHCA) specializes in full speech-language diagnostic services, therapeutic care, and hearing screenings and through our division, Allied Rehabilitation Associates (ARA); we offer comprehensive, multidisciplinary rehabilitation services including physical and occupational therapies.

Oof. Where’s the personality, tone and voice that’s so critical to engaging target audiences? Those essential building blocks have been replaced by jargon that most people—including parents who must be one of CHCA’s target audiences—might not understand and definitely won’t relate to.

Ann and C.C. suggest a great way to ensure you stay human—let your target audiences talk for you. There’s nothing more engaging than a peer, talking in her own words (slightly modified if necessary). Your voice—whether it comes from your organization or your network—should be natural, loose, and direct. That’s what makes rich and memorable conversation!

What are you doing to create truly compelling content?

Creating engaging online content is a must for any marketing-savvy company that wants to get the most from their online endeavors. Please share your strategies, challenges and successes here.

P.S. Here’s Beth Kanter’s terrific summary of Content Rules.

Dear Nancy,

Over the past year, our organization has developed several communication channels – website, print newsletter, mailed funding appeals, print outreach materials, phone system on-hold messages, an annual report, advertising in local papers, etc. As our communications grow, our need for a style guide is increasingly apparent.

We don’t have a guide at all now, and are challenged by the fact that we operate five sites in a total of three municipalities. In addition, staff members – from health educators to social workers – occasionally create their own outreach materials because they need the materials ASAP. We don’t want to hold them up by going through a huge administrative process but we do need to be consistent.

Thanks for any tips.

Debbie Grammer, MPH
Development Specialist
WHSI – Wake Health Services, Inc.:
A Community Health Center
Raleigh, NC

Dear Debbie,

Thanks for asking. The challenge you describe – how to make the most out of your organization’s marketing outputs, from different sites and staff members, conveyed via a range of media – is a common one. My advice? Create a strong organizational brand and make sure it’s used consistently across departments, site and marketing outputs, both print and online.

The challenge of course is how to create that high-impact brand and make sure that it is applied according to defined standards in print and online marketing materials to diverse audiences, by all marketing material creators without inhibiting the power of personal voices. The solution goes much beyond a traditional style guide (which is usually focused on writing style and grammar) to encompass these four steps:

1. Make sure that there’s agreement, within leadership and key departmental staff, on what WHSI’s brand is. The brand portfolio includes:
   • Positioning statement.
   • Key messages for WHSI and for each of your programs or services.
   • Design guidelines on use of logo and WHSI colors.

   Remember that WHSI may need to implement audience research to develop a brand that resonates with all of its key audiences. Brand management (reviewing materials, ensuring consistency, brand application) has to be added to an employee’s job. That’s the only way to bring it to life.

   Many nonprofit staff members perceive the notion of brand as being far too “commercial” to be put to use in their organizations. Beware of this attitude! It is your greatest barrier to marketing success.

   Brand is simply the core marketing elements (both graphic and narrative) that, when used consistently, ensure that your nonprofit is quickly recognized and understood by your key audiences. Every nonprofit needs a strong brand.

2. Discuss the communications creation process with your colleagues and, with input from representative staff departments, create a process for creation and review of marketing materials.You mention that most, but not all, communications come through one person. What happens before and after that person?
3. Design and implement additional tools to make it easier for WHSI colleagues to develop or generate communications that do convey the brand.
   • Select a standard style guide (Chicago Manual of Style, Words Into Type or AP Stylebook) and dictionary as your standards.
   • Create a WHSI style guide on grammar conventions (whether to use serial commas or periods within acronyms), as well as specifics on writing about WHSI (when to use the acronym, if at all) and its work.
   • Create templates (in Word or the word processing program used by WHSI staff) for the most common communications materials. These may include a one-page flyer, tri-panel brochure on services, and a press release.Make these available for download so that your colleagues have a quick-and-dirty way of creating ASAP communications that are aligned with WHSI’s brand.
4. Hold a training session, in which you explain what the brand is (messages, design standards, style guide, processes, and templates) and why it’s important to be consistent in using it.Include scenarios to illustrate how the communications creations process works, rather than just distributing the guide.Most importantly, make sure you convey that individual insights and voices are prized, but that they have to complement core messaging that’s crafted to enable WHSI to meet its organizational goals.

Debbie, I think this approach will work for WHSI. Sorry that I have no five-minute solutions but there are just no shortcuts with brand. Once you do invest the time in this process, WHSI will see the payoffs immediately in terms of response to its marketing initiatives.

Let me know!

Best regards,
Nancy

Marketing and fundraising are two halves of a whole. But when they don’t operate that way, the outcome of each team’s efforts is far less than it could be, undermining an organization’s ability to engage its base.

Unfortunately, that’s the situation in most nonprofits where a single person doesn’t wear both hats. As fundraising expert Mal Warwick told me recently, when marketing and fundraising teams stand firm in their respective corners, the disconnect becomes a huge obstacle to raising money, particularly in today’s challenging fundraising environment.

But there are ways to surmount this obstacle. Fairleigh-Dickinson University (FDU) succeeded in doing so via a deliberate, well-articulated re-structuring. Read on to learn more about their strategy and the results, and my recommendation of a four-step process to bring marketing and fundraising into a productive partnership, supplemented by insights from some of the best fundraisers and nonprofit marketers I know.

4 Steps to Connecting the Left Hand with the Right

Put these four strategies to work to strengthen the marketing-fundraising collaboration in your organization:

1. Start at the top. It’s the only hope for a strong marketing-fundraising partnership

If bridging the marketing-fundraising gap is the goal, the pathway to getting there has to be spearheaded by your leadership. Your organization’s executive director, supported by the board, must be the one to guide the two teams into active collaboration and ensure they stay there.

Put more bluntly, “the heads of development and marketing have to accept that they are oxen pulling the same wagon, a wagon labeled ‘increasing community support’,” advises Tom Ahern, a leading authority on donor communications.

If your executive director isn’t focused on bridging this destructive gap, here’s a way to move her along that path, from Kivi Leroux Miller of NonprofitMarketingGuide.com:

• Ask the leaders of your organization to outline the top three actions an ardent fan of your cause would take in order to support you in a given month. Odds are that at least one of those steps, but not all three, will be related to fundraising.
• Discuss how your marketing and fundraising staff can work together to encourage that big fan to follow through on those three actions. This moves the conversation away from traditional to-do lists and toward a more holistic view of how you are relating to your supporters and encouraging them to be a part of your organization’s community.

2. Articulate shared priorities to serve as the core of a common agenda

As long as your marketing and fundraising teams have distinct goals, they won’t be effective partners. How could they be, each pointed in its own direction?

But if tasked with a common agenda, the landscape changes. A marketing-fundraising partnership is the only way to get there.

• At the HealthCare Chaplaincy in New York, the marketing and fundraising teams each have specific responsibilities but work closely together to advance their shared priorities—building and strengthening relationships with key supporters, and generating revenue. “This ethos starts with the directors and permeates our staff,” says Jim Siegel  Director of Marketing & Communications.
• The advancement leadership at FDU made a radical change in mid-2009 as it merged the development and marketing teams. The teams had worked together in the same room for many years, but pre-merger did so side-by-side with distinct goals and paths of activity, says Dina Schipper, Director of University Public Relations. The merger shifted the entire team’s reporting to the Senior Vice President for University Advancement. But most importantly, “the shift introduced a tri-fold charge to the newly merged team—supporting fundraising, recruitment and overall institutional branding, which, in time, significantly enriched its donor profiling strategy,” says Schipper. The results are strong, even at this early stage. Schipper describes a greater awareness among her colleagues of what outreach is underway and increased ability to coordinate themes and timing. “Nothing says more about the success of this merger than the fact that we’ll be closing out our large and successful capital campaign within the next year,” she says. In addition, Schipper cites the unified team’s single focus as the source of its increased impact in transitioning University’s board members, alumni and other supporters as potent ambassadors. Lots to learn from here.

3. Identify what’s working—from each “side”—and do more of it

I learned this sage strategy from Switch authors Chip and Dan Heath, who advocate this (surprisingly) unusual focus as the most reliable pathway to positive change.

A proven strategy of doing so is to ask your marketing team to identify the top three successes from the fundraising team, and to integrate those approaches into its own work. And vice versa.

Don’t forget to identify what isn’t working, and do less of it. Kivi LeRoux Miller suggests that each team give the other a “free pass” to make any single change to each other’s work, without protest or arguments, for a week. If your marketing director can make only one change to a fundraiser’s direct mail letter, what will it be? And what single change will the development director make to the marketer’s website copy?

This exercise forces each team to focus on what is truly most important to them, gives each some level of control and encourages them to better understand each other without arguing over the merits of the requested change.

4. Build on real, compelling success stories, well-honed and widely shared and discussed as the glue of your fundraising and marketing conversations

Here’s a fact you might not know: When the same strong stories are used by both marketing and fundraising teams, your organization wins via increasing awareness, building engagement and boosting positive responses and actions (e.g., we want to be a part of a winning organization.) Showing via stories works; repetition does too.

Janet Levine, one of my favorite fundraising bloggers at Too Busy to Fundraise, recalls the pattern that emerged from her years working in advancement in higher education. “Working together enabled us to create a powerful approach—for example, we wrote press releases on key stories; those stories were re-purposed into newsletter articles; shared with our Board members to help them be better ambassadors for us, and served as the focus of our direct mail appeals,” says Levine.

The FDU advancement team had a huge win in making the most of Bruce Springsteen coming to campus as part of WAMFest (Words and Music Festival) to co-present an academic seminar with poet Robert Pinsky. This presented a huge traditional media relations opportunity for the university, which saw its story covered by the Associated Press as well as other venues throughout the world.

But that’s just the beginning. The team is creating “experience packets” with DVDs and transcripts of the Springsteen-Pinsky program and others, transcripts and press clips as leave behinds in visits to grantmakers funding in arts and culture, an area they hadn’t reached out to previously. And, as you can imagine, alumni are thrilled to tell the tale of Bruce on the FDU campus!

What is your organization doing to move marketing and fundraising into a more productive partnership? Please share your experiences in the comment box below and I’ll share these strategies in a follow-up post or article.

Every nonprofit organization serving a geographically-sprawling base struggles to find feasible ways to build awareness and engagement among such a widespread group. Add to that the challenge of serving a community that’s half-peopled by summer- or weekend-only folks (and so for over half the year has 50% of its summertime prospects), and you have every nonprofit marketer’s worst nightmare.

But every nightmare has its silver lining, as Tracy Mitchell, Executive Director of Bay Street Theatre in Sag Harbor, NY, shows here.

THE CHALLENGE: Diverse Audiences Hard to Reach and Engage, Much Less Build into a Loyal Community of Supporters

Even with a successful 18-year run under its belt, Sag Harbor, NY’s Bay Street Theatre was threatened by the challenge of serving its diverse base, as well as by cuts in funding and in patrons’ expendable income.

Bay Street is a vibrant arts and educational center seeking to satisfy residents’ varying lifestyles, tastes and income levels. The theater prides itself on delivering shows that “shake up expectations of what theater is, to nudge you to look at the world a different way,” says Mitchell.

But there were two main barriers to Bay Street’s health:

• Potential audiences and supporters were based in seven towns on the eastern Long Island shore, so weren’t united by geographic community.
• Residents ranged from full-time locals to more-monied second-home owners, some there for weekends and summers others for summers only. So both the population count and interests vary greatly.

“Our greatest marketing challenge, even in good times, was reaching such a range of residents across the towns,” says Mitchell.

Mitchell also felt confident that there were ways to engage those beyond Bay Street’s traditional supporters (mostly in the 45 to 65 age range).

Marketing-wise, Bay Street had relied heavily on print advertising, placing ads in seven subscription papers for the locals plus many freebie papers (read by seasonal residents) and related websites for all. These ads had become cost-prohibitive yet weren’t effective enough to keep Bay Street thriving as the recession crept in a few years ago.

Mitchell was also faced with the likelihood of former Bay Street patrons cutting attendance. Since Bay Street counted on ticket sales to cover 47% of its operating budget (with the balance coming from donations and a few grants), Mitchell knew she had to find a “way beyond traditional marketing and programming to expand the theater’s role in residents’ lives.”

THE STRATEGY: Putting New Programs, Hours and Outreach Campaigns into Play to Engage More People, More Regularly

Recognizing that the disconnect between residents’ habits, preferences and wants and theater offerings (summer-focused, closed January through March, not cheap) was the heart of the problem. Mitchell delved into refining programming to close that gap, and into marketing those changes more effectively.

And understanding that shaping new programs required experimentation (as well as a good sense of audience wants, needs and habits, which Bay Street had), Mitchell and colleagues decided to introduce a series of (relatively) low-cost programming changes.

Here are the new strategies she introduced to boost audiences and revenue, and the impact of each:

Change: Keeping the theater open the entire year, instead of closing its doors January through March, as had been the rule.

Impact:

• Demonstrated to year-rounders that Bay Street cared about their interests and needs, and is a real member of the community.
• Provided a venue for the community when most others were shuttered.

Change: Scheduling family/children’s programming for non-primetime hours (those are dedicated to theater in high-season months), including a school vacation kids club and serving as a party venue.

Impact:

• Cultivated a new group of potential theatergoers (parents).
• Filled a community-need for children’s activities.
• Utilized an otherwise empty facility.

Change: Renovating the theater’s bar. Okay, this is not a traditional program but let’s look at it as a program enhancement.

Impact:

• Made any event at the theater more of a destination. You could attend a performance and have a drink right there.
• High profit margin.

Change: Introducing an off-season classic film series for $5 a head; each film followed by a cabaret. Low cost to provide, and to attend.

Impact:

• Broadened audience appeal by providing cost-accessible entertainment for those not likely to purchase a theater ticket.
• Increased awareness of Bay Street among attendees, and introduced theater to them via the cabaret.

Change: Hosting community events; some, like the Oscar Night party, at no charge.

Impact:

• Established the Bay Street brand as “more than just an entertainment venue.”
• Drew first-timers to Bay Street.
• Emphasized the theater’s dedication to the community, a key component of its mission.

Change: More varied and creative marketing outreach. 

But the Bay Street team knew they’d have to market these new programs hard and creatively, particularly since they targeted those likely not to know the venue. Here’s how they shook up their marketing approach:

1) Offered stay and dine packages, via partnerships with local restaurants and hotels. The discount lured residents into town, even off season. “This was a cost-free way to bring in more business. Our partners did some of our marketing for us,” says Mitchell.

2) Shifted from print ad-heavy marketing to adding posters (cheap and easy to distribute over a broad geographic area) and online marketing to the mix. Bay Street launched a more robust website supplemented by a Facebook page, Twitter presence and weekly e-updates to engage the younger demographic Bay Street was trying to court, at low cost. Mitchell continues to monitor and tweak social media outreach on an ongoing basis.

3) Reinforced relationships with seasonal supporters through year-round emails and occasional direct mail.

THE RESULTS: Broader Awareness, Increased Engagement, Diversified Income Streams

Bay Street’s hard work paid off in generating a much larger network of supporters and patrons within a year. And, because the theater continued to nurture its relationships with its core (i.e. more traditional) supporters, those relationships are stronger than ever.

The theater also benefited from its shift to a greater range of income streams. That ensures greater stability, as there’s some decrease of dependence on any one source. “I guess the biggest question remains who will spend money on theater. It’s a big unknown and every year we begin spending heavily on the summer shows (rights, rehearsal space, sets) in the spring,” says Mitchell.

“So we’re doing what we can do, working to weave our programs into people’s lives, way beyond theater in the summer.”

However, Mitchell emphasizes that innovative marketing isn’t a miracle drug. Even after implementing these changes and a 25% cut in operating budget, Bay Street’s income fell. “We knew it was due to the economy because we saw it across every line item, from ticket sales to grants and individual giving. While we had built awareness and good will in the community, we counted on that boosting our fundraising campaigns,” she says.

Mitchell’s committed, realistic but inspired approach to marketing is a strong model for nonprofit organizations working in all arenas. Her perspective, and focus on creative survival, is the way to go at all times. It’s the only choice in tough times.

THE TAKEAWAY: 5 Marketing Innovations for Tough-Times Results

Here’s the beating heart of Bay Street’s tough-times marketing model. Follow these five steps to generate more marketing results for your organization, at minimal risk and cost:

1. Launch free or low-cost activities to reach new audiences. Attract people in a belt-tightened world.
2. Partner with new groups and people. Every organization is challenged right now, and most are more open than ever to new ways to make things work.
3. Strengthen your ties with your community or base. Double-down on your relationships during tough times.
4. Gingerly expand your definition of your target market to explore possible new synergies.
5. Expand service offerings, if even only around the edges: e.g., food or bar service, children’s programs.

What marketing innovations have generated results for your organization in this tough era? Please share them here.

Additional Guidance can be found at the
Getting Attention Blog

Have you ever felt trapped by your email provider—Dissatisfied with the features and/or service, but daunted by figuring out how and where to move?

That was our situation 18 months ago and I was completely flummoxed by it. But before I get to that, let me start at the beginning.

Why You Need an Email Service Provider

For most nonprofit organizations, bulk email—email newsletters, action alerts or fundraising outreach—is one of the most productive communications approaches there is.

There’s no better way (yet) for a nonprofit to hit the communications trifecta—reach, engagement and action. And, despite the constant focus on social media, research shows time and time again that email remains a potent communications tool for those audiences who use it (e.g. not 20-somethings and younger, not 80-somethings and older).

But here’s the challenge—despite the centrality of bulk email outreach in nonprofit communications strategies, most organizations don’t do the required due diligence to find the right email service provider (ESP) to send out their emails, or use the selected tool—when they do find it—for all it’s worth.

Understanding the operation and range of features incorporated by most ESPs can be daunting before and after you sign up. Here’s how to find the right ESP for your organization and to manage them to get the most from your bulk email campaigns.

NOTE: If you’re still sending bulk emails from your own email, stop immediately. This is the best way I know to have your organization’s domain (such as redcross.org) nailed as a spammer which will make it impossible for your one-to-one emails to get through, much less your bulk emails.

But First, Back to Our Situation

Our organization (GettingAttention.org) relies heavily on bulk email to our e-news readers. Our community of readers is our lifeline; sharing back with us their nonprofit marketing wants and needs plus advice for us to share with their peers.

But our ESP, which we’d used since 2005, just wasn’t up to the job. Despite the fact that we had invested a lot of time and sweat in learning the tool and making it work for us, we felt that we couldn’t rely on it.

There were two main problems: We thought the most significant gap was that the customer service team was impossible to reach. When we had started working with this ESP, we got a human on the help line about 50% of the time. But four years later we were lucky to get a call back within three or four days. That, in addition to the lack of some of the features we wanted, seemed like good enough reason to look elsewhere.

But when the ESP lost our email lists (which we backed up weekly, thank goodness), we knew we had to change.

There are probably 5,000 ESPs out there, many of which market their services with the exact same language. Here’s the process we used to select our current ESP, Network for Good’s EmailNow.

Disclosure: Please note that Network for Good allowed us to use the service at no charge for one year. But nothing, including price, was more important than finding a reliable, flexible ESP. Now, one year later, we are using the service on a fee basis.

The 5-Step Path to Finding the Best Email Service Provider (ESP) for Your Nonprofit

1. Define Your Email Service Provider (ESP) Needs

It’s human nature to look elsewhere for an answer. But in the case of selecting an ESP, as in so many other challenges, you need to start with your organization’s needs.

Here are the primary factors to consider:

• Where do you want to be, three years from now, with your email functionality? With your list size?

• Do you need to integrate the ESP with third-party databases such as your fundraising or CRM systems? And/or with Google analytics, form creation, registration or other tools?

• Will you need opt-in (completing a form to be added to your list) versus double opt-in (completing a form then clicking an emailed confirmation link to be added to your list)?

• Do you plan to send a series of timed emails (a.k.a. auto-responders) or emails triggered by a specific action (such as registering for an event)?

• What usage stats do you need to track to measure results?

• What is your budget? There are all types of services, at all price points. This is important so I urge you to be as ambitious as you can with funding the ESP. Some organizations slave over creating just the right email, but their ESPs let them down in getting the right email to the right person in the right format. That’s a real waste.

• What is your skill and comfort level with online tools such as ESPs? If it’s on the low side, is there any available help on staff (e.g. a colleague skilled in online tool usage) or will you be taking it on yourself, with the help of the ESP support team?

2. Get trusted recommendations from organizations like yours

When it was time for us to find a new ESP, I didn’t make a move before querying my most trusted colleagues in the field for their recommendations. I focused on those with bulk email needs similar to ours and harvested seven strong recommendations.

I moved on to cross-reference those recommendations against trusted online sources from NTEN and Idealware. That helped me cut the list to four firms.

After a quick scan of each ESP’s website to get a sense of the features and pricing structure of each (pricing is generally by number of contacts or by number of emails sent per month), I called the colleagues to dig into their referrals. The questions I asked were:

• What is working well for you?

• What isn’t?

• What do you know now that you wish you knew when you contracted with this ESP?

3. Dig Into the nitty-gritty with online research

Based on what I had learned to date, our manager dug into the websites of the four ESPs still standing. She reviewed these selection criteria for each and entered each element in a spreadsheet for easy scanning:

Focus on these Critical Factors

• Reliability: Multiple, high-speed connections to the Internets, nearly 100% up time. The last thing you want is for the ESP to be down when you have an email that needs to be sent.

• Flexibility: As detailed as your needs may be now, there will be changes you want to make in the future. You may want to change from all-HTML all the time to some HTML emails and some text or to segment your lists in a completely different way (e.g. by zip instead of by date of registration). Also, you’ll want flexibility in formatting your emails, whether you riff off a provided template or use your own custom HTML template.

• Good reporting: One of the greatest benefits ESPs provide is the capture of quantifiable results. Make sure your e-newsletter provider tracks how many people (and who) get it, open it and/or click through to your website.

• Value (but reliability is more important): Look at the pricing structure and the hidden costs. Are surveys included or available at an extra fee? Estimate your costs over one and two years.

• Ease of use: In general, the simpler the features provided, the easier the ESP is to use. But some ESPs provide amazing functionality that is fairly easy to use. And others provide limited functionality that’s a real headache to figure out.

• Customer-oriented with good support via email, chat and phone.

• Knows the email delivery world. None of these factors matter a bit if the ESP doesn’t do whatever it can to ensure the highest probability of email receipt. Ideally, this includes a strict anti-spam policy, automatic SPAM cleaners, ISP-specific controls and white-list approvals

• Provides a free trial for a period of at least two weeks: DO NOT sign on before you put an ESP to the test.

• No-term contract—Despite the pain of it all, you want to be able to switch if the service isn’t working out for you.

This process is likely to help you winnow down your list. At this point, just three ESPs remained on our list of options.

4. Probe more deeply in phone conversations with semi-finalist ESPs, including some open-ended questions

There’s nothing like a conversation to show one’s true self. And the same goes with ESPs. I knew that phone conversations with reps at each ESP would give me a sense of the customer service experience as well as immediate answers on features.

I took these conversations on personally, as I knew customer support was a vital element in my selection process. As a small organization, it has to be. That’s bound to be true for most small- to medium-sized nonprofits as well.

Instead of pummeling the rep right up front with all of my detailed questions, I shared a bit about our needs then asked these open-ended questions that ensured the rep showed his stuff (or lack thereof):

• What services do you offer?
  • I knew the broad answer in most cases but wanted to hear what each rep defined as the ESP’s target customers (organizations like mine or behemoths) and their needs.
• What happens when I run into a problem?
  • I wanted to know who I’d talk to, how they’d be available to me (via phone, email and/or chat) and when. Also, the nature of their expertise and the back up plan if they can’t help me solve my problem.
• Why should we work with your ESP rather than one of the others out there?
  • I’m always interested in hearing what a rep emphasizes as unique strengths.
• What do you do to ensure the highest probability of delivery?
  • This is the key question. None of the other elements matter if the emails don’t get to their destinations.
• How much does it cost to start up? On an ongoing basis? Run your numbers now and what you project in another year by the rep.

• Who is your typical user on your clients’ staffs; their focus and skills?
  • You want to hear that this person is like you and your colleagues in terms of technological skill level and job focus. That will tell you that the support team will be able to pick up quickly in helping you solve problems that arise.

• What else should I know?

These calls helped me cut my list to two finalist ESPs.

5. Test, test, test your finalists to make your selection

Once you’ve reduced your list of prospective ESPs to a couple of finalists, it’s time to try them out.

I advise you to test the services with all of the email configurations you have, and a few that are still on the front burner. Look for ease of use and functionality that matches your needs. Ask colleagues likely to join you in using the ESP to test it out as well.

There’s no way you’ll figure out everything that might not work, but you want to surface as many gaps and glitches as possible.

In most cases, the trial will lead you to your ESP. But in all cases, if there are still two decent contenders, I urge you to reach back out to the original referral source and discuss any remaining questions and concerns. There’s no such thing as being too diligent in selecting your ESP.

Our trials left us with only one strong contender. We reached out to the colleague who had referred the tool to us to inquire on most recent experiences and confirm we were going in the right direction. So we signed on.

Reporting Back One Year Later: Did We Make the Right Choice?

I credit our success in finding the ESP that is right for us to the five-step path outlined above. In particular, this process clarified that EmailNow was focused on small to medium organizations like us. That was a strong indication that the customer support would be strong and the service easy to use.

But what comes as an unanticipated bonus is the service’s customer-driven flexibility and drive to satisfy. If we want a feature or function that isn’t built into the service, the customer service team will always dive into the challenge to try to find a solution. The EmailNow team is a true partner.

If you’ve been delaying your search for a new or first-time email service provider, follow these five steps to ESP selection success. When you do, I guarantee you’ll end up with an ESP that’s a true partner in advancing your communications impact.

Go to it!

P.S. Do you have dos and/or don’ts on email service provider selection or management to share? Please share your ESP experiences below.

• How to Retain Readers w/ Change of E-News Service Provider
• Best Time to Send Out Your E-News — An Aha Moment
• How to Deliver Breakthrough Nonprofit E-Newsletters

I recently spoke with three nonprofit communicator colleagues and four graphic designers who outlined this three-fold path to a process that will ensure high-impact design for your nonprofit. Before you even get to the design process itself, remember to follow these five pre-design steps to effective graphic design, from finding the right designers to crafting a creative brief.

Here’s what your colleagues advise:

Be clear, comprehensive and realistic.

Kitty McCullough, communications consultant, swears by this maxim. She advises nonprofit communicators to “sketch out as much as you can at the beginning (back to the creative brief) and ask for preliminary sketches so your designer doesn’t spend time working up something far from what you want.”

Mark Dessauer, communications officer at Active Living By Design, solicits three to five design concepts from his graphic designers. “And I ask for completely distinct takes on the project, not variations on a single theme,” says Mark. “This lets me expand the discussion to go beyond my pre-conceived ideas, and pushes my designers to be their most creative.

Editorial Comment: Great idea Mark, but you’ll pay for it. Advice – specify how many design concepts you want in the creative brief to avoid surprises.

Jack Sherin, former agency creative exec and now freelance designer to a range of nonprofit clients, suggests that you be “entirely confident in all details of your design needs and process, before getting started.”

BTW, Jack presents just a single design concept if it seems right on target. Practices are indeed designer-specific. Most importantly, think through your concepts and goals before saying a word to your graphic designers.

“For us, the essence of an effective partnership is understanding that the designer’s job is to provide graphic interpretations of OUR thinking. We define the concepts we want to convey, how the new design links with existing design elements, etc.,” comments Julia Graham Lear, director of the Center for Health and Health Care in Schools. “If we don’t take time to do so, the final product will reflect the designer’s ‘take’ on the project, not ours.”

Graphic designer Sybil Rogers swears by the creative brief, which “enables us designers to create designs that are visually relevant and strategically on target.” Here are my guidelines for creating a creative brief that works.

Build a solid, candid, ongoing relationship with your graphic designers.

Nothing is more important than building and maintaining these relationships, even when no design project is pending. Build those partnerships and keep them going, so that your designers keep you, and your organization’s design profile, top of mind.

Lenore Neier, communications consultant and former VP of Marketing and Communications at the American Liver Foundation (ALF), makes sure she develops and maintains close working relationship with favorite designers. “It seems to be the only way that works,” she says. “They have to get to know your organization intimately to give you the right design product.”

While at ALF, Lenore spoke with freelance graphic and web designers on an ongoing basis. “That way they stayed current with our focus and news, and were ready to jump in when we need them,” she says.

Don’t forget that strong relationships are built on honesty – diplomatic honesty that is. Mark Dessauer recommends that you be “completely honest about how you feel about the work, especially if a designer is a friend (which frequently happens, even if that isn’t the case at the beginning). If you aren’t happy, you’ll be saddled with a design product that doesn’t meet your expectations or needs. The results will suffer, and your relationship will too,” he advises.

Jack Sherin suggests that you take it one step further to educate your designers on your nonprofit’s internal approval process, so they understand what it’ll take to build consensus around design decisions.

Don’t try to be the graphic designer.

This is a hard one, as all of us think we have a great aesthetic sense, and want to apply it to our brochures and email templates as we do in our living rooms and gardens. Stop!

Graphic designer Barbara Wertheim, who works with nonprofit clients as diverse as the Seeing Eye and the New Jersey Hall of Fame, advises, “Make sure you hire a competent professional designer with a proven track record — and then trust her to do her job. Make changes to the design when they’re based in a sound rationale, but resist tinkering with the design — as you risk throwing off a deliberate and delicate visual balance.”

Kitty Griffith, an expert communicator who has led initiatives at organizations as diverse as Philanthropy New York and Citibank’s corporate philanthropy program, takes this one step further. “Don’t tell the graphic artist how to do her art – she’s the pro; you’re not,” she says. “Do convey any design modifications you have. But remember that a good designer will advise against changes that will weaken the design (for example, using green ink for type, which is notoriously hard to read). Don’t force the issue – the designer knows best.”

Thanks to my friends and colleagues for your great recommendations. When you follow these steps, I guarantee you’ll get better design results for your nonprofit.