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Be Consistent, Not Confusing with Multi-Channel Nonprofit Marketing

Call it what you will — integrated, holistic, multi-channel fundraising and marketing — but there’s no variance in my recommendation that you take this approach right now, if you’re not already.

Without multi-channel marketing and fundraising, your target audiences are confused by the inconsistency of what they’re hearing from you via various “channels” (your emails vs. Facebook page vs. in-person events). No one likes to be confused and in many cases, the response is to flee your call to action. This doesn’t mean you have to use every channel. It does mean that when you focus on the channels where your target audiences already are, strive for consistency.

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Nancy Schwartz on October 6, 2011 in Strategy | 2 comments
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5 Nonprofit Marketing Innovations for Tough-Times Results (Case Study)

Marketing your way through times like these is gritty, sweaty, get-your-hands-dirty work. Your challenge right now is to step-up with a sense of adventure, a bolt of courage and persistent innovation. It’s the only choice. And those are the attributes Tracy Mitchell, Executive Director of Sag Harbor, NY’s nonprofit Bay Street Theatre, brings to her marketing responsibilities every day. (Note: Full case study 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, 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. Mitchell knew she had to find a “way beyond traditional marketing and programming to expand the theater’s role in residents’ lives.”

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Nancy Schwartz on October 5, 2011 in Strategy | 0 comments
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How to Keep Your Nonprofit Vibrant & Vital — The Future of Nonprofits

It doesn’t come better than The Future of Nonprofits, by David Neff and Randal Moss, a nonprofit management guide rooted in a fresh and relevant context.

Organizational management theories are vital but, very frankly, most of them focused on nonprofit organizations mimic the very same thing. And, after you’ve read or heard that time and time again, it just doesn’t help move your organization forward.

Now, with The Future of Nonprofits, we have a refreshing and valuable framework for organizational management that incorporates clear, practical guidance for getting your nonprofit there now. Here’s what Neff and Moss recommend:

  1. If accepting that environmental change (in the issue arenas in which we work, in politics and legislation, in our target audiences and other organizations in our field) is real and ongoing, then nonprofit success is all about nimbly adapting to educated guesses on possible changes (multiple possibilities, not one) on an ongoing basis.
  2. This radically-different framework is a fertile foundation for innovation, as you and your colleagues will always be figuring a broad range of approaches to your programs and services, processes and stakeholder experiences. Innovation stems from the inspiration to find creative ways to adapt.
  3. Neff and Moss see nonprofit organizations that are actively experimenting with social media tools as pointed to success. Their ability to go beyond the current way of doing things is a prerequisite for organizational success.
  4. Effective communications (conversations, not broadcasts — built around listening, reading, participation and learning) are the key to sourcing the ideas and concepts at the heart of possible futures.

You’ll have to read the book to learn how to put this approach to work for your organization. I guarantee you it’ll open your mind to new and more effective ways of managing, and communicating for, your organization.

P.S. Learn how to strengthen your nonprofit’s marketing impact, a core ingredient in organizational impact, with the Guide to Nonprofit Marketing Wisdom.

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Nancy Schwartz on July 7, 2011 in Strategy | 3 comments
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What’s Your Burning Question on Nonprofit Marketing? Free Webinar – 30 Answers in 30 Minutes

Think it’s possible to learn what you need to know now about nonprofit marketing planning in just 30 minutes?  Well, Kivi Leroux Miller and I are going to give it a try with our next free webinar, 30 Nonprofit Marketing Questions in 30 Minutes!

Please join us on Thursday, July 21, 2011 at 3:00 p.m. Eastern (Noon Pacific). We will answer 30 questions about nonprofit marketing planning in 30 minutes!

All questions will be submitted by participants in advance, and we’ll select the top 30 to answer during this rapid-fire, intensive learning experience. We’ll review all of the questions submitted by July 15 and cull them down to the top 30, which we will answer live during the webinar.

1) There’s no faster way to learn about nonprofit marketing planning. Register Now.

2) Have a burning nonprofit marketing question you’d like us to answer during the webinar? Email it to us right now (nancyandkivi@nancyandkivi.com)

Your investment of 40 minutes (10 to craft and submit your question, 30 to join us on the webinar) will generate huge returns. Promise!

 

P.S. Learn how to strengthen your nonprofit’s marketing impact with the 2011 Guide to Nonprofit Marketing Wisdom.


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Nancy Schwartz on July 5, 2011 in Strategy | 0 comments
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Nonprofit Ad Grabs Open-Minded Moment – Piggybacks on Father’s Day

This ad from Futures Without Violence (FWV) was timed perfectly to capture audiences’ open-minded moment. It ran in yesterday’s (Father’s day) New York Times, and is a strong model of piggybacking: Connecting your organization’s issue or story with what’s top of mind for your target audiences.

Father’s Day is the single most dad-focused day of the year, when we think about our own dads and the meaning of fatherhood. So naturally, that’s when we’re most receptive to hearing from (and about) fathers. Futures Without Violence knew it and found a way to creatively connect one of it’s lead programs to our open-minded moment.

Fathers are the drivers (and audiences) of one of FWV’s main programs: Founding Fathers. So FMV took Father’s Day to thank these dads who are working so hard to make the world a safer place: Today, we honor our dads for playing an important role in creating futures without violence. We salute our “Founding Fathers” for their efforts in helping us to build our new national landmark, and for the role they continue to play in encouraging other men to take a stand against violence and abuse.

Kudos to Futures Without Violence for its effective piggybacking, and for doing the same on mother’s day this year.

How have you put your target audiences’ open-minded moments to work, or what’s standing in your way? Please share your open-minded story here.

P.S. Messages that connect are the prerequisite for motivating your base to act. Learn how to craft the most essential message – your tagline. Use the guidance in the Nonprofit Tagline Database & Report, filled with must-dos, don’t dos, case studies and 2,500+ nonprofit tagline examples!

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Nancy Schwartz on June 20, 2011 in Strategy | 0 comments

Time Your Nonprofit Marketing Outreach for Greatest Impact

Timing is everything. It’s the gatekeeper to having even a chance of connecting with your target audiences.

If you do connect with your network at the right time – when they are open minded – you have a good chance of motivating action (assuming your messaging clearly conveys the values and interest you share with network members, and the benefit the action will bring to them). If it all comes together, your network will pause, listen and is most likely to act.

But if you connect with your network members at a time when their minds are closed – when they’re getting their kids ready for school, prepping to deliver a key presentation, gobbling lunch or about to finish up for the day – your outreach will fall flat, no matter how well it’s crafted.

That’s why knowing your target audiences’ daily habits and schedule is central to engaging them. You need to pinpoint their open-minded moments.

Here are the step-by-step how-tos for you. Put timing to work now! It’s a low-cost, low-to-moderate time investment that generates great ROI (return on investment).

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Nancy Schwartz on May 25, 2011 in Strategy | 1 comment

Partner with Program Staff & Your Network for More Marketing Impact

They “Get” It from Communications Network on Vimeo.

Invest 4 minutes in watching this energizing video from the Kids Count program team at the Annie E. Casey Foundation. Here program staff Laura Speer and Don Crary discuss their conviction that effective marketing is integral to program success (hallelujah!) and their experience in putting marketing to work for Kids Count.

According to Julee Newberger, online communications associate at Casey, Laura and Don are ideal partners for the Foundation’s marketing team. Here’s how the teams have collaborated for increased reach and impact:

  • The Kids Count team integrates communications into their program planning, from the very beginning.

    • In most organizations, marketing is an after-thought, discussed only after the program is planned and about to launch. That’s way too late to get the most from your marketing.

  • Laura and Don work closely with the Foundation’s communications team in planning and execution.
    • Each team contributes their unique expertise.
  • Kids Count leverages its network of grantees — who have the knowledge and experience to communicate most effectively at the local level, including with policymakers — as messengers.
    • The Foundation bring credibility and brand to the outreach agenda; the grantees bring their network of relationships.
  • Kids Count makes it easy for its grantee messengers to succeed.
    • Grantees across the nation are equipped with the tools and content they need, such as a widget that makes it easy for them to insert a feed of new content on key issues into their websites.
    • Messengers are trained in framing, social media and other communications techniques.

Laura, Don and Julee are fantastic models. Their experience demonstrates that collaboration — when done strategically and respectfully — is so much more than the sum of its individual parts.

How do your marketing and program teams collaborate and what makes it work? If you don’t, or you do but it doesn’t work, what’s getting in your way? Please share your experiences and questions here.

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Nancy Schwartz on May 4, 2011 in Strategy | 0 comments
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How to Build Your Base around A Difficult Issue – Pls Share Your Ideas

You know an emotional hook is the best way to engage your target audiences at first, followed by reasoning, asks, etc. The heart leads, with the head following. That’s because all of us can easily relate – emotionally – to human stories and those pull us in and make us more open minded to the information or ask that follows.

But those of you whose organizations deal with difficult and emotionally-weighted issues — such as rape, eating disorders or domestic violence– have a real challenge in crafting that emotional hook. For many, the issues you’re diving into and making better for those who go through them are issues that folks just don’t want to talk about. Eyes wide shut!

The Challenge – Building a Base around a Difficult Issue
Jill Worrall, a nonprofit consultant I met recently — at theMarketing ByAssociation conference where I keynoted in Februrary — posed her huge “difficult challenge” to me and I hope you can help me guide her: Jill works with SAFE (SExual Abuse Family Education), an organization focused on reintegrating sexual offenders (including pedophiles) into society, and she finds it incredibly difficult to engage her target audiences in the cause. The issue makes them squeamish, so how could they possibly support the cause?

My immediate reaction to hearing about sex offenders is revulsion. What’s yours?

My Recommendation – Please Add Yours
My recommendation to Jill is to focus the organization’s messaging on the positive changes in the world our children live in, that will be made by the organization’s work with sexual offenders. That way the lead (and emotional hook) is positive), and the strategy (education, therapy, etc.) comes second. It’s far more likely that folks will get engaged through taking this approach.

In addition, she should:

  • Focus on the likely values match between SAFE and its prospective supporters — a community where children can live safely, and parents can relax.
  • Talk about success stories, focusing on the after.
  • More ideas here: Communicating on Difficult Issues

What guidance can you share with Jill?
Please comment here to ensure she gets it! Thank you.

P.S. Get more in-depth case studies, templates and tools, and guidance for nonprofit marketing success — all featured in the twice-monthly Getting Attention e-update. Subscribe today.

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Nancy Schwartz on April 20, 2011 in Strategy | 3 comments
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Making It Work – Nonprofits and Pro Bono Creative

Welcome back to guest blogger, Susie Bowie, Communications Manager at the Community Foundation of Sarasota County…

There’s an unexpected stranger standing at the intersection between nonprofit organizations and creative agencies offering “free” website, advertising or marketing services.  He has many names, but is most commonly known as “Why did we say yes?,” “We should have thought about this more” and “Man, this is a disaster.”

The danger can come from both sides. Small to mid-sized nonprofit organizations are notoriously (but often unfairly) characterized as unsophisticated when it comes to marketing prowess. Boards and grantmakers alike often don’t want to fund basic marketing. Nonprofit staff can underestimate the investment of their time required—even in a pro bono project. On the agency side, creatives may get into the business of over-promising and under delivering to the simplistic nonprofit client who shouldn’t have been such a big deal.

I recently spoke with Patricia Courtois, Principal of Clarke Advertising and Public Relations (based in Sarasota, Florida), about how to make it all work from both sides of the fence. A long-time award-winning veteran of the advertising and public relations field with clients from Tropicana to Sara Lee and ClosetMaid, her team’s campaigns have won national recognition. Her recent engagement with All Faiths Food Bank here in Sarasota included a television spot that won a National ADDY. It was a great experience for both, by the way. And if anyone knows the ground rules for a healthy and productive engagement, Patricia does.

Here are some checkpoints, based on her extensive experience in the field:

For Nonprofits:

  • Free isn’t always better than nothing. Use discretion when it comes to choosing your creative consultant. Just because a company or individual offers their services without a fee doesn’t mean it’s the best fit for your organization. Do your homework—check references, find out what the agency might expect from your nonprofit in return. If they want to promote their firm on your collateral material, for example, that may be something you need to consider carefully.
  • Understand that you share the commitment. Pro bono creative still involves staff direction, availability and support from your nonprofit. Know that many times, agency staff work after-hours on your pro bono project so they can still fulfill obligations from paying clients. Respect that with flexibility and being super-organized so your meetings are efficient and productive.

For Creative Agencies:

  • Make sure your staff is fully committed to the cause. Is the nonprofit’s mission a fit with your agency’s mission? Is it something everyone is on board with? If not, your account executives may feel resentment about the use of their time on the project. And finally, the nonprofit engagement should be much more than a way for you to market your own services.
  • Make sure there’s skin in the game. Creative services can be undervalued if there is no cost at all to the nonprofit. Patricia recommends payment for some portion of the service—even based on a nominal amount a nonprofit may have budgeted—so there is some level of devotion to the project.
  • It’s a business contract, even if it’s pro bono. Providing a full scope of work to be jointly signed—along  with timelines, the number of hours being provided by the agency, graphic assets provided by the nonprofit, etc.—is key to avoiding frustration and inconsistent expectations.

The name of the game here is clearly defined boundaries, expectations and intentions. Keeping in mind that not every creative agency is a match for your nonprofit (and visa versa), you can use these guidelines to find the right partner and to firm up relationships with existing ones.

Check out All Faith’s Food Bank here to see the entire pro bono campaign.

P.S. Learn how to strengthen your nonprofit’s marketing impact with the new 2011 Guide to Nonprofit Marketing Wisdom.

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Guest Blogger on March 17, 2011 in Strategy | 9 comments
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Your Baseline – 2011 Nonprofit Communications Trends Report

Thanks so much to my friend and colleague Kivi Leroux Miller for surveying 780 nonprofit communicators like you on your habits, practices and preferences, and then sharing what you reported in the new, free 2011 Nonprofit Communications Trends Report.

I found the report incredibly useful as it compiles data I’ve never seen before, including what most excites and scares nonprofit communicators. I was pleased to grab Kivi for a few minutes to ask her a few questions on the findings:

Nancy: What single finding is most vital for nonprofit marketers to pay attention to, and how should they respond to it?

Kivi: We should continue to experiment; we’re all learning. What I think most nonprofits will find comforting is that everyone is excited about all of the new communications tools available these days and how they create new opportunities to connect with supporters. At the same time, they are intimidated about not having the time and skills to use them well.

Everyone is in the same boat: We are all learning and trying to figure out how to integrate the tools well. I hope nonprofits of all sizes will see that they aren’t alone in that, and that they should feel free to experiment right along with everyone else.

Nancy: I was surprised to see Facebook ranked as a more important tool than print marketing/communications materials. Of course a strong Facebook presence definitely offers significant reach if an org has many likes.
But how can you really compare the value of two such very different tools? Is there a more productive way to look at these tools?

Kivi: Cost and purpose are the determining factors: I believe the cost of print marketing compared to online marketing is a significant factor in these decisions. At some level, the effectiveness of direct mail becomes irrelevant if you simply can’t afford to send it out. That’s especially true for communications that are more informational or rapport-building in nature, as opposed to a direct fundraising appeal.

Nancy: Most survey respondents email supporters monthly but is that really enough? I think that it’s tough for a supporter to feel connected with any organization it hears from just twelve times a year.
How do you recommend  that nonprofits ensure they do connect with their supporters if they email just monthly?

Kivi: I was actually thrilled to see 75% emailing at least monthly, because many of the small organizations that I hear from, especially those who  are transitioning from a print newsletter, often think monthly is too often!

But I agree with you; I think monthly touch points are the bare minimum. If email is well integrated with other forms of communication, including print, in-person contacts, PR, and/or social media, I think a monthly email schedule can work just fine.

Nancy: What nonprofit marketers identify as exciting them and scaring them in 2011 is fascinating. How can they put these findings to work?

Kivi: I think nonprofits can use this report, and this section in particular, to benchmark themselves in some ways against the nonprofit sector as a whole.

I think nonprofit communications staff often feel alone in the wilderness, and even alone in their own organizations. The report validates some of their concerns, and I hope it encourages them to reach out to each other to find solutions and support.

Nancy: You note that more than half (51%) of nonprofit organizations have a marketing plan but, in digging into the responses, I see that just 32% have a formal plan that’s approved by leadership. That’s startling to a marketing planning advocate like me. Which of the other findings do you think are related to a lack of a formal, approved plan? And what is the best way to help nonprofits close the planning gap?

Kivi: I think the stats on marketing planning are closely related to the “what excites you” and “what scares you” responses. The organizations with written plans are more excited about finally getting organized and integrating their communications; the ones without plans are more scared about not knowing what to do or how to do it.

The realization that you really do need to pay attention to marketing and that a marketing plan is the must-have framework to work from is just now hitting many organizations, and I think it comes directly from having an overwhelming number of choices in ways to communicate. When all you had to do was produce a quarterly print newsletter and send out a few press releases, the marketing plan was pretty clear cut. But the sheer number of communications channels now available to even the smallest nonprofits requires more strategic decision-making. I’m looking forward to seeing those planning numbers rise in the coming years.

Download your free 2011 Nonprofit Communications Trends Report today. Please share your questions and thoughts on the report findings below.

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Nancy Schwartz on February 1, 2011 in Strategy | 2 comments
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