Posts tagged nonprofit marketing communications

Positioning your nonprofit for 2013

January 3, 2013 Leave a Comment Written by admin

“The future ain’t what it used to be.” – Yogi Berra

Whew, 2012 is over! Before you get bogged down in your everyday business, take a few moments to explore trends that will impact your success.

Over the last month I’ve been consumed reading and analyzing articles and blogs about trends that will impact the nonprofit sector this year. I’m still digesting the excellent information. However it is time to ‘put pen to paper’ and share with you what I see as the most important trends so I can help ensure a good start to 2013.

Leveraging Technology

Leveraging Technology is number one on my list. However, you will need to distinguish the trendy from the useful. You also need to make a commitment to really know your supporters, so you can effectively take advantage of new technologies to ensure your nonprofit’s impact.

The Stanford Social Innovation Review posted Ten Technology Trends to Watch, an excellent article by Mark Tobias president of Pantheon, which provides online technology solutions for nonprofits, associations, and government.

Mark suggests you should consider these trends as you develop your technology strategy for 2013. Read more details and explore links in the post by clicking SSIR.

  1. Measurement and transparency. What gets measured gets improved.
  2. Consumer-oriented online engagement. People who interact with your organization online don’t want to have to work to make sense of it.
  3. Deploying data to answer burning questions. Think beyond your web analytics dashboard. Instead, what are the core questions your organization wants to answer? Research shows nonprofits are collecting tons of data but aren’t using it.
  4. Knowledge hub rising. To survive and thrive, nonprofits and associations must add value beyond membership and advocacy.
  5. Mobile plus. More and more organizations are creating mobile-friendly websites, but the future of mobile is finding ways for people to accomplish even more when they’re away from their desktops.
  6. The unfettered conference. Recognizing that the world and its travel budgets are changing, nonprofits and associations would be wise to rethink and retool conferences.
  7. New types of products. Nonprofits and associations are using a series of technology-propelled products to make a big difference for both their members and markets (such as health or education).
  8. Whole Foods-ification. It’s organic! Nonprofits are slowly learning not to treat their website and technology as they do their annual reports—projects that are perfected and completed.
  9. Digital learning is soft. The explosive growth in online courses proves how much America likes to learn. So, it’s important to keep in mind that the way people engage, learn, and behave online is changing.
  10. Proof and standards for digital learning are hard. As learning transcends time and place, colleges and employers are challenged to develop meaningful proof that a degree or certificate reflects the knowledge and skills necessary for job success.

Anticipated Changes in the Nonprofit Sector

Change is pretty much assured for nonprofits in 2013. Nell Edgington, president Social Velocity provides 5 Trends to Watch in 2013. These are hot off the press! You can learn more detail and explore Nell’s links by clicking her post on HuffingtonPost.

  1. More demand for outcomes – nonprofits will need to articulate what results they hope their work with achieve and track whether those results are actually happening.
  2. Decreasing emphasis on nonprofit overhead – More and more people are coming to realize that you can’t just invest in programs without the staff, infrastructure and fundraising to make those programs happen.
  3. More advocacy for the sector as a whole – we will start to see the sector organize, mobilize and build the confidence necessary to claim its rightful place.
  4. Savvier donors – Because nonprofits are getting more savvy, donors are as well. In addition to an increasing demand for proof of outcomes, donors are slowly starting to that there is a difference between revenue and capital in the sector.
  5. Increased efforts to rate and compare nonprofits – As nonprofit outcomes are increasingly in demand, donors become savvier, and the “nonprofit overhead” distinction diminishes, we will increasingly evaluate nonprofits based on the results they achieve, not on how they spend their money. But that requires that a whole infrastructure for evaluating and rating nonprofits emerges, just as it has for the financial markets.

Please share this posting with your community. Create robust discussions. Explore how these trends will impact your nonprofit. Use these issues to help position your organization to take advantage of opportunities in 2013.

Do you have any more trends that you see impacting nonprofits this year? I’d love to hear from you!

PS my next post focuses on some user-friendly fundraising tips and strategies.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Nonprofit Strategic Marketing
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Livestrong Foundation Shows Importance of Nonprofit Marketing

October 24, 2012 Leave a Comment Written by admin

Shame on Donors Who Want Their Money Back wrote Elaine Fogel on her blog Totally Uncorked on Marketing.

I couldn’t agree more!

With all the noise about Armstrong and his fall from grace in competitive cycling, one would expect Livestrong.org the cancer fighting Foundation he founded to suffer. As Elaine pointed out, there are some donors who want their money back.

Livestrong is succeeding and the donations are growing. Whether or not this continues in the long run is yet to be seen.

However, according to Charity Navigator, a prominent charity watchdog, it appears that the foundation has “successfully distinguished its mission from its founder’s woes.”

My suggestion to all nonprofits is to see your organization through a marketing lens.

What is Nonprofit Marketing?

“Marketing is so basic that it cannot be a separate function. It is the whole business seen from the point of view of its final results, that is, from the stakeholder’s point of view.” Marketing Guru Peter Drucker

I see marketing as – the strategies and tactics used to identify, create and maintain satisfying relationships with your donors, members, volunteers, clients and other stakeholders that result in value for both your organization and your stakeholders.

Creative Solutions & Innovations’ principles for guiding your nonprofit through a marketing lense:

1.    Always market your mission, not your current services. The ability to adjust its services to suit client need is key to ensuring the organization’s survival and its financial support.

2.    Carefully define whom your mission serves. You need to meet the needs of your  stakeholders.

3.    Measure your constituents’ needs. Research, research, research to ensure your programs & services resonate with your target audiences.

4.    Evaluate the success of programs & their relationship to your mission.

5.  Communicate regularly & consistently.

6.  Craft your messages to reflect how your mission effects your different audiences.

7. Develop an integrated marketing communications plan to ensure message integrity across all communication channels.

8.  Communicate in terms of your ROI even when it is not in monetary terms; quantify your economic impact.

9.  Celebrate your successes. Show how your ‘market diversification’ creates the funding to provide your services.

10. Know your organizational elevator speech so you can articulate your vision & Competitive Advantage Statement.

11. Keep a “face” on your marketing initiatives

12. Evaluate often & be prepared to refocus your efforts.

Any thoughts? Please let me hear from you.

 

 

Nonprofit Strategic Marketing
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Streamline your writing – reduce redundancy

September 10, 2012 Leave a Comment Written by admin

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To get through to your readers in this nano-second culture, you must write clear, concise sentences.

So, whenever I write a press release or blog post I spend enormous amounts of time trying to tighten up my writing. This includes looking for and eliminating redundancy.

Mickie Kennedy, founder of eReleases Press Release Distribution  posted an interesting article 20 redundant phrases to eliminate from your writing.

Oops! As soon as I read the list I realized how many of these phrases I used all too often.

How about you? Are you guilty of cluttering your writing with any of these phrases?

1. Advance notice. When you give notice for something, you’re doing so in advance of the event taking place. Just use the word “notice.”

2. Advance preview. The dictionary defines preview as “anything that gives an advance idea or impression of something to come.” There’s no need to slap the word “advance” in front of it.

3. At the present time. Simply say either “at present” or “at this time.” There’s no need to be wordy.

4. Close proximity. The word proximity already means “close by,” so it doesn’t need to be qualified with the word “close.”

5. Collaborate together. You see this one a lot in press releases announcing partnerships or mergers. When you collaborate, you’re working with others. The word “together” is redundant.

6. Completely unanimous. Let’s go back to the dictionary, shall we? Unanimous: in complete agreement. That’s all you need.

7. End result. By definition, the result of something takes place at the end. Cut the word “end.”

8. Extra bonus. A bonus is something extra, so you don’t need to use that extra word (see what I did there?) to try to build excitement.

9. Final outcome. See #7.

10. Free gift. Nothing beats free. Thankfully, gifts are free.

11. Major breakthrough. This is another one you see in press releases and marketing materials. A breakthrough is something that provides a significant or sudden advance or development. Adding the word “major” is unnecessary.

12. New beginning. Leave it at “beginning.”

13. New innovation. Again, I can’t tell you how many press releases I’ve seen that use this phrase. An innovation is something new or different by definition. No need for the word “new.”

14. Past history. All history is in the past.

15. Positive improvement. As opposed to what, a negative improvement?

16. Repeat again. To repeat is to perform an action again, making the word “again” pointless.

17. Serious crisis. If you’ve ever faced a PR crisis (or any type of crisis), I don’t have to tell you that it’s serious. All crises are serious.

18. Totally unique. There aren’t degrees of unique. Something is either unique or it isn’t.

19. Unexpected surprise. If you’re expecting something to happen, it’s not a surprise.

20. Unintended mistake. If you intended for something to happen, it wasn’t a mistake; it was a poor decision.

Do you have any redundant phrases to add? Please let us hear from you!

* This graphic accompanied the post on PRdaily.com.

Nonprofit Communication
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