Communicate!

Helping you win loyal friends through your communications

Would You Talk to Your Mom the Way You Talk to Your Boss?

by Leave a Comment

Communications strategy begins with a simple question.  Before you write–before you speak–before you post, tweet, blog or pin, ask yourself: “Who are my audiences?”

Find your specific audience!

Find your specific audience!

I do mean “audiences,” plural.  At different times, you may want to get the attention of any of the following groups:

  • Members
  • Clients
  • Donors
  • Prospects
  • Elected officials
  • Regulators
  • Board members
  • Volunteers
  • People in a certain age group
  • People who participate in a certain activity
  • Residents of a certain neighborhood

You have different relationships with each of these groups, so it’s crucial to identify who you’re talking to at the time.  Would you talk with your mom the same way you talk with your boss?  Unlikely–unless you want Mom to feel hurt, or your boss to feel confused.

Then why would you talk to Board members who have sweated for your organization for years the same way that you speak to people who might just give you their first donation if you give them a good reason why?  You wouldn’t, I hope!

Figure out the specific audience or audiences you are trying to reach before you figure out what you are going to say.

Nonprofits DO Marketing and PR! 6 Ways to Do Them Well

by 7 Comments

marketing, ads, PR

Your nonprofit’s good work won’t speak for itself.

Maybe you take a quiet satisfaction in a job well done.  Good for you!  But if you’re the only one who knows what a great job your organization did, you’re cheating yourself.

  • Who will volunteer for your organization if they don’t know what it does?
  • Who will donate if they don’t know what a difference it makes?
  • Who will help you change the world if they don’t know how?
  • Who will speak up for you if they’ve never heard from you?

Beyond “Outreach”

Most of us know that we have to market ourselves.  We just don’t like the label.  “Marketing” sounds too commercial.  Its cousin, “public relations,” sounds too slick.  So we talk about “outreach” instead, or “visibility.”

And that’s getting in our way.

“Outreach” is just too broad.  It lets us keep on thinking as if there’s some general public out there waiting to hear from us.  That’s a waste of a nonprofit’s time and resources.

We need our communications to reach specific groups of people, with clearly defined messages that they want to hear.  Better yet, we want those constituencies to seek us out, to be glad to hear from us, to let us know what’s on their minds, and to ask, “How can I help?”

Marketing and Public Relations for a Good Cause

Marketing and public relations don’t mean what we think they mean.  I want to quote a great article by Heidi Cohen:

Marketing is everything a brand, business or organization does to sell its goods, services and values.

Public Relations…builds honest, open and transparent bridges of communication between a brand, business or organization and its constituent communities. Deborah Weinstein )

You “sell” your services to two sets of “customers”: the clients who benefit from them and the donors, funders, and volunteers who contribute to them.  You “sell” them when you talk or write about them, when you answer the phone, sign your email, post to Twitter and Facebook.  But you also sell them in every interaction “because if your customer service sucks, nothing else that you say matters.”  (B.L. Ochman)

You build bridges and win the trust of your constituent communities “by community-building and tapping the power of positive third party, word-of-mouth, endorsement/ testimony/ tribute to create affiliation, loyalty and advocacy for your goods, services and/ or ideas,” as Deborah Weinstein says.

Ways to Do Better

You’re in the marketing and public relations business.  Isn’t it worth doing them well?

Here are six ways you can improve your nonprofit’s marketing and PR.

  1. It’s Not About You. Get to know and love your audience and give them what they need.
  2. Have a Strategy.  Understand what you hope each audience will give you in return and how you will move them toward doing so.
  3. Everybody In.  Market to yourselves first.  Make sure staff, Board, and volunteers get it about your organization and represent it well.
  4. Change the Way People Behave.  Social marketing works better than a new program sometimes.
  5. Attract (instead of reaching out).  Content marketing builds your reputation and makes people come to you.
  6. Take Care of Your Friends.  Build loyalty among your donors, volunteers, and supporters.

5 Ways Your Nonprofit Can Use Communications Advice Written for Business

by 1 Comment

Image

Perhaps you’ve already noticed: most articles about communication are written for businesses.  They use a business vocabulary.  The writers assume you’re looking to make a profit.  A nonprofit professional reading these articles can feel like a deaf person attending an event with no interpreters.

Good new: with a little practice, you can be your own interpreter.

For practice, let’s take a look at an article that American Express recently published.  It’s entitled “5 Common Brand Messaging Mistakes Marketers Make.”  That may be a puzzle already.

  • What’s a nonprofit’s “brand”?  Your brand is not your logo: it’s the overall impression people have of your organization before and after they’ve met you.  Think “reputation, public awareness, visibility.”
  • “Messaging” is not just anything you say.  It’s your deliberate attempt to shape your reputation.
  • “Marketers”: that means you!  Marketing really just means communications with a purpose.  If you put out a newsletter, send an email, or give a talk and you’re trying to win support for your agency, you’re marketing!

So, for a nonprofit audience, the title of this article could be “5 Ways of Communicating that Don’t Work (and What You Can Do Instead).”  Now, doesn’t that make you more likely to read it?

Please do read the article and comment about it here.  When you get beyond the title, what makes sense from a nonprofit perspective and what needs interpretation?  We can puzzle it out together.

Yes, I’d like weekly email from Communicate!

Get more advice

Subscribe to Blog via Email

Enter your email address to subscribe to this blog and receive notifications of new posts by email.