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What matters in nonprofit marketing

Thursday, January 19, 2012 — 

 

According to the Fenton/Globescan social good survey, the more nonprofit organizations engage with their constituents, the more likely they are to receive support. Although many of the findings were were commonly accepted best practices known to many nonprofits (engage with constituents on a personal level – connect your cause to how people live, work, and play), we found others to be quite interesting. Here are what I found to be the best takeaways from this comprehensive survey.

Engage through multiple channels. With the advent of social media, many organizations (both for-profit and not-for-profit) have turned to social media as a primary way to communicate. However, as our social media survey found, attracting audiences to social media sites is a HUGE challenge. The social good survey backs this up. Its results showed that the most effective way to break through to new audiences is through mainstream media, but that social media is critical for maintaining relationships.

Engage to build trust. Although less than half (41%) of the social good survey respondents claimed to understand how nonprofits are run and managed, 26 percent of people cite effective use of funds as their primary reason for giving. Another worrisome fact – less than half of the respondents think nonprofits effectively manage their funds. What to do? Educate your constituents! Explain how funds are used. Do it over and over again, not just once a year in your annual report. Talk about use of funds in monthly emails, post results to Facebook, and explain how decisions are made in your blog. People want to know your organization is well-managed.

We know nonprofit marketing presents special challenges not found in for-profit marketing. Check out this recent blog post and slideshare presentation on a talk we recently gave on this very subject. We hope it will give you some great ideas.

Other resources:
Details matter
Getting a fresh perspective

Christina Steder is the President of Clear Verve Marketing and works with clients to plan, create and execute marketing campaigns. Follow her on Twitter as @clearverve

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Why crowdsourcing can work for Harley Davidson

Thursday, November 17, 2011 — 

 

A recent Milwaukee Journal Sentinel article described Harley Davidson’s new strategy to generate ideas for upcoming ads – crowdsourcing. The theory behind crowdsourcing is that a large group of people will make better decisions than a small group of experts. It’s been shown to work for many businesses, including Ben & Jerry’s and Pepsi. In fact, many of us often use one of the best known results of crowdsourcing – Wikipedia. However, in the article, one expert lamented that this strategy would likely result in a dilution of the revered Harley Davidson brand.

I disagree. I think Harley Davidson has all the key ingredients needed to succeed at crowdsourcing.

  • They have a very large group of fans
  • Their fans are truly devoted to the brand, to the point of tattooing the logo on their bodies
  • They care about what Harley Davidson stands for and don’t want the company to water down their brand
  • They understand their own experiences. Although many of the people who work at Harley Davidson are riders, and they obviously understand their audience, they can’t possibly know everything about what their riders experience.
  • They already have many brand evangelists who will gladly tell you why a Harley is the best bike in the world

Of course, when sifting through the ideas generated by the crowd, I’m sure the people in the marketing department at Harley will come across more than a few ideas that are real dogs. If there is anything I’ve learned from my years of experience in marketing, it’s that everyone thinks they can come up with great marketing ideas, but not everyone can. Good marketing is about a lot more than just pure creativity. It’s creativity mixed with a bit of psychology, tempered by facts about the consumer, and mixed with an ability to understand how the message will be received – not just what they company wants said. That said; I’m more than willing to bet that there will be some brilliant ideas that the Harley Davidson marketing folks can develop into campaigns that will really resonate with current and future riders. And that’s what marketing is all about.

Christina Steder is the President of Clear Verve Marketing and works with clients to plan, create and execute marketing campaigns. Follow her on Twitter as @clearverve

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What Maroon 5 reminded me about marketing

Thursday, September 29, 2011 — 

 

Recently, I was watching videos on VH1 with my 13 year old. (Yes, VH1 does still actually show music videos sometimes.) While we were watching, the video for the Maroon 5 song, Moves Like Jagger came on. After watching it for a few moments, my daughter said, “This is a really stupid video.” Meanwhile, I was watching it thinking it was a really clever video.

In the video, there are shots of Adam Levine dancing like Mick Jagger interspersed with other people dancing like Mick and actual footage of Mick Jagger performing on stage. At the end, when Christina Aguilera sings, she’s dressed to look like Jerry Hall, Mick’s long-time girlfriend.

After I explained the video to her and pointed out the real footage of Mick Jagger, she suddenly got it and decided that the video wasn’t so stupid after all.

The experience reminded me about the importance of perspective when crafting your messages. One of the biggest challenges every business faces when building their marketing messages and campaigns is remembering what the target audience knows, understands, and cares about. Just because something is important to you as a business owner or as an employee, doesn’t mean your customer gives a hoot about it. This is why defining a target audience is so important. The more closely you can define your target, the easier it will be for you to choose words and images that will resonate with that group of people.That way, you might not be trying to appeal to a teenager using images that only make sense to her forty-something year old mom.

Check out the video here:

Christina Steder is the President of Clear Verve Marketing and works with clients to plan, create and execute marketing campaigns. Follow her on Twitter as @clearverve

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Explanation Overkill

Friday, August 12, 2011 — 

 

When crossing the street in West Allis the other day, I noticed this sign:

Who would have thought that crossing the street was so complicated? My kids understood the basics of walk/don’t walk before they started kindergarten, and they never would have been able to read this sign back then.

Sometimes, the same thing happens with marketing, especially when you are trying to market a service. You can’t show anyone what you are selling, so you explain, and explain, and explain… Recently, I met with someone who called it “feature puking.” It may be a little gross, but it is a good analogy.

So what’s the lesson? Figure out what matters to your audience. Tell them that, and then STOP. Too much information can actually make decisions more difficult. (Even if you are just deciding whether or not to cross the street.)

Christina Steder is the President of Clear Verve Marketing and works with clients to plan, create and execute marketing campaigns. Follow her on Twitter as @clearverve.

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Hello, Time Warner Business Class. Is anyone there?

Friday, July 15, 2011 — 

 

We recently moved our offices at Clear Verve to a wonderful new space that gives us plenty of room to work and grow. Almost everything about the move went really well. Our movers (Two Men and a Truck) were fantastic. Our IT company (TBG Networks) was incredibly helpful and amazing. Time Warner Business Class, on the other hand, was not.

We’ve been in our office for two weeks now and finally got a properly working phone system just a few days ago. First, the system was ordered incorrectly. The sales guy ordered an extra phone line and asked for the system to be configured the wrong way. The installer caught that mistake and fixed it (or so I thought). The following workday, as I attempted to configure our voice mail, I discovered that the system still couldn’t work the way I wanted it to. Two phone calls to tech support and two phone calls to the sales guy later, was told by someone else that he had ordered a completely incorrect configuration and features I didn’t even need. And, it would take Time Warner three to five days to fix it. In the interim, we had to set up a single voice mail box for the entire company and just live with it.

At the same time, I was also attempting to get information from Time Warner on how to get our emails working. My requests only seemed to confuse my sales guy, who had no idea what information I needed to make my email work. He did however, know how to say, “I haven’t been trained on that,” and, “Here’s the number for tech support.” It didn’t take me too long to figure out that this guy hadn’t really been trained on ANYTHING and had no idea what he’d sold me.

Two days later, as I prepared to leave for vacation, I sent the sales guy an email telling him I’d be out of town and that he should work with Susan when the new configuration was complete. To my surprise, I received an autoreply from him telling me he had left for vacation the day before and wouldn’t be back for a week. In frustration, I called Time Warner’s corporate office, explained my situation, and asked for his boss’ phone number and name. I then called that guy and left a message. He didn’t call me back. For some odd reason, I was not surprised. (Can you hear the sarcasm?)

While I was gone, Time Warner reconfigured our system. However, they neglected to inform us about it. The only way we discovered this was when clients started desperately emailing us telling us they couldn’t leave us voice mails. Susan called tech support, and once again managed to get us a single voice mail box. Meanwhile, we lost a prospective project because someone couldn’t get a hold of us.

When I returned, I attempted to set up our voice mails. However, we had never been sent instructions on how to do this, so I had to (once again) call tech support. During my third call, I discovered that the rollover feature on our phone lines was not working. Luckily, I had finally found someone at Time Warner who cared, and he stuck with the problem until he figured out how to solve it. At that point, he also discovered that I STILL had one more phone line than I needed and gave me different number to call to have it removed.

So, what about my sales guy, who was so helpful when he sold me the system? I haven’t heard from him in two weeks. I’ve called his boss four times so far, and he hasn’t bothered to call me back either. Today, I’ll be asking for the next guy up on the food chain when I call Time Warner. I wonder how far I will have to go up the totem pole before someone actually cares.

Christina Steder is the President of Clear Verve Marketing and works with clients to plan, create and execute marketing campaigns. Follow her on Twitter as @clearverve.

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Gum Package Highlight: Orbit

Thursday, April 7, 2011 — 

 

Gum packaging design is usually simple: a minimal number of colors representing the flavor and all the information. I’m going to skip past the package changes this past decade or so.

Remember these?

I don’t usually notice gum packaging. Does anyone really? Grabbing a piece of gum is not usually a slow process. It’s usually done without much, if any, of a glance at the packaging. I know if it’s in my purse that I don’t even take the package out. It’s easy to get a piece out without looking.

Gum is simply about flavor and meeting a need of fresh breath or something to chew. It’s not about admiring the package.

And that’s why I think it took me so long to notice what Orbit is doing with their packaging. Underneath the flap on the package (which happened to be sitting open on my desk at work while I was looking around for inspiration) is a code. If you go to Orbit’s special website and enter the code on your pack of gum, Orbit will donate 50¢ to Keep America Beautiful.

Here’s a sample of the flash intro from the page:

Kind of cool, right? I thought so. Let’s just hope that more people notice the code! Over $40,000 has been raised, but it’s still a long way from the goal of $300,000.

Erica Gordon is a Marketing Associate at Clear Verve and also works part-time at a Milwaukee area nonprofit. She recently received her Communication MA from Marquette University. Follow Erica on Twitter @erica_g.

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What can you do with a hotel room?

Friday, March 25, 2011 — 

 

First of all, notice I said, “What can you do with a hotel room?” not what can you do in a hotel room. Big difference! (And not the subject of this post.)

Recently, a client approached us with an opportunity to do something really fun and challenging. They wanted to create a movie theatre-like experience to accompany a trade show at which they were launching a new product. Important customers were invited to the “theatre” for educational presentations on the new product. We’re really proud of the results, which you can see below. We transformed an ordinary hotel conference room into something that really looked like a theatre with a red carpet and a candy counter. We even popped fresh popcorn throughout the day, making it smell like a theatre too! We’re especially proud of the movie posters lining the sides of the room in which the new product took a starring role in some well-known movies from the past 50 years.

Take a look – we hope you find these photos inspirational!

Christina Steder is the President of Clear Verve Marketing and works with clients to plan, create and execute marketing campaigns.  Follow her on Twitter as @clearverve.

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Know Your Audience (Especially if You Accuse Them of Having Rosacea)

Thursday, March 24, 2011 — 

 

I was recently mall-walking with a friend when we were approached by someone working at one of the center kiosks. Normally we would have walked right by, but we were just there to walk and he was offering us hand lotion. Hard to turn down, right?

After a successful hand scrub, hand lotion, and single fingernail shine, he looked at my face and asked, “So, what do you do for the Rosacea on your face?” It was blunt. It was a question. It was supposed to be engaging. But I was taken aback.

“Ummm I don’t have Rosacea.”

“Yes, you do.”

“No, I don’t.”

“Yes, your face is red. That’s Rosacea.”

Um, this is winter in Wisconsin. It was cold. The wind was blowing quite briskly. I hadn’t worn a jacket while walking from the car to the mall. I also hadn’t put foundation on that morning. So, yeah my face was reddish. But do you really need to point that out? We stopped to try your HAND products. Don’t point out things that you think need to be improved on the rest of me. And, in my opinion, he should have worked his way there differently if I DID have Rosacea. If he had asked questions like, “oh, do you do anything to calm the redness in your face?” I may have been more interested in what he was trying to sell me.

Would this back and forth have insulted you? I mean, I was (albeit amusedly) insulted enough to ignore everything he said after that point. As soon as he jumped from our hands to my face without us broaching the topic, I was done and tuned out while he went over pricing for all the products we tried, some of which were actually pretty awesome.

My friend, while being just as taken aback as I was, thought his ploy might work on some women. She said that a lot of women purchase a product after being insulted to a point of realizing they need to improve something about themselves in order to look better.

But if you are selling to people who are not like that, you can’t backtrack after an insult.

With all that being said, please take the time to know your audience. And if you are in a place where you are trying to sell a product face to red-face, please use care in how you ask questions that will eventually lead to a comment about your product.

Think I’m wrong? (Not about knowing your audience, that’s a given.) If you think an insult works, I’d love to hear about it. Or if you have your own story about a time when you were insulted enough to be turned off of a product, please share that also!

Erica Gordon is a Marketing Associate at Clear Verve and also works part-time at a Milwaukee area nonprofit. She recently received her Communication MA from Marquette University. Follow Erica on Twitter @erica_g.

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Thank you

Friday, March 18, 2011 — 

 

Sometimes in our marketing efforts we can forget the simple things – like the simple act of saying thank you to customers or clients.  When was the last time you sent a quick thank you out to your clients for their business or referral?  It doesn’t have to be a long drawn out “process” to do this. It can be through simple ways like:

  • Including a thank you in your email newsletter
  • When you meet with clients, simply stating thank you sincerely after your discussion and mentioning how much you appreciate the opportunity to work with them
  • Thank clients on anniversaries of working together, your business anniversary, for referrals, or advice from others in your field
  • Start a random acts of thank you effort and each week send out a special hand written thank you note (this is a great post from Girvin Branding on the power of a hand written note) or something out of the ordinary to thank clients
  • Instead of holiday gifts during Christmas – consider a Thanksgiving “giving thanks” message to all clients

Our blog has been up and running now for over a year and we appreciate everyone that reads it.  We want to keep our Promise Marketing idea fuel going so if you ever have comments/suggestions, please respond.

Susan Schoultz is Client Service Director at Clear Verve Marketing and works with clients to plan, create and execute marketing campaigns.  Follow her on Twitter as @clearverve2.

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The Commercial that Stuck

Thursday, October 14, 2010 — 

 

Most of us can remember really funny commercials. Or really annoying ones. But what about commercials that take a different route?  I got very attached to one of those commercials back in 2005. Sony launched 250,000 bouncy balls into the streets of San Francisco and filmed it from all different angles for a Bravia commercial:

I’ve been watching it over and over (and over) again lately. It’s so great! My consistent desire to watch it made me wonder why it’s so great. Here’s what I came up with: the colors are vibrant, the lively movement is pleasing to the eye and the music adds to the overall idea that you stumbled upon something you don’t see everyday. And it finds a way to connect to the viewer without demanding the purchase of a television. It says “your TV-watching experience can be this clear and beautiful” using color, movement and sound, not words. The commercial is also timeless – taking advantage of gravity will never go out of style. In my opinion, commercials that manage to do all of this are unique because so many commercials (while still wonderful) take a more direct route.

Sony truly let consumers see what their Bravia brings to the television-watching experience table. I haven’t been in the market for a flat screen TV since watching the ad back in 2005, but when I do reach that point, I will definitely remember the commercial that has become a permanent fixture in my mind and look into purchasing a Sony Bravia before making any final decisions.

On a side note, after delving into my wonderful five-year Sony commercial experience, I discovered that Nissan recently took Sony’s bouncing ball idea and made it their own. With bowling balls. Somebody was definitely paying attention to that Sony experience:

Are there any commercials that have stuck with you for years? What about them makes you love them so much?

Erica Gordon is a Marketing Associate at Clear Verve and works part-time at a Milwaukee area nonprofit. She recently received her Communication MA from Marquette University. Follow Erica on Twitter @erica_g.

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