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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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A new social media planning tool

Monday, December 5, 2011 — 

 

I recently spoke at an event for the Business Journal of Greater Milwaukee.  The event, called Social Media for Nonprofits, featured Wayne Breitbarth, LinkedIn expert, and me; and although it was targeted at the nonprofit community in Milwaukee, much of what we spoke about can be useful to for-profit businesses.

My presentation focused on the results of our recent Social Media Survey of Nonprofits ( get the results here) , specifically what nonprofits value about social media, and the challenges nonprofits face in implementing social media tools for their organizations. Because the Business Journal was kind enough to ask me to speak at this event, I wanted to be sure to deliver some high quality content for them. The result of my prep for this event is a new tool we hope you’ll find useful in planning your social media strategy. We call it the Ongoing Social Media Strategy Wheel.

One of the biggest challenges faced by nonprofit is getting others involved in the effort, either from a participation standpoint or from an implementation standpoint. This is partially because most nonprofits (64%) do not have a social media policy guiding the people charged with implementing social media. If your organization doesn’t have a social media policy, be sure to download our template so you can fix this!  A social media policy can help make it “safe” to build a team of people to get the work done, rather than relying on a single person (who often has other work to do).

The other challenge is finding time to plan a strategy. Although most of us would never think of spending advertising dollars without a plan or hiring a receptionist and not training that person on how to answer the phone, many people don’t think anything of just jumping into social media without a plan of action.  We hope our new document, the Ongoing Social Media Strategy Wheel, helps address the planning issue. When we created it, we wanted to be sure we recognized the following things:

  • Most organizations are already using social media in some way. It would be stupid for me to lead you through the perfect planning process for people that are not yet involved in social media. That process won’t work if you’re already participating because you can’t stop and undo what you’ve already done just to make a plan.
  • Planning is not a one time activity. You have to constantly reassess where you are at, look for new ideas, and pay attention to what is going on in the world.
  • The world doesn’t stop while you plan. You can’t take a vacation from interacting with your social media contacts while you think. You have to think and act at the same time.

The ongoing social media strategy wheel attempts to show this by using continuous circles. The inner circle illustrates the planning and reflection activities that most people forget. These activities are conducted internally and aren’t seen by the public, but they are very important because performing these activities will increase the effectiveness of the woare the public sees. The outer circle illustrates the activities that most people see. Both wheels are rotating constantly and at the same time.

We hope that this new document will help you continuously refine your communications on social media.

If you want to see the rest of the presentation from the Social Media for Nonprofits event (the ideas work for for-profits too), you can view it here:

Social Media for Nonprofits

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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Official Researcher for a Day

Wednesday, April 20, 2011 — 

 

A few weeks ago I shared a research paper that I wrote in grad school with two classmates about creating communities on Facebook. We wrote it almost two years ago, but since the timeline to get accepted into a conference is quite long, we just presented our paper at the Central States Communication Association (CSCA) Midwest Convention a week and a half ago. I thought I’d briefly share my conference-presenting experience!

Not one of the three of us has any desire to include the title of “researcher” in our future but we decided that getting accepted and presenting at a conference would be our last grad school benefit/hurrah of sorts. We went into it with an open mind, excited to present to other researchers outside of a classroom setting.

The week of our panel presentation, we met and ended up with more questions than answers. How much time would we have? Would there be a podium? A microphone? Would there be 20 people or 100 in attendance? Did people want to find holes in our research or would they be mostly supportive? At least the one thing we did know was our material, which we were grateful for. And that there would be three other presentations during our time slot.

Our presentation went pretty well, although we stumbled over one or two points that had become rusty over the past year. It was great to share with others at a communications conference where people actively research a variety of communication subjects. After all four presentations in our time slot, a respondent assigned to our session stood up to talk about how all of the topics were the same and then spent a few minutes on each paper in front of everyone.

The respondent seemed very impressed by ours and it was great to get that response from somebody who didn’t need to give us an official grade! Apparently the theory we chose was unique to communications but worked very well and our ideas could really be used in a variety of circumstances. Success!

It was really valuable and satisfying to see a research paper from infancy (about our shared interest in social media and nonprofits) to being acknowledged in the research world. While it would be amazing to have a published paper, the three of us are completely content and proud to have presented at a conference.

Have you experienced something similar? Was it everything you thought it would be and more?

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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Walk in your client’s shoes : How ethnography can fit into your business

Friday, January 21, 2011 — 

 

I recently attended a meeting of the American Marketing Society where the speaker, Jeanne Meyer, presented how GE Healthcare uses ethnography to help develop and market the company’s products. Ethnography is research in which a company immerses itself in their buyer’s culture. At GE Healthcare, this meant that the company spent four months studying the education needs of nurses in order to develop effective training solutions. The result, of course, was an extremely well thought out set of solutions that are likely to be well received in the healthcare industry.

Unfortunately, most businesses we know believe they don’t have the time or the money to do this type of extensive research, think it is not necessary, or that it couldn’t possibly apply to their business. None of those things are true. Need proof? The following challenges shouldn’t hold you back.

“I don’t have the time or the money.”
Ethnography doesn’t have to involve expensive research. One of Jeanne’s examples of ethnography in use occurs at Harley Davidson. All executives at Harley are required to attend motorcycle rallies. Spending time at rallies helps them relate to their customers and see their products in use. Try to see how you can spend time observing how your services are used in the real world.

“I don’t see how this applies to my business.”
This is an easy one, especially for companies like the ones we work with. Most service providers offer something that is either technical, government-regulated, or part of a lengthy process. If you’ve ever tried to explain what you do and had the person you’re talking to look at you like you’re speaking a foreign language, maybe you could benefit from spending some time with your clients.  An ethnography mindset, even if you aren’t doing a formal study, can help you communicate without the jargon and gobbeldygook that consultants can easily end up relying on.

The next time you have a communications challenge or need guidance to help make a business development decision, try asking yourself, “How can I put myself in my client’s shoes?”

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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Survey Says!

Thursday, September 30, 2010 — 

 

Does hearing an unanswerable question over and over again make you want to find the answer? Well, it did in our case.

Professional service providers were coming to us for advice on social media use. But they wanted more than just the standard advice. They wanted to know how to deal with issues that are especially important in their industries. Issues like conflict of interest, confidentiality and providing general advice that could be misinterpreted in a specific situation.

So we collaborated with McGrath Marketing Associates to complete a survey and create an e-book: Social Media Habits of Accountants and Attorneys in Southeastern Wisconsin (and it’s free for anyone, by the way). We felt that providing professional service providers with the opportunity to learn from one anther would help everyone.

Here are some nuggets of information that we discovered:

  • Most professionals who don’t use social media prefer to use other methods of communication such as phone calls, texting or emails.
  • Some professionals have not begun using social media for work due to lack of formal training and understanding of how to use social media professionally.
  • Over 40 percent of participants said they did not use social media to communicate with any of their customers or business associates. However, participants were most likely to say they would use social media with those who they knew were users of the media.
  • An important goal of many firms is keeping employees’ personal communication separate from professional communication.
  • The relative equality in the number of people who use social media for personal and business communications indicates a strong need for social media policies at all firms.

Over 600 professionals between the ages of 21 and 60 participated in the survey, representing 144 different firms ranging in size from fewer than 50 employees to firms with over 1000 employees. The online study was conducted between April 26, 2010 and May 30, 2010.

The forward for the book was written by Todd Sattersten, former President of 800-CEO-READ and co-author of The 100 Best Business Books of All Time. Todd also reviewed the book.

We learned a great deal from the survey and hope you will too. You can download the book here.

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Brilliant Ideas In Small Packages

Monday, June 28, 2010 — 

 

There are so many creative ways to get your message across in printed form.  In our creative world, the possibilities are endless.  Many people go with the standard tri-fold brochure or letter sized sell sheet to share information.  Sure these can work.  But what if we consider something smaller, say the size of a business card?

I recently attended the Milwaukee Business Journal Women of Influence luncheon and received information about the Alverno College Research Center for Women & Girls.  We have to commend this group on the creative brochure they used to promote their findings from a recent survey.  It was cleverly packaged in a business card sized folded piece.  Using simple design and powerful research findings, we thought it worthy of sharing bits of this resource and study with you in multiple blog posts.

The Alverno College Research Center for Women & Girls (RCWG) is one of the first centers of its kind creating positive social change through research specific to women and girls.  Alverno RCWG has recently shared its 2010 Status of Girls in Wisconsin Report, which studied the lives of 372,000 10-to-19 year old girls.

Insight 1:  Science, Technology, Engineering & Mathematics

Wisconsin girls in 5th and 7th grades are improving in math.  In 2009, 45% of 5th grade Wisconsin girls scored at advanced levels (38% in 2007).

After seeing this insight, we were curious how this stacked up to national statistics.  In a 2009 an Reuters article regarding a National Academy of Sciences report indicated that girls can do just as well at math as boys — even at the genius level — if they are given the same opportunities and encouragement.

So what does this study have to do with marketing?  Well, many things.  It provides insight for women, parents, grandparents and those that support our educational system and women and girls in Wisconsin.  Plus, it may beg more questions of people reviewing the information and they may do just what we did and explore more information about this via the Internet.  If you sell a product/service focused on women and girls, what a great opportunity to support a great new research center focused on women in Wisconsin (hint, hint, nudge, nudge :) ).

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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