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Author Archives: Sarah Schermer
Closing One Chapter, Beginning A New One
I am at a very critical transition in my life. I am graduating from my undergraduate program. This blog began as a requirement for my Integrated Marketing Communications class, but it’s not going to end that way. I have enjoyed blogging. While I am slo… Continue Reading
Funny Does Work
I am definitely a part of my demographic. I watch a ton of TV. True, none of it is on an actual TV because I am a wizard of the Internet and too cheap to buy a DVR. However, this means that my exposure to commercials is about zero to none. So when I du… Continue Reading
How to Make Homelessness "Sexy"
“It’s hard to sell homelessness. It’s not sexy,” Kevin Murray, the chief executive of the Weingart Center, a nonprofit focused on helping homeless people get back on their feet, told the LA Times. The Weingart Center knows the difficulty of t… Continue Reading
Nightmare to Non-Profit
Blogs MatterMeet Shane Burcaw, a 20-year old with Spinal Muscular Atrophy. He decided to take his disease, and fight for happiness despite it. He started a blog to help him stay positive, to help him focus on what’s fun in life and share it with t… Continue Reading
Master of Emotional Advertising: Dove
In Clow and Baack’s textbook “Integrated Advertising, Promotions and Marketing Communications,” (5th edition), there’s already many blurbs about the company Dove and I’m sure in their 6th edition, 7th edition and so forth there will continue to be. Why… Continue Reading
New Concept: Let’s Be Friends!
David Meerman Scott’s book “The New Rules of Marketing and PR,” evangelizes how in our modern marketing world, in order for your product and company to last, you have to throw the old ways of marketing and PR out the window and create la… Continue Reading
Hi, I’m Your Number One Fan
High Level Priority: Connecting with Your AudienceFirst, watch this.Now think about what blogs, Facebook profiles, Twitter accounts, musicians, actors, athletes, economists, marketers, whoever you follow, adore, love, worship.Why do you care about them… Continue Reading
Web Content: Makes or Breaks Your Company’s Webpage
Are You Posting to Inspire Return Viewers?Interaction between your company and customers, target market or not, is happening more and more online. People are using the internet to look up information, reviews, and price comparisons about your products … Continue Reading
The Morals of the (NonProfit-Marketing) Story
Ever hear some good advice, then when something actually impacts your life relevant to the advice, you don’t take it? There’s something about humans that makes them think that their own advice or experiences make them the most expert in opinion. Well, David Morrison is an actual expert when it comes to marketing and communications for nonprofit organization, so much so he wrote an informative article, focused on giving the best advice about it. Here I’ll discuss a few of his “morals” and why they shouldn’t be taken for granted.
Moral 1: Marketing is the only job shared by everyone in the organization. An elevator speech makes sure your people have a compelling story, they stick to it and it sticks with their audience.
Remember that good management advice you heard in business school, “you’re only as good as the employees you hire”? Don’t turn a deaf ear, because if you hire an employee that doesn’t fit in with your organization’s culture and passion, that employee might just be Tweeting horrible things about your company, or even created a whole Twitter account about it. The last thing you want is a Trending Topic to be horror stories about your company, like McDonald’s recent experience. Morrison’s main highlight from this moral is educating your employees on being able to give a two minute “elevator speech” about who they are, what’s the organization about, who your program helps, what social issue your program addresses, how your program differentiates itself, and why who you’re talking to should care. Obviously the circumstances in which your employee is telling someone, and who that someone is, changes, so multiple answers should be memorized.
Storytelling is the ultimate weapon when it comes to your nonprofit because humans thrive off of stories and human interaction.
“The audience accepts the story because, for a human, a good story always seems like a gift. But the story is actually just a delivery system for the teller’s agenda. A story is a trick for sneaking a message into the fortified citadel of the human mind.”
If your employees or others in the organization can deliver a two minute story that can encompass what Morrison said, then the moral of your story (your organization’s message) will spread. Raving employees make raving fans. However, when trying to find a nonprofit with raving employees, I kept finding a common theme, there seems to be more unhappiness in the nonprofit sector by employees than happiness. Nonprofit employees are stressed by the little monetary income they get from the hard work they put in because the main reason they stay with the organization is the message, but an empty wallet and an empty belly challenge that. Appalachian Voices is an organization focused on ending mountain top removal. I went to a seminar put on by Periclean Scholars about this issue, and the speaker said that if he could inspire one person that day then he had done his job because one person inspires another person. He said that his message is what sells because it’s the story that’s gripping, so it has to be a good one.
Moral 2: There is no such thing as the general public. Find the audience that matters most to your mission, and focus on them like a laser beam.
It’s irritating to me every time someone says a generic target market, because “the general public” might as well be a target market too if “boomer white women” is a target market. It is extremely important to find a home-base, a segment of people that is CRAZY about your organization. Those are the people that will spread information and light a fire under other organizations and companies to do something about your social issue or even better yet, have the power to create a direct change and bettering outcome.
Morrison gives us the example of how in the reality of saving desert tortoises, there were exactly 9 board members they needed to influence to give desert tortoises land to live on before they became extinct. Then when it really came down to it, they only needed to influence two of those members because 3 were for and 3 were against. By lazering in on those two people, they were able to create proposals for them to connect with so that they’d agree to give the tortoises land. While I know that it can be difficult to narrow down a target market because we want EVERYONE to contribute to our cause, but in the reality maybe just making one or two people change their minds or get informed is what really matters because it’s impossible to be all things for everyone.
This website in fact is devoted to making fun of and harshly critiquing poor ads for nonprofits. http://www.futurefundraisingnow.com/future-fundraising/stupid-nonprofit-ads.html
An ad in particular that I thought, while quirky and fun, does not target a specific audience, but tries to be something for everyone is this:
To me this ad is calling to any and every person that cares about the environment and animals. Well, isn’t that everyone to a certain degree? It definitely isn’t a specific target market, there’s no “niche” factor to it. Morrison said to lazer in on them, not throw a bucket of water and hit a bunch of random anyones.
Moral 3: Put the right message in the right messenger and let it FLY!
Order something on Etsy from Thailand…how’s it going to get to your house? A very detailed and organized system of airplanes and trucks is going to get that product to you in a week. Now THAT is the right messenger. Just imagine all your messages are getting to your target market segment that efficiently and pain-free. It’s possible. You just have to choose the best thing to say, send it at the most relevant time, and when you send it, send it the right way.
Morrison says the most important message to give your target audience is one that motivates them to go beyond awareness, but to take action. The message should speak directly to their needs, desires and aspirations. Market Research will help figure out who and how to send the message. Morrison gives the example of using Top Chefs as the messenger for the message about the population decline of swordfish.
While there are some really harsh things said about this ad, I don’t agree with everything that the commentator said, but when he starts making bullets, he makes sense.
The writer says:
Anyway, there aren’t going to be many donors to worry about. Because the ads make several serious rookie mistakes:
- Big numbers. The fact that 3.5 million children die each year is not going to motivate giving. It’s going to turn away giving. People give to help solve human-sized, solvable problems.
- Jargon. Guess what? Most people don’t know what “acute malnutrition” is. It’s a medical term with little emotional punch or life connection.
- Abstract imagery. If you want people to donate to help people, you’re going to have to show images of people. Not paper dolls; not miniature pizzas. Donors don’t have time to play your mind games. Just show them what needs to be done. (The creative director at the clueless agency that created the ads explained it with the creative directors’ Trump Card: “cognitive dissonance.” Sorry, cognitive dissonance is a code phrase for “no response.”)
- No coupon. Even a first-year junior copywriter in fundraising who’s barely sober most of the time knows that if you want response, you’ve got to include a coupon. Even though most responses now come via the web or the phone. (Oops! They forgot to include a phone number!)
He shows that the message isn’t written well by using jargon, big numbers and abstract imagery. Morrison says that the message has to be right for the people to understand, and go beyond motivation to take action. This ad shows that there’s a message that makes donors uncomfortable because there seems to be no hope (and the lack of coupon doesn’t help as noted by the writer).
The moral of today’s nonprofit marketing story is that just because you’re a nonprofit, it doesn’t mean that you should treat your potential and loyal customers any differently. Market to them when relevant, give them hope and motivation to take action, and never forget that your employees could be your best advocate.
Charitable Partnerships (Updated)
Words of Wisdom When Choosing a Co-Brand PartnerHolly Stewart, an outstanding Marketing and PR Strategist with expertise in non-profit, cause-focused marketing, shared her wisdom with my marketing class last week.”Non-profits believe their cause is alr… Continue Reading