Tech Planning

RE: How can you sell your cause to others?

itmh — Mon, 21 Aug 2006 02:57:00 GMT

Having read your post and the "Robin Hood Marketing" letter,there seems to be the right message in here - the customer is what it is all about. However, I am not sure it is coming through clearly.

If I said that "marketing is creating demand, and sales is fulfilling demand", that would not clear this up. However, that is the basic premise here.

First, remembering that the customer is the focus of our external communications seems fundamental, but I realy hope you cling to that one thought.

Marketing goes through many stages - awareness, consideration, preference and ultimately purchase or donations as the nonprofit calls this.

So, I can think of several great campaigns that were scrapped after the preference stage had produced little results. Then the purchase prince rode in on the white horse and stole the show. Only to have the company in a death spiral using the purchase prince exclusively for the next four or five years.

Marketing is not guessing. It is science.

OK, now that the theory part of the course is over what was the key thing to remember again? It is all about the CUSTOMER. There is a way to determine the right things to do, and again guessing is crazy. I call it psychographics. It is using lifestyle anylysis with the fact that "birds of a feather flock together."

So, in answer to your question whether you should consider a consultant, I would wonder which consultant knows the lifestyle of the area that you are targeting. Next, I would wonder if the campaign creative and execution could realize the steps to funding with those lifestyles that need to be targeted. Of course, it has to be virtually free right?

RE: How can you sell your cause to others?

wcook — Thu, 17 Aug 2006 21:27:00 GMT

In line with Katya's advice on tapping into the values of your audience, you might want to identify a certain aspect of the bogs that your audience can relate to.

If your audience has a hard time understanding delicate ecosystems but especially values the idea of having a home, for example, you could emphasize in your campaigns how the bogs are homes to many types of life. Or, explain that the land is already "developed" -- and that the so-called developers would not be developing but destroying something.

You could also have a "blog for bogs!" event. Create a badge ( Word of Blog helps organizations promote their work by hosting downloadable badges and their HTML code for free) and ask environmental bloggers to post it to their blogs and have it link back to your site.

I hope these suggestions help!

RE: How can you sell your cause to others?

mimacdonald — Tue, 01 Aug 2006 15:45:00 GMT

I need to sell a cause to a very reluctant audience. I am trying to rally support to apply for a full power radio station. The FCC is opening a window for full power non-commercial radio stations in 2007. We need our community to start planning NOW but I need community support. I'm worried I won't be able to find it. Would a consultant be worth searching for?

RE: How can you sell your cause to others?

elizaolson — Wed, 26 Jul 2006 17:43:00 GMT

I can relate to the examples. The real challenge is to be able to be able to translate your cause by using the the examples. My challenge is to be able to turn people on to "bogs" a specialized type of wetland that is poorly understood, especially by the North American audience. I would appreciate some suggestions/ideas.There are times my creative juices just dry up, so help!www.burnsbog.org

How can you sell your cause to others?

wcook — Tue, 18 Jul 2006 16:33:00 GMT

In Katya Andresen's "Robin Hood Marketing," the veteran marketer shows how nonprofits can promote their cause and attract constituents by tapping into the same strategies employed by successful corporate marketing campaigns. (Check out an excerpt of the book on TechSoup.)

What are some of the marketing challenges your organization has faced? How did you meet them? Share your ideas and feedback here.