After a recent round of layoffs, my new boss today asked me to develop for our small non-profit organization a “marketing strategy” and communication tools for reaching our target groups.
He said this marketing strategy need not be extensive, but present the ideas behind a communications campaign that will tell the public our success story and why we need more contributions.
Frankly, I do not know where to start. I’ve written brochures, newsletters, flyers, and fact sheets before, but I do not know how to develop a “marketing strategy.”
What is it? How detailed need this marketing strategy be? My understanding is that the strategy explains what communication tools/strategies we will use. Any help you can give, thanks!
Define your goal(s) Are you trying to announce your successes, or stimulate more contributions? Are you trying to stimulate bigger donations from current donors, or attract new donors?
Define which groups are your “public.”
What are the current ways you are reaching those groups? Are they effective? Do you need to establish a standard for effectiveness?
Define the research you currently have (or need) to answer the question above. Do you need to survey your current donors to find out why they give? Your former donors to find out why they stopped? Now’s the time to ask.
Once you have those questions answered, break your big goal into a series of smaller steps, and a timetable for reaching your ultimate goal. Your plan should include what you intend to accomplish at certain definite points (every six months, every year, whatever) on your timeline.
Define which communication/marketing vehicles (advertising, publicity, direct mail, fundraising parties, etc.) you will use to reach your goal.
Draw up a budget for each of the vehicles you wil use, and also for staff needs, overhead, miscellaneous expenses, etc.
This can be as brief or as long as you and your boss can handle. Really, it can be as short as a page or as long as a book.
I’m in a similar situation right now. Good luck.
Here’s a website with info on marketing plans:
A marketing plan/strategy generally covers the 4 or 5 P’s (the number varies by who you talk to) but these P’s are:
Product -
Price
Positioning
Place - which is just a P word for distribution
Promotion … which is essentially your communications plan
Or …
What are you marketing?
What will the marketing cost?
Where will you market
How will you market?
Some additional thoughts
Can you segment your customers/public? ie divide them into identifiable groups with specific needs
They might have different drivers which cause them to donate
eg … tax writeoffs, it’s a cause they care about, etc
are there some segments who will not interested?
Are there segments which you haven’t attracted before but that you can get interested.
Can you tailor your marketing campaign to the segments (obviously trying to keep the cost down if you a non-profit).
Try to make the campaign target the needs of the segments you want to attract.
Don’t waste too much time with a segment where you have high penetration (don’t necessarily ignore them), but you want to attract new segments or get more penetration into a segment.
Tailoring the campaign can be everything from different flyers to give to the various target segments or perhaps there are different media to get the message to the different segments.
I found some more info on the web:
http://www.websitemarketingplan.com/
Hope this helps.