What are you marketing?
Before you outline your marketing objectives you must identify your organisation’s product, service, or benefit. Ask what your project or organisation is about:
- What do you do?
- What is your special quality (your unique selling point)?
- How does your offering differ from your competitors or similar organisations?
- How do you want to be perceived?
Who are you trying to reach?
Try to find out as much information about your target audiences as possible: their age group, social class, interests, lifestyle and region. Potential target audiences are:
- Service users or beneficiaries
- Volunteers
- Individual donors and funders
- Families and friends of the beneficiaries
What are your marketing objectives?
These need to be measurable and timed, e.g. a 10% increase in users or volunteers over six months. However, you also need to be sensible about what you can achieve. It is a good idea to create your marketing objectives in a yearly plan. Since you are marketing to a number of people, you are going need a separate objective for each audience. The five Ws will help you define how you are going to do it, and you should always check them when considering any form of communication:
- Why?
- What?
- Who?
- Where?
- When?
Added together, these five points = How.
What methods will you use?
What are you going to use to market your organisation or project? Marketing vehicles include:
- Direct mail - post, door-drop.
- Face-to-face - e.g. door-to-door selling.
- Telemarketing.
- Advertising.
- Website.
- Events and promotions.
- Sponsorship/partnership
Planning and timing are essential. Plan which days, weeks or months are best to approach each audience.
How do you want to come across?
How you are perceived is essential to your organisation’s brand identity.
- Establish your key messages - a maximum of three.
- Outline your core differentiation, strengths and offerings.
- Summarise this into three-word statement. Tesco has ‘every little helps’, Fairbridge has ‘helping inner-city youth’, the Media Trust has ‘helping charities communicate’.
- Customise the tone and style of your literature to each audience. One tone will not be suitable for all audiences.
- Invest time and effort in your literature. It is crucial to have accurate and accessible communications - befriend or invest in a copywriter if you are uncertain about writing clear, simple copy.
- Memorable names and logos are an advantage - if your organisation’s name or logo is difficult to use, resize or remember then perhaps it is worth reviewing or redesigning it.
How do you evaluate whether your objectives have been achieved?
It is important to measure your success, especially for future funding or building awareness. Everyone likes facts and figures - they prove that your organisation is or is not making a difference. In addition to measuring numbers you can:
- Organise focus groups with your different audiences. Ask what they think of you, whether they are satisfied with how you communicate to them and how it can be improved.
- Collect feedback, whether this is by email from your website or by a survey in an annual piece of literature.
If you find that you aims are never accomplished perhaps have a brainstorming session with a person from each division in your organisation. Keep asking whether your objectives are realistic and keep trying new ideas.