Marketing: Is it your spine or your shiny shoe?
- Wed, July 22 2009
- Filed under: Marketing essentials
Credit: mcadamskerry, Flickr.
I love shoes. Especially this particular pair. (If you really like this blog, feel free to send me some in size 9.)
But I’m afraid we approach marketing like shoes. And that’s not a good thing. Bear with me, I’ll explain.
Here’s how things work too often: You devise a strategic plan. You determine the tactics to achieve it. And at the end, you say you’ll market your mission. This process is like wearing sackcloth and then putting on some fancy shoes and calling it a smashing outfit. It doesn’t work. In treating marketing as a decorative and disconnected afterthought, we deprive ourselves of the great benefits that marketing thinking can bring to the entire spectrum of our work. A marketing mindset can help us design more effective projects, better meet the needs of people we want to help, win us more resources and support and motivate people to act. Failing to incorporate marketing into the earliest stages of our work often means we’re left to market a product or idea that is so far removed from our audiences’ interests and reality that no amount of sales savvy can get people to buy. Marketing dollars should be a part of every grant proposal and budget. If money is a problem, find a corporate sponsor or pro bono help. Stretch dollars by targeting audiences and reaching them in open-minded moments. Skimping on marketing means we will end up skimping on impact.
Think of nonprofit marketing not as your shiny shoes but rather your own spine. It should be part of your organization, central to your being and essential for holding everything up. It’s not an optional body part. It runs through everything.
Comments
Hi Katya! Just caught the link to this posted by Beth Kanter on Twitter. Great read but as a grant writer turned marketer I thought I would chime in.
When writing grants, and in developing budgets, it’s all about packaging. A grant IS a marketing effort. So you must stay truthful about what you are going to do with the money, but if a funder says they only support programs and not operating support, how do you get money from them? You sell a specific program of the organization that’s already in your budget so that yes, it supports staff people and operating support. You just need to make certain you don’t over-fundraise for one program to maintain integrity.
Well, funding for marketing dollars is very similar. You can’t call it marketing and expect most foundations to be ok with it. If however you call it outreach, you’re golden. The problem here is that to know this, programs, development & marketing need to be on the same page before, during & after program development.
Katya,
Count on a shoe maven to articulate what really matters so effectively!
As I say to colleagues in the field, what’s a program without participants or a relief effort without volunteers. Marketing is a vital core component of every program—or else that program is far less than it could be. And, as you say, needs to be part of planning from the get go!
You deserve a new pair of fancy size 9s!
Best,
Nancy
All marketers, whether they’re in nonprofits or businesses, should know this. If marketing aims to satisfy the needs of your stakeholders, marketing IS your business. If marketing is your spine, and you can’t live without a spine, marketing is absolutely central to your survival as an organization.
I found the best case for adopting marketing as a core business strategy in the book “Marketing That Matters” by Conley and Friedenwald-Fishman. I recommend it to all skeptics on this issue.
“Marketing That Matters” by Conley and Friedenwald-Fishman - I second this recommendation. Today, Marketing IS Business. BTW, very well written post, Katya!
Some of your readers may be interested in our new publication
Centre of Excellence for Public Sector Marketing launches Guide to Branding in the Public and Not-for-Profit Sectors
http://jimmintz.wordpress.com/page/2/