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It’s time to end recession thinking with the official close of winter — and spring forward with marketing for the economic recovery. Several of my nonprofit, small business and independent consultant clients have spent the last weeks of winter taking the 3 critical steps to rebound their activity in activity in 2010:

• Focus
• Focus
• Focus

Communications activities suffered badly in the recession, although communicating value was never more important. Yet stretched budgets, reduced revenues and decreased fundraising income often left little choice. Survival thinking took a toll on creativity and caused everyone to think small, reminding me of the “lizard brain” paralysis described in Seth Godin’s new book, Linchpin.

Last year found many small organizations getting stuck in the churn. Getting unstuck can take two paths, both driven by “focus.” One is to understand your value proposition and do it better than your peers and competitors. The other is to carefully differentiate between a brand problem and a business problem. Once that’s resolved, reviewing and perhaps repositioning your marketing is the logical next step.

The latest research confirms that customers are tired of hearing about the recession, paving the way for tapping into consumer optimism. Stepping back to take a good look about how you are positioning your business is a timely exercise that can put you on the leading edge as the recovery heats up. It’s the core of a communications audit.

Is your message buried in your materials? Have you truly leveraged your business concept in your marketing? Are you trying to pursue too many audiences and none of them with full attention? Have you listened to your customers recently, and what are they saying? Do the people in your organization have the tools to be your messengers and ambassadors, whether it’s you, your small staff, your volunteers?

I’ve developed this “Spring Forward Bootcamp” as a cost-effective half-day program to refocus and rebound marketing communications for community nonprofits, small businesses and independent consultants to refresh your marketing with impact and momentum. We’ll roll up our sleeves together to (1) clarify and target communications goals, (2) review and assess messages, materials and systems and (3) focus your story and map out strategies into a communications action plan for 2010.

What I know today about marketing I learned in the first half of my career in journalism. The basics are the same – who? what? when? where? how? — and, most importantly, why? With these fundamentals, you can truly focus your marketing outreach:

• Who are you?
• What value can you provide me?
• When, where and how do you make it happen?
• Why should I do business with you? Why should I donate to your cause?

I’ve been applying this thinking to my own “spring forward” value proposition – helping you map out the framework to strengthen your story, develop the strategy and implement your communications roadmap to take advantage of the rebound in 2010.

What steps would you add to this “rebound your marketing” plans?

With increased focus on alumni associations as portals for support for university strategic priorities, Duke and the University of Virginia have come forward with best practice communications worthy of serious notice. Both elite institutions with significant endowments, in 2009 they wrestled with what Jim Collins calls “the brutal facts” that “great” organizations must face — and then provided a full accounting, and solutions, to alumni and other constituencies.

In my whitepaper last year on “Communicating Value During the Economic Downturn,” I cited Duke’s early wins at keeping alumni informed and thus generating credibility, understanding and greater support. The recessionary spiral, the whitepaper argued, became “a timely chance to communicate more and focus a lens on the organization’s value while donors, alumni, volunteers, employees and those receiving services are seeking facts and assurance.” 

A year later in Duke Magazine’s November-December 2009 issue, “Sizing Up a Smaller Duke,” the university followed through with more details of its challenging financial realities and, importantly, its proposed remedies. Duke kept the faith with its constituents by focusing a lens on difficult, yet thoughtful, steps to scale back its ambitions due to to decreased endowment and fundraising revenues. Institutions build greater trust and buy-in when they share their realities with us, especially through comprehensive approaches that are more sustainable than knee-jerk cost-cutting occurring at many higher ed institutions. 

In his last year as president of UVA, John Casteen is carrying a similar message around the U.S. in his regional tours. Speaking to alumni and parents in San Francisco in January, he talked about the belt-tightening in a context of continued growth and progress in the university’s $3 billion campaign. And with his 20-year view as president, Casteen previewed the university’s continuing challenges and ongoing recalibration with declining state support. (That visit, by the way, was followed up with a personal note from Casteen to every attendee.)

Today UVA’s 2008-2009 annual President’s Report arrived by email in a stunning high-tech electronic format with links, videos and slideshows — and a clear message from the president: “Using new technology allows wider circulation with lower production costs. For the first time, we can now send the report to every member of the University faculty and staff, as well as all alumni.” The contents contain lengthy financial details along with a forward look at “imagining our third century.”

While alumni associations ask, “do we still matter?,” Duke and UVA are offering some solid answers through their communications strategies. And what they are also letting their supporters know is that university strategic planning is once again on the front seat as institutions rethink how best to balance mission and market. UVA’s 2020 plan is already in process.

“Marketing Your Consulting Business” was a hot topic at the discussion I facilitated today at the Center for Volunteer and Nonprofit Leadership of Marin County. As a marketing consultant working with nonprofits and small and emerging businesses, I find that it’s a smart idea for nonprofit consultants to put the notion of “business” before “nonprofit” in their own positioning. That doesn’t always happen among experts passionate about service to others.

Using the fundamentals that I put before a Vistage International small business group a few weeks ago, I framed the discussion with this big picture strategy — “begin with the end in mind: where do you want to be in 1, 5, 10 years?” A few themes really resonated among the independent consultants, who included specialists in strategic planning, human resources, organizational development, facilitation, fundraising, board development, fundraising communications, grantwriting and leadership development as well as interim executive directors. Chief among them were these: (1) the bottom has not dropped out of the nonprofit market but it’s more essential than ever to leverage one’s niche expertise and (2) consultants with experience can help potential clients understand that skilled consultants are solutions, not problems, in today’s topsy-turvy economy.

The following Small Business Marketing Checklist that I typically use launched a lively discussion:

ü  Develop a plan that answers these questions:

§  Who are my buyers?

§  How do I reach them?

§  What are their motivations? 

§  What problems can I help them solve?

§  What content will compel them to purchase what I have to offer?

ü  Use your website or blog as the foundation of your marketing outreach:

§  A blog is easier, faster, cheaper and more search-engine friendly.

§  “About Us” is one of most important jobs of a business website or blog – explaining your purpose, introducing you to those who don’t know you and providing credibility.

ü  Choose your social media wisely and stick with what works for your niche, style, schedule, interests and business goals:

§  Research where your customers “live” and be visible where they congregate online.

ü  Create a  45-second elevator speech (and practice saying it) as your summary “mantra” that answers these questions in one sentence each. It should stress the benefits of working with you:

§  Name of business and focus

§  Description of ideal customers

§  Value-added or distinctive niche

§  Types of services

ü  Network like crazy:

§  Stay in touch with previous as well as current and prospective clients.

§  Join local and online groups to advance your knowledge, contacts and visibility.

§  Form strategic partnerships for projects and/or marketing.

ü  Monitor your competitors. What works for them?

ü  Focus on 2-3 techniques (traditional and new media) and build on them. Know why you are choosing each one and measure its progress. Reassess and recalibrate.

 ü  Recognize that the market for 2009 and beyond has changed and you may need to repackage your services. Be agile, revise your offering without losing your core strengths – and don’t be afraid to try something new!

Framing your message. Here’s a thoughtful read with helpful resources – “What Obama’s First 100 Days Can Teach Communicators.”

President Obama’s 2008 campaign manager David Plouffe was the keynoter at today’s Marketing Profs online conference, and the Obama 2.0 guiding themes for harnessing and managing volunteers should be in everyone’s brand loyalty playbook:

• Core messaging never changes, despite pushback.
• Messages are consistent across all communications platforms every day.
• Repetition, repetition…and more repetition.
• Believe in the power of people to deliver the message.
• Use every tool — from old-school tactics to innovation — and no tool is more important than any other.
• Embrace new technology, but don’t let it take you away from your strategic mission.
• The campaign’s website (“the people’s home”) and email were the central drivers. Twitter didn’t even exist when the campaign started!
• Arm volunteers with information and data so they can spread the word through their own social networking entry points and in their own words, as long as they stick to the core message.
• Use videos and Flickr for personalization.
• Don’t get ensnared in negative comments, but understand that they can be early warning signals.
• Analyze the customer base continually.
• Measure obsessively.
• Take risk!

Despite the recession, there is some optimism for fundraising in 2009, but the road is rocky and clearly uneven. The Association of Fundraising Professional’s annual conference this week brings this news:

• Ony 46 percent of fundraisers raised more in 2008 than in 2007, a new low in the eight years of the annual AFP survey.
• Another AFP study found 60 percent of members expect fundraising income to stay the same or increase in 2009. Be “prudent, being realistic, and focusing on the fundamentals that got you here,” AFP President Paulette Maehara told the conference in New Orleans.
• Nonprofits should focus on the mission rather than the financials, ask donors to give now and focus on what their money will achieve, several veteran consultants said. Cutting programs across the board will head to failure, not success, while using part-time or contract talent can keep opportunities from losing traction, they added.

In another recent report, charitable contributions to colleges and universities grew by 6.2 percent in 2008, reaching $31.60 billion, delivering mixed results, according to the Council for Aid to Education.

While that’s the highest raised in one year and above the average 5.7 annual increase over the past decade, if the top 20 institutions were taken out of the data, giving declined by 4.2 percent. CAE’s annual Voluntary Support of Education survey says that data for fiscal year ending June 30, 2009 will give clues to the longer-term effects of the recession.

Sharply declining endowments are compounding the problems. Typically endowments have been a cushion for lean years, but in today’s environment, “endowments are not able to play as protective a role.”

This report offers gloomier predictions for 2009 than the AFP study. “Even at institutions that reported healthy gains in fiscal 2008, advancement professionals told us they had ‘hit a wall’ in January 2009 and that the decline was substantial,” said Ann E. Kaplan, director of the survey. “Both the number and value of contributions dropped early in the calendar year.” And the outlook for fiscal 2010 could be worse, the CAE report cautions.

Fundraisers by nature are optimistic, and data analyzed since the Depression show that these cycles do end. The best short-term course is to keep an “eyes forward” focus and stick to the tried-and-true fundraising fundamentals.

Here’s what the Association of Fundraising Professionals, the largest association of its kind in the world, advises:

• Keep cool, don’t panic, lead by example and believe in success.
• Be candid.
• Stay positive.
• Remember your mission.
• Act — put equal weight on planning and doing.
• Don’t stop asking for money. After September 11, 2001, many organizations stopped or postponed fundraising and discovered later that decision was a missed opportunity. Surveys show that people still give in hard times, sometimes even more.

Here’s what the AFP, the largest association of its kind in the world, advises fundraising marketers:

• Retain and cultivate current donors as the top priority.
• Continue awareness activities.
• Don’t cut marketing and advertising. Keep it steady and consider increasing it.
• Protect your brand reputation.
• Segment, segment and segment — personalize appeals in a cost-efficient manner.

For more tips, see my whitepaper, “Communicating Value during the Economic Downturn.”

The impact of the recession on communications practitioners is game-changing. I’ve been thinking about that forecast ever since the “Financial Meltdown Mania” panel discussion by the San Francisco chapter of the International Association of Business Communicators (IABC) as 2009 had gotten underway.

Our Bay Area senior communicator colleagues from Double Forte, Goodwill Industries, Cisco, Wells Fargo Advantage Funds and Hart Communications followed a meltdown analysis by Tom Osborne, vice president for alliances at Exeros (“the only thing that remains the same is historical ignorance”).

The overall takeaways:

• Strong companies with a good story to tell have a marketing opportunity to get their messages out.
• Marketing in the crisis is not just about products but thought leadership.
• Status quo is not going to make it.

Useful tips:

• Leverage a niche that can be developed.
• Develop a communications playbook to drive marketing strategy, internally and externally, with a focus on expanding customer relationships while preparing for the economic upturn.
• Maintain transparency, be realistic, empower new communicators among your employees.
• Focus on the value that you can deliver.
• Communicate more — long periods of deafening silence, especially internally, breed fear and mistrust.
• As with any crisis, say what you know – and also what you don’t know.
• Don’t be afraid to break your model and try new things.