Thumbnail Marketing

There’s been a lively debate underway in the Chronicle of Philanthropy about whether about fundraisers are “selling” a product. Putting money at the center of the development relationship taints the process, argues veteran fundraiser Jennifer McCrea in her Exponential Fundraising blog. Yet the notion of “selling” shouldn’t be a dirty word because it solves problems and meets needs, counters Sasha Dichter of the Acumen Fund.

I brought this up the other day with an MBA graduate and trustee of a university planning a new capital campaign. His reply: “In the business world, we say, ’you don’t get what you don’t ask for.’…People are scrutinizing their philanthropic choices more than ever before. I don’t know anyone who isn’t looking more carefully at these decisions.”

In this economy, with greater competition for less money, many fundraisers are seeking coaching in sales skills for more focus, faster results and higher yields. Not only that, but another article in the Chronicle of Philanthropy says that people skills are no longer enough for fundraisers to be successful. The market is calling for fundraisers with multiple talents to compete for donations in a changing marketplace.  Note the use of the word “compete.”

As a fundraising marketer, and, yes, that’s what I admit to, my job is to persuade donors and potential donors to invest in the causes I represent. A donor I interviewed at another institution a few months ago made it very clear that he would rather have a business plan than a so-called case statement. Why? Because development writing has earned a bad rap as a ”feel-good” document designed to tug at emotional loyalties rather than also sell a product.

That soft style is not going to cut it any longer, as economic discipline has forced more rigor in fundraising. Increasingly donors want to hear about an organization’s strategic plan, its technology infrastructure and the other administrative pillars as proof that the institution is going to operate like a business and manage and invest philanthropic dollars smartly and strategically.

Today’s fundraising case for support must develop the business case for investment. I thought Sally Patterson nailed it well last fall in “Creating a Case for Sustainability” in Advancing Philanthropy. She wrote that the case statement must convey that an organization has all the essential elements to survive — and that it has taken steps to ensure its long-term viability.

Donors have competing demands for their time and their money. They are often loyal to many organizations. They are bombarded with social media, email, get-to-know-you breakfasts and high-level dinners. Their time is valuable and they don’t have a lot of it. These donors have many options today, and they need to be sold. Case statements must anticipate the arguments that fundraisers must have when they are meeting face-to-face with prospects. Such documents are useless if they are merely internal wishlists or descriptions of what you do. Nonprofit consultant Tom Ahern made that “case” this week at the annual Association of Fundraising Professionals conference.

Fundraising is one of the most visible marketing tools an institution has — and the case for support must provide the persuasive roadmap. The best case statements are market-focused — credible and logical, realistically assessing current challenges and providing an aspirational vision of future possibilities. They give donors the information they need and they speak to the values they hold.

Too many case statements simply don’t make the case in this competitive fundraising environment – and waste time, money and, ultimately, opportunity. 

Vision, implementation and change — these are the themes of a nonprofit’s case for support in a post-recession economy. So let’s not be timid about talking business. Donors who truly want to make a difference expect nothing less.

OUT with “Survival,” IN with “Growth” — these lead my What’s Hot/What’s Not marketing trends for 2010.

Feeling whiplashed by 2009, many of us have been talking about a sudden flurry of activity as 2010 opened. Pushing uphill with ferocity the first week of the new year, a university colleague mused, “I think we’re just doing more with less.” Had the economy suddenly improved by leaps because the year had turned? “Clearly there are signs that things are better,” a nonprofit recruiter noted as she posted a surge in new positions for several clients, ”and organizations have decided they can’t keep demanding too much of their existing staff if they want to move forward once again.”

Years ago I wrote regularly about “What’s Hot, What’s Not” trends in columns for Knight-Ridder Newspapers (which moved from the “Hot” to the “Not” column all too quickly as a newspaper chain that disappeared in recent years). So I’m reprising that Hot and Not snapshot with 5 top trends with broad implications for marketing communications for higher education, nonprofits, small businesses — and personal marketing — in 2010:

Hot: Growth/Not: Survival

Hot: Reinvention/Not: Relapse

Hot: Mobile/Not: Wired

Hot: Fresh content/ Not: Disregard for usability

Hot: Managing social media/Not: Letting social media manage you

What are your top picks for 2010?

These two wise approaches set a wise foundation for your rethinking  about a rebalanced 2010 — Zen and the Art of Twitter and Rohit Bhargava’s Non-Obvious Marketing Trends.

Now’s a good time, too, to consider a brand update – without overinvesting in unnecessary change or cost during this still somewhat transitional time.

Blogging fatigue set in during the second half of the summer. There’s something ancient, seasonal and even spiritual about this contemporary phenomenon, which has been amplified this year by the recession. The sages of Chinese medicine identified late summer’s heat as a real drag on activity and dispositions. In the modern era, Europeans in droves vacate their homes and countries for somewhere else in August. Here at home, Congress acknowledges its lethargy, gives up and disappears for a few weeks, or tries to… 

But it’s difficult to be purely philosophical about such cycles in 2009 when the Internet seems to have become everyone’s professional and personal salvation — and there is today no escape from the online heat, whatever the season.

Experiencing blogging and social media angst, I turned to the masters of the craft for guidance and found it, happily rather quickly, from Beth Kanter, the high-octane blogger who always says something worth reading. Sure enough, in the dog days of August, she counseled about Information Overload Awareness Day. The bullet point that really hit home was the New York Times’ article, Blogging at a Snail’s Pace.

I’ve been doing quite a bit of research lately on changes in the workforce due to the recession — facts like these, according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics’ report this week:

• 14.9 million people out of work in the U.S. since the recession began in December 2007 (and still growing)
• A tripling of temporary workers since 1990 — from 1 to 3 million — and a pattern expected to reach 12 million in the next decade

It’s not hard to do the math through simple observation. People have more time on their hands, and the Internet, as we all know, has given everyone a vehicle for business and personal marketing. Yet the statistics are even more startling, as listed in a few mind-blowing nuggets: there are more than 133 million indexed blogs in Technorati, and Twitter has grown 1000% in the past year. Want more data?

Which leads back to the question at hand: What’s your Internet voice? It’s an age-old marketing challenge, traditional, social, or otherwise — what do you have to say, what’s distinctive about it, and, what’s more, when, how and to what audiences are you going to say it?

So as we regroup for the post-recession and perhaps apply some useful marketing lessons from today’s online frenzy, let’s refocus on strategy.

Why are you online? Know your strategy so you can choose the best tactics from the abundance of Internet tools:

• To engage customers? Build a relationship by listening and acting.
• Be a thought leader? Have something to say that sets you apart.
• Express yourself? Enjoy and create. (I’ve had a travel blog, www.womantraveler.info, for years and post entries only when I’ve had a terrific trip, discovered a fabulous tip, or need to register an opinion that might be helpful to helping others “travel on their own terms.” Nonetheless, I have regular unsolicited followers of my current as well as archived articles.)
• Fill up time? Use the Internet to learn something new and inform yourself.
• See and be seen? Go work out at the health club (another scene that is busier than ever these days)…

I’ve used this pause from blogging to get my business ready for the post-recession. Stay tuned.

Social media is clearly the now, and building online communities for business and personal connections is necessarily the future. But anecdotally at least I can report more picking and choosing on which networks for what, largely due to three vital influencers — time, intent and strategy.

Which raises the question — was the heavy uptick in social media sites during the first part of 2009 due to the “what’ll we do now?” panic-er-resettling following the recession’s impact on business and nonprofits? No measurement authorities have delivered the data that fully jives with our observations (and we are remaining open-minded), but this “Inside Twitter” report provides credible validation of what we’re seeing in our professional networks’ behaviors and day to day conversations with colleagues.

Thanks to Rohit Bhargava’s Influential Marketing Blog, the report’s key findings came to our attention:

• 72.5% of all users joining during the first five months of 2009.
• 85.3% of all Twitter users post less than one update/day.
• 21% of users have never posted a Tweet.
• 93.6% of users have less than 100 followers, while 92.4% follow less than 100 people.
• 5% of Twitter users account for 75% of all activity.
• New York has the most Twitters users, followed by Los Angeles, Toronto, San Francisco and Boston; while Detroit was the fast-growing city over the first five months of 2009.

Back to the basics. Innovation is vital and keeping pace is life-saving. But clients are still reeling from the whammy that’s struck them with this economy. More than ever, our marketing advice should continue to be built on strategy and proven outcomes, not what’s cool or the latest techie fad. We all have to choose — or we will be simply wasting our creative energy and potential profits as we spin into cyberspace without connecting meaningfully with our markets. Wherever your audience is interacting online, that’s where you should be.

“Thumbnail marketing” – doing more with less — is increasingly driving the thinking of nonprofits (from universities to community agencies), large and small business — and the communications pros/marketers who serve them — from agencies to sole proprietors. We see it daily in our client conversations, partner networking and online chatter. It’s not about decreasing quality — it’s about enhancing messages and customer connections with smart, efficient tools. Here are some recent finds offering technology and thoughtful resources that zero in on core activities that will advance your marketing goals:

Online Newsrooms

• Online newsrooms on small business websites are a marketing strategy must. Adding social media is the saucy sauce that keeps the conversations hot. None of this is difficult — but you have to establish your “story” before marketing can take off.

Social Media

• The 5 P’s of Social Media: Where Do You Start?” from Fast Company – steps that boil it down to the essentials for jumping into Web 2.0 successfully.

Websites

• Web Redesign on a Dime from University Business –tools and tips to update and revamp a higher education website when a major overhaul is no longer a budget reality. Universities are pushed to incorporate web best practices and social media tools ASAP given the expectations of their alumni, parents and students — who are likely ahead of the institutional curve.
• The eduStyle Guide to Usable Higher Ed Homepage Design, an e-book from eduStyle, which is dedicated to higher education websites. Don’t miss its popular blog.

Thumbnail Marketing

• The Complete (Thumbnail) Guide to Choosing the Right Media – for your small business. Of course, we love this idea since the entire focus of this blog is the thumbnail approach!

“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!

The first comprehensive study of 33 donor management systems was released today by the annual Nonprofit Technology Conference – with comparative ratings for the top 10, detailed analysis of the top 12 and useful summaries of the rest. “Low-cost” means under $4,250 for the first year.

Funded by the Nonprofit Technology Network (NTEN), the two-part report is just the research that nonprofits desperately need, especially in this economy, to sort through and compare features of multiple software and web-hosted customer relationship management (CRM) options for fundraising management, including tools to streamline events, online giving and volunteers. Be sure to download both parts. The report gives recommendations about how to choose depending on an organization’s specific needs.

The CRM fundamentals and scenarios offered in the report — and some of the products — can also be used by small businesses building their brands and customers.

The NTEN study with the nonprofit Idealware first found out what nonprofits are looking for and then connected with the technology firms to get insider information that the typical customer can’t find so easily or thoroughly in a web search. Increasingly, they found that nonprofits are opting for hosted systems so that they don’t have to buy, install and manage software systems on their own servers. You can hear an interview with the executive director of Idealware on the Chronicle of Philanthropy conference notebook.

Although the NTEN conference in San Francisco sold out early, you can follow it live through Tuesday.

By Just Pen, Creative Commons

Ever ask the question — what’s wrong with this picture? A communications audit is the way to find out. 

With endowments still struggling, alumni organizations striving to cultivate more effective engagement and sales revenues seeking an uptick, a communications audit will help you find out if your marketing messages and materials are truly reaching your customers and keeping them closer. What’s more, you can act on the answers immediately, recalibrating to enhance branding and relationship-building.

If exemplary marketing thinks like the customer, then audits let you know how your customers — internal and external — see you, in no uncertain terms. Are your messages and materials truly advancing your relationships with them, or are you wasting your time, energy and dwindling budget dollars? Is your organization structured so that your communication activities can achieve their goals? 

The data produced by a communications audit also tends to be quite persuasive to leadership strategies — and justifies making important adjustments in the way your organizations conducts its communications. A thorough audit places a laser-like lens on an organization’s marketing strategies, activities, processes and, importantly, behaviors. And then it sets a new course for the future.

Keep these criteria in mind as you consider a communications audit:

• Audits provide the big picture assessment of strategic communications effectiveness. They ask the tough questions, typically by professionals outside the organization.
• Audits challenge assumptions that may have been operative for a long time and provide hard data that can foster alternatives and be measured for future activities.
• Audits are creative. They surface new ideas and innovative approaches because your customers are telling you what will work for them.
• Audits are more than SWOTs. Through interviews, questionnaires, surveys and materials review, they yield information and connect the dots, leading to strategic communications plans based on analysis, evaluation and goals.

To launch an audit, know what you want to accomplish and measure even if you don’t know how to get there. Whether the audit is internal, external or both, keep the end in mind. What is the outcome you seek? And how open is your organization to implementing the findings? How can you move the dial to make an audit successful and gain internal buy-in to the results?

Audits are especially effective in a time of reduced resources but greater demand for services because they take organizations back to their core marketing objectives. Getting ahead, yet working with less, means applying new and streamlined ways of advancing the mission to engage the market. A communications audit can put you in position for new connectivity and engagement with your constituents and customers, stronger internal communications partnerships and measurable ROI.

One of my small business clients said recently, “We have to keep all of our options open and reassess every 30 days.” Certainly it’s important to be nimble in this environment, but we also have to choose a direction for our creativity, dollars and energy.

I found Jonathan Krantz’ analysis right-on in his Marketing Profs article, “10 High-Impact, Low-Budget Ideas for Marketing in a Down Economy.” The three that resonated most:

• Choose your social media weapons carefully.
• Play to your strengths.
• Profile your best customers.

To these I would add:

• Choose 2-3 marketing tactics — and implement them. Select wisely, and get going.
• Consider every encounter an opportunity for relationship-building.
• And, like my client above, assess and reassess, staying nimble while maintaining your direction forward.

More people are on the Internet these days, generously sharing advice about how to survive as a marketer in the recession. But the amount of information is overwhelming, and there’s a lot of repetition. That’s why it’s important to drive your decisions by data and analysis in each case, customizing your solutions to what works best for your customers — and you. 

The filter — what drives value? Do solid research on your customers and their markets and adjust your tactics accordingly, while sticking to the core, writes Harvard Business School marketing professor John Quelch.

As a marketer, review your own business. Take stock of key factors in your own success that you overlooked, took for granted or failed to articulate in past years when you were so busy you couldn’t come up for air. Define your expertise in a fresh way that fits the ever-changing needs of today and acquire the skills you need post-recession. It’s a balancing act of staying in touch with marketing trends, equipping yourself with new tools and mining your potential for the future. 

• Understand your competitors thoroughly.
• Identify influencers and cultivate them.
• Build and rebuild professional networks. Unique visitors to LinkedIn, the fastest-growing professional site, soared 22 percent between December and January and time on the site doubled, while Twitter grew by one-third just in the past month.
• Create your marketing roadmap. As we tell our clients, incremental marketing gains are a waste of time, resources and energy. Go back to Step 1 and focus.