2. Marketing That Matters:
Strategic Communication Principles
to Profit Your Organization
and Change the World
Randi Hogan, Vice President
Lindsay Nichols, Director
Land Trust Alliance Rally 2008
Pittsburgh, PA
September 18, 2008

3. Agenda • Overview of strategic
communication principles
(30 minutes)
• Audience mapping (30 minutes)
• Break (15 minutes)
• Message development (1 hour)
• Role playing (30 minutes)
• Creating a strategic
communication plan (30 minutes)
• Questions and discussion
(15 minutes)

4. Marketplace • Communication clutter
snapshot and
• What are the top issues that
assessment concern Americans/the people
in your community?
• How do people perceive land
trusts?
• What is our movement’s/
organization’s marketing
capacity/resources?

5. Marketplace
• What are your
snapshot and
association’s top 3
assessment
goals?
• What are your top
funding and marketing
challenges?

6. 10 Core Principles For Marketing
That Matters

7. Marketing 1: Don’t Fear Marketing
Principles Use Marketing as a Core
Organizational Strategy
2: Know Yourself
Build Upon Your Mission
3: What’s Your Definition
of Success? Define Your
Goals

8. Marketing 4: Know Your Audience
Principles Be Aggressively Audience
Centered
5: Question Conventional
Wisdom
Don’t Limit Your Audience
6: What’s Driving the
Customer Decision?
Communicate Value and
Values

9. Marketing 7: Emotion Trumps Data
Principles Connect With the Heart First,
Mind Second
8: Build a Community
Empower People as
Messengers
9: Walk the Talk
Be Authentic and Transparent

10. Marketing 10: Use Your Platform to
Principles Change the World
Leverage Marketing for Social
Impact

11. Case Study

12. Map Your Audiences

13. 15 minute break!

14. Develop Case for Support :
Your • Problem
Messages
• Solution
• Strategy
• Right organization
• Investment

15. Develop
Your
Messages
The [state association] builds and sustains the quality and
effectiveness of land trusts, as well as other organizations
engaged in land conservation, drawing upon their collective
expertise and resources to ensure responsible and
successful conservation.

16. Develop
Your
Messages
We face a crucial time in land protection in [our region]. While
for the moment, much of our [landscape] is still intact, the
special places we protect – or lose – this decade will determine
the character of our landscape forever. This decade is our last
chance to safeguard the large remaining tracts.
The task is too enormous to face alone, so 13 local, state and
national conservation organizations have joined forces as the
[state association].

17. Develop
Your
Messages
Problem/Opportunity:
Solution:
Strategy:
Right organization:
Investment:

18. Small Group Work

19. Large Group Reporting

20. Role Playing

21. Levels of Planning
• Strategic Plan
- Affirms mission and values: identifies goals, strategic
direction and funding needs/priorities
• Marketing/Communication Plan
- Reflects mission and values
- Translates goals and strategic direction into marketing/
communication objectives and strategies
• Work Plan
- Provides detailed implementation plan and operational
budget; assigns responsibility for tasks; identifies
timeline

22. Marketing • (Affirm mission and core
Plan values)
Categories • Goals
• Objectives
• Audience
– Motivations & influences
• Strategies
• Desired Results
• Tactics
• Resources/Budget
• Timing

23. Creating a strategic
communication plan
Goals Objectives
What are you trying to do? How will you know when
These should be ambitious you’ve accomplished your
and bold, but achievable as
well. goals?
• Accelerate the pace of land • Number of strategic media hits have
increased by x percent.
conservation.
• Consistent messaging appears in
• Encourage strategic media coverage.
conservation. • Brand messages are accurately
• Ensure the permanence of conveyed through collateral and
other communication materials.
conservation.
• Stories are used to demonstrate the
• Build strong land trusts. brand.
• The perceived credibility of Land
Trust Alliance is enhanced.

24. Creating a strategic
communication plan
What drives Who/what
Target Audiences
them? influences them?
Who is in the best What values do they Who is in a position to
position to help you hold and what influence your target
accomplish your
goals? motivations are audiences in the
relevant to the change desired direction?
you seek?
• Land Trust Professionals: Clean air/water Environmentalists
executive directors of land
trusts and other paid staff; Food security Attorneys
land trust service centers Scenic landscapes Government
• Friends and supporters of Community Family/Friends
land trusts: current and
former board members, Recreation Media
volunteers, land donors, Secure future
philanthropic donors
• Political decision-makers

25. Creating a strategic
communication plan
Strategies Desired Results
How can you best influence What specific measurements
the desired change in the will tell you these strategies
audiences you’ve identified?
are working?
• Engage staff and board on new • Audiences use stories to
brand explain the benefits of land
• Create a core collateral conservation and Land Trust
package that conveys brand Alliance’s services
• Develop a formal media • People are becoming members
relations program and champions of Land Trust
• Engage in targeted direct Alliance
outreach to key influencers • Audiences are establishing
relationships with government
• Integrate brand into fundraising
officials to advocate for land
communication
conservancy

26. Creating a strategic
communication plan
Tactics
What can you do specifically to motivate the change you seek?
• Develop a PowerPoint presentation and toolkit to use with brand training.
• Shift the organization to a storytelling entity, with clear mechanisms to
capture stories collected from staff, board, land trusts, partners and
supporters.
• Review content of all communication tools using the approved brand
messages, voice and look.
• Create a basic PowerPoint template for use in speaking engagements.
• Evaluate major local land trust victories or losses as a potential hook/entry
point for a larger trend story that can be pitched to national media.
• Identify high-value opportunities to speak/present/showcase at major
national and regional conferences, symposia and meetings.
• Provide online charity evaluators, such as Guidestar, the Better Business
Bureau and Charity Navigator, with updated brand messages, mission,
vision and goals from the revised case for support.

27. Creating a strategic
communication plan
Goals Objectives
What are you trying to do? How will you know when
These should be ambitious you’ve accomplished your
and bold, but achievable as
well. goals?

28. Creating a strategic
communication plan
What drives Who/what
Target Audiences
them? influences them?
Who is in the best What values do they Who is in a position to
position to help you hold and what influence your target
accomplish your
goals? motivations are audiences in the
relevant to the change desired direction?
you seek?

29. Creating a strategic
communication plan
Strategies Desired Results
How can you best influence What specific measurements
the desired change in the will tell you these strategies
audiences you’ve identified?
are working?

30. Creating a strategic
communication plan
Tactics
What can you do specifically to motivate the change you seek?

31. Questions/
Discussion
Free tips and tools for marketing and fundraising
are available at: www.metgroup.com

32. Marketing That Matters
• About the authors:
• Eric Friedenwald-Fishman, Creative
Director/President of Metropolitan Group
• Chip Conley, CEO and founder of Joie
de Vivre Hospitality
• Published by Berrett-Koehler, October
2006
• Part of the Social Venture Network (SVN)
book series
• Goal of MTM: To offer a contemporary
approach to strategic marketing that
helps change the world
• Available at your local independent
bookstore and at powells.com,
amazon.com

33. Metropolitan Group: What we do
and who we help
• Practice Areas • Focus Areas
• Strategic • Environment and
Communication Sustainability
• Heritage, Arts and Culture
• Resource • Community and Economic
Development Development
• Libraries
• Intercultural • Foundations
Communication • Social Justice and Human
Rights
• Organizational • Children, Youth and
Development Families
• Public Health
• Socially Responsible and
Green Business / CSR

34. Randi Hogan, CFRE
Vice President Washington, D.C.
202.380.3114 202.380.3123
rhogan@metgroup.com
Chicago
Lindsay Nichols 312.628.1447
Director
202.380.3116 Portland, Oregon
lnichols@metgroup.com 503.223.3299
Metropolitan Group crafts strategic and creative services
that empower social purpose organizations to build a just
and sustainable world.
www.metgroup.com