Revision, enhancement, and recommendations of NCMEC's marketing strategy.

1. Running head: NCMEC ALTERNATIVE MARKETING STRATEGY
NCMEC Alternative Marketing Strategy
Mikenna Kossow
William Jessup University

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The National Center for Missing and Exploited Children (NCMEC) has several divisions
within its organization that needs to have marketing. Having several components to its mission
can make it difficult to adequately and efficiently market and advertise the organizations services
and causes. As mentioned in the marketing analysis, the mission of NCMEC is “to serve as a
resource center for law enforcement, families and the public to help find missing children, reduce
child sexual exploitation and prevent child victimization” (National Center for Missing and
Exploited Children, 2014). The vision of NCMEC is “a nation free from child abduction and
sexual exploitation of children” (National Center for Missing and Exploited Children, 2014). The
core of this organization is children, not only finding the missing ones, but helping those being
exploited from sexual predators, and preventing abduction and exploitation. NCMEC has been
evolving over the last 32 years to find new and effective ways to meet the mission. However, is
the organization’s reach long enough to make a dent?
After a careful assessment of the organization and its current market strategy, it has been
determined that the core marketing strategy for NCMEC is somewhat successful. NCMEC is
target audience-centered, visionary, easily communicated, and is the preferred organization in its
industry. Yet, there are some improvements the organization can make within its strategy to
market better. NCMEC has its core focus on children but a large number of supplemental
programs that help its mission but are not necessarily a component of its mission. NCMEC
should put majority of its marketing strategy on first and foremost, finding missing children,
helping exploited children, and training those professionals that aid in this problem. Currently,
31% of its program expenses goes to missing child case management, 16% to exploited child
case management, and only 5% to training for professionals. More of its expenses go to
community outreach (23%) rather than exploited children (National Center for Missing and

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Exploited Children, 2014). Now this does not mean the organization is not marketing the
programs well but it means it may be putting more effort on components that are supplemental to
its mission rather than its direct mission which could cause lack of reach to target audiences.
People are aware of this organization but people are not really thinking about the
organization unless they have been affected by the problems being address (missing and
exploited children). Most everyone is aware of child abduction but most are not thinking about
how they can help. The first area of improvement for NCMEC’s marketing strategy needs to be
in the volunteer realm. The organization lacks clear-cut volunteer opportunities. How can
someone get involved if he or she does not know how to get involved? This part of the strategy
will need to start with the pre-contemplation stage: getting potential volunteers aware of the
organization’s mission. Then pointing out how the volunteers can help and the difference that
help will be.
In order to reach volunteers, NCMEC needs to create some marketing tools such as
public service announcements, flyers, and even a section on its website directed towards seeking
help for the cause. These tools will point out exactly how someone can help the mission.
Currently, NCMEC has been utilizing social media very well with “help identify me” images.
This is one effective way of getting help but only if someone is following the organization pages.
A public service announcement and/or a commercial on the television might be a great tool to
spread the need for volunteers. The PSA may be a video showing volunteers hanging flyers,
searching for missing kids, and holding educational safety events. It would address the problem
NCMEC is addressing, the need for volunteers, and the way the volunteers can help.
The second area of improvement is marketing to donors. Currently, majority of
NCMEC’s revenues comes from government grants, approximately 80%. Only 14.2% comes

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from others (contributions, gift, and grants) and 5.9% comes from fundraising events. The issue
behind most funding coming from the government it can take away the focus on reaching out to
other people which keeps less people from knowing the organization, its mission, and the need
for society to be involved. The website has a “donate” tab and its Facebook page has a fundraiser
section for occasional online fundraising events. However, it does not seem to be very effective.
The video directed towards donating can be found on the NCMEC website and the Facebook
page but people will only see if it if they actively look for it themselves.
The marketing strategy for donors, like above, needs to implement more “call to action”
messages. Having many donors outside of government funding provides more reach to society
and more awareness and action for the problem at hand. The more individual or business donors
the organization have the more awareness, the more opportunity for public advocacy, and
societal action. The donor pool needs to hear why and how they can donate. Because NCMEC
takes part in cause-marketing, it has various partnerships with other business. An option for
NCMEC is to seek donated advertising slots on television stations and radio stations. Currently,
majority of the marketing is done through flyers, magazines, online videos, and social media. By
occasionally putting donor advertisements on television and radio whether in advertisement form
or through a particular show such as Good Morning America, NCMEC could reach another
group of people. The organization needs to create a better grab to lead people to donate. For
example, rather than just having a banner that says “donate”, NCMEC can appeal potential
givers by adding a slogan to those donate banners. This will be more emotionally and morally
appealing to the eyes of the potential constituents. Here are some options:
 Donate Now to Help Find a Child,
 Donate Now to Stop Child Exploitation, and

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 Donate Now to Prevent Child Abduction.
The organization uses a rational, emotional, and moral framework very well. Majority of
its messages are composed in these ways. However, NCMEC needs to begin using a Benefits,
Cost, Others, and Self Assurance framework for its messages directed towards volunteers and
donors on top of the use of the current framework. Essentially, the organization needs to
persuade people who are aware of NCMEC and its mission to find missing children, reduce
sexual exploitation, and prevent child abduction. A couple of routes with the BCOS framework
are possible for NCMEC to take in order to market and communicate effectively to these
particular constituents.
NCMEC marketing strategy needs to have a component for overcoming selective
attention. Many people might avoid listening or reading organization-related media and avoid
activing for various reasons. The organization may be too emotional or too heavy that people
may not know how to respond so they ignore the messages. Also, we hear about missing kids all
the time people stop paying attention due to repetitiveness and the idea that this will always be a
problem so what can anyone do about it. The tone of the message should still have a serious tone
but by adding a hopeful tone to the message might provide some motivation to help whether its
through volunteering or donations. A particular message execution style NCMEC could employ
is testimonial. The testimony could be directed towards how someone’s donation helped bring
the child home either from the child’s view or from the families eyes. People who have never
been effected by a tragedy or situation as child abduction may see a reason to participate.
The second part of the BCOS framework the organization should do is to either change
the weights of the cause and/or add some positive consequences to what the help or donation can
do. People already know that child abduction and sexual exploitation is a terrible problem.

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However, as stated earlier, society sees it so often everyone becomes oblivious to it. The
perspective that “I cannot do anything to help” needs to be changed. Here are some positives
NCMEC can tell its donors and volunteers who are in the contemplation and pre-contemplation
stage:
 You bring a child back to his/her family,
 The money you give will help turn in an online child predator, or
 You get the satisfaction in knowing you are helping child abduction be prevented.
The components of the BCOS and the Rational, Emotional, and Moral framework will help
NCMEC be more effective and more successful in its marketing efforts.
Getting into the mind of these particular constituents and influencing them to get
involved will help the mission of NCMEC. The main objective of nonprofit marketing is to
influence behavior. The organization has done well with awareness but now is a time for it to get
more of society active in the search for missing children. In summary, by putting more focus on
the donor and volunteer constituents, NCMEC will be able to be more effective and successful in
accomplishing the mission. By using donor and volunteer focused PSA’s and other advertising
resources more individuals will see how they can help. They will be able to know why they
should donate to NCMEC. Through the BCOS framework, NCMEC marketers will be able to
overcome selective attention and create more importance of the problems in the eyes of these
constituents.

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Reference
National Center for Missing and Exploited Children. (2014). Annual Report. Retrieved from
http://www.missingkids.org/en_US/publications/NCMEC_2014.pdf