Loud & Clear
Successfully Marketing Your Nonprofit
Nonprofit Marketing Fundamentals
Deborah Spector
deborah@creative-si.com
Creative Solutions & Innovations |
June 2012
www.creative-si.com | 404.325.7031

“If you don’t know where you’re going it
doesn’t matter which way you go!”
Said the Cheshire Cat in Alice in Wonderland
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www.creative-si.com | 404.325.7031

Marketing Fundamentals
Goals for today’s session:
Understand the Role of Marketing in Nonprofit Organizations
• Define what marketing is and how it fits into the organization
• Learn why marketing-oriented Nonprofits typically outperform other
companies
Understand and Align the Components of the Marketing Mix
Learn the components of marketing tactics and how they align with one
another
• Learn how to see your nonprofit offerings as a bundle of customer-
desired benefits
• Explore various pricing objectives and strategies
• Compare and contrast various options for distribution or awareness
building
• Discover the strengths and weaknesses of various promotional methods
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What is Nonprofit Marketing?
“Marketing is so basic that it
cannot be a separate function. It
is the whole business seen from
the point of view of its final
results, that is, from the
stakeholder’s point of view.”
Marketing Guru Peter Drucker
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Marketing consists of the strategies and tactics
used to identify, create and maintain satisfying
relationships with your donors, members,
volunteers, clients and other stakeholders that
result in value for both your organization and your
stakeholders.
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A Marketing Mindset
Requires that your organization
systematically study customer’s
needs, wants, perceptions,
preferences, and satisfaction – using
surveys, focus groups and other
means.
Kotler & Andreasen, Strategic Marketing For NonProfit Organizations
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Strategic Marketing
I: Develop Your Goals
II: Situation Analysis
III: Market Analysis and Segmentation
IV: Target Markets
V: Develop Market Strategies for Target Markets
VI: Programs and Services
VII: Promotion and Outreach
VIII: Implementation and Leadership
IX: Evaluation
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Develop your Goals
Goals: What do you want to achieve?
o Goals can be short, medium or long term.
o Example:
“Gain increased recognition and status for our
organization”
“Engage members of the community who care about
children’s health to be financially and visibly
supportive”
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Communications Goal
• Develop a communications goal to support
organizational goal.
To capitalize on <name of organization>’s
existing band awareness and create additional
awareness among target audiences in order to
assist in raising additional funds and
volunteers. *(Goal is result of research and
consensus between nonprofit management,
executive committee and consultant.)
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Situation Analysis - Internal
Starts with where your organization is right now.
• Mission
• Values
• Skills
• Culture
• Systems
• Strengths, Weaknesses in structure,
technology, support services, etc.
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Situation Analysis - External
• Funding climate
• Comparative analysis of other organizations –
your competition, and
• An understanding of your organization’s
market position relative to your competition.
• Social, cultural, technological, ecological,
economic, and political factors to effect your
nonprofit.
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Who Is Your Competition?
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Evaluate The Competition
• What services do they provide?
• Where are they located relative to your
locations?
• To which segments of the market do they
appeal?
• What do stakeholders say about them?
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Unique Service Features
• Meet stakeholder needs better than other
groups
• Wide selection of services
• Convenient Location
• Easy to use
• Transportation available
• Funding or fees on sliding scale available
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Competitive Advantage Statement
Competitive Advantage Statement =
Values& Beliefs + USP (Unique Service
Proposition is the positioning that will make
your organization different from your
competition.)
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Market Analysis & Segmentation
Market is defined as a group of people who
behave in similar ways relative to your
organization’s products or services.
Market is synonymous with audience,
stakeholders, constituents, or clients.
• Segmentation is the process of defining the
largest potential market in a way that is most
useful to an organization.
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Market Segmentation
• Your nonprofit provides services to different
“market segments”
Market segmentation variables:
 Geographic – place people call home
 Demographic – age, income, gender, ethnicity, marital status,
race, religion, social class
 Psychographic – lifestyle, interests, attitude
 Behavioral – way people use, benefit, obtain and are loyal to
your services
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Address Needs in Each Segment
Rank needs in each segment:
• Range of services
• Quality
• Fees
• Location
• Transportation
• Facilities
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How Can you identify needs?
1. Identify a number of your clients and ask them if you
can come interview them for 15 -20 minutes. Another
option is to do a survey or focus group lead by
someone other than staff from your nonprofit.
2. Ask what each sees as the five most important things
they look for at your nonprofit.
3. Once identified, ask them to rank them from 10 – 1.
4. Then ask them how well you have done in meeting
their needs. Ask them to measure these from 10 to 1.
5. After interviewing as many as you can, create a master
list the customer needs with the two measures after
each.
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Target Markets
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Your Stakeholders
Someone who has an interest or
concern in your organization or its
work. Stakeholders can include
donors, employees, board members,
clients, volunteers, and the public.
About.com
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Who Are Your Stakeholders?
• Donors & Prospective donors
• Sponsors
• Volunteers
• Educators
• Advocates
• Administration & staff
• Board & advisory board members
• Government Agencies
• Clients/patients
• Bloggers & Twitter Influencers
• Who else?
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Number 1 Rule in Nonprofit Marketing
Really knowing your target audience
“Getting to know your supporters, volunteers,
clients and other participants in your mission
is easy, if you build that listening and learning
into your everyday work.”
• Be curious, all the time
• Formalize that curiosity
• Convene Informal Focus Groups
• Conduct an Online Survey
Kivi Leroux Miller
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Marketing Strategies
o Market strategies are the comprehensive approach an
organization takes to engage its target markets. They must be
action oriented.
o Strategies include:
 how the organization designs and delivers programs and
services;
 how it positions itself on issues;
 how it designs campaigns;
 where it locates or places its programs and information;
 how it prices or values its services; how it executes its
communication, public relations, and outreach efforts.
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Competitive Positioning
Sets your organization apart from your competitors and helps
ensure a lasting, defensible place in the marketplace.
Identifies your services & helps ensure that your target
audiences perceive your organization & offerings distinctly
from your competitors.
Helps identify your competitive advantage that differentiates
you from other providers.
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What is a positioning statement?
A positioning statement is a tight,
focused description of the core target
audience to whom a brand, is directed, and it
provides a compelling picture of how the
nonprofit wants its targeted audiences to view
them. A well-constructed positioning
statement brings focus and clarity to the
development of a marketing strategy and
tactics. Brandeo
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Programs & Services
To reach and engage your target market, your
nonprofit organization may need to:
 redesign or develop new programs. An
organization’s programs
 Programs must support your mission
 Show a congruence between activities and
messages and alignment with their own values
and needs.
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Marketing Mix
• Product/Service - What exactly are you providing
to people?
• Place - How and where will you deliver it to them?
• Price - At what “price” will you provide it? How will
you get the funds to cover your expenses?
• Promotion - How will you get stakeholders to use
your services?
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Product (Services)
• Define your services, e.g. what you offer
• Determine your target market
• Build images that speak to value and
consistency of message based on your
mission.
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Identify Unique Service Features
Our services:
• Meet our stakeholders needs
• Offer a wide-range of options
• Are conveniently located
• Easy to use
• Have no cost and/or sliding cost
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Place
How much does place effect your stakeholders?
• Do you have a centralized location? Multiple
locations to meet needs?
• Are your locations convenient?
• Do you have distribution channels for products?
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Price
While there is no true ‘price’ for nonprofit services you need to
consider the expenses involved in running the organization so
you can secure funds to cover them.
Expenses –
• Fixed – whether anyone uses the service or not
• Variable – varies with the activity
• Price ceiling – maximum ‘price’ a stakeholder will pay for your
services.
• Price floor – lowest ‘price’ you can provide your services &
still survive.
MSD Resources
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Promotion & Outreach
Promotion refers to all communications, public
relations, and outreach efforts. They
 engage, and develop relationships with an
organization’s target market.
 Promote meaningful engagements.
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Main Vehicles
• Website
• Newsletters
• White papers
• Email blasts
• Yahoo Listserve Groups
• Professional Conferences
• YouTube Videos
• Viral/marketing [Word of Mouth]
• Social Media, e.g., Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter
• Brochures/booklets
• Media & blog outreach
• Search engines
• Advertising
• Events
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October 16, 2008
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WOM Communications
• While other marketing channels slow, WOM
skyrockets.
• Great way to involve leadership and other
volunteers in your marketing efforts.
• Twitter & FaceBook support WOM efforts.
• Invitations are key to WOM.
• Integrate personalized email & ‘hard copy’
invitations.
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Mailings 411
• Mailings - invitations, announcements, “Save the Date”
Cards – are still a vital part of your arsenal to reach your
goals.
– Give them something tangible to hold onto
– Ask for a reply by mail, adds commitment on their part
– Preview the event, program, cause, to build excitement
and interest
• Add print and mail to your budget, it more than pays for
itself, especially at Nonprofit rates!
Erna Schneiderman
Morningside Marketing Group, Inc.
404-840-6663
www.morningsidemktg.com
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Experiential Marketing
“Research shows that face-to-face events have
a greater return on investment than most
other forms of advertising or public
relations.”
Mike Clearly, Abcom
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Experiential Marketing & Sponsors
North American businesses spend billions
sponsoring events. These included charity
galas, athletic contests, concert series, and the
like -- according to IEG Sponsorship Report.
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Implementation & Leadership
A strategic marketing plan is meaningless unless
it is implemented.
 Implementation includes buy-in from staff and
leadership.
 Evaluation is important to gauge if the
implementation is on target.
 Identify your leadership to support and
promote the implementation of your plan.
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Evaluation
• Measure outcomes
 What is working best/not working at all
 Have we met our objectives
 Have we engaged our leadership, volunteers
and members
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Major Principles for Guiding Your Nonprofit Through a
Marketing Lense
1. Always market your mission, not your current services. The ability to
adjust its services to suit client need is key to ensuring the
organization’s survival and its financial support.
2. Carefully define whom your mission serves. You need to meet the
needs of our corps stakeholders.
3. Measure your constituents’ needs. Research, research, research to
ensure your programs & services resonate with your target
audiences.
4. Design programs that meet needs.
5. Evaluate the success of programs & their relationship to your
mission.
6. Communicate regularly & consistently.
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Major Principles for Guiding Your Nonprofit Through a
Marketing Lense, page 2
7. Craft your messages to reflect how our mission affects your different
audiences.
8. Communicate in terns of your ROI even when it is not in monetary terms;
quantify your economic impact.
9. Celebrate your successes. Show how your ‘market diversification’ creates
the funding to provide your services.
10. Know your organizational elevator speech so you can articulate your
vision & Competitive Advantage Statement.
11. Keep a “face” on your marketing initiatives
12. Evaluate often & be prepared to refocus your efforts.
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The Marketing Plan

GCN Marketing Plan Outline
Christopher Lemley, GSU, J Mack Robinson College of Business
Marketing Department
A Marketing Plan is a written strategy for generating
revenue for an organization. It is a reflection of how a
company views itself; its position in the market place;
and how it intends to gain and retain customers and
a resulting revenue stream. A successfully
implemented Marketing Plan is backed by carefully
collected market-, customer- and Competitor
information; general marketing conditions; and it is
built upon how a company thinks of its own strength
and weaknesses.
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Why Prepare a Marketing Plan?
The Plan enables you to recognize and take action on any trends
and consumer preferences that other companies may have
overlooked, and to develop and expand your own select
group of customers now and into the future.
The Plan also shows to others that you have carefully considered
how to produce a product or service that is market-facing,
unique and acceptable to current and future customers-
improving your chances of stable-to increasing sales and
margins.
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Contents of a Marketing Plan
• Title Page
 Include the name of your organization, period of time that the
contents of the plan covers, and completion date.
 Use a clean and professional format with examples of your
organization’s logo and, if different, logos of your programs
and services.
• Table of Contents
 List all the contents of the marketing plan in the order they
appear, citing relevant page numbers.
 List tables, graphs and diagrams on a separate page. List the
appendices that will be included at the end of the document.
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• Executive Summary
 Two-Three page section forms an overview of the document. Highlight
areas of the plan that are particularly crucial to the reader, and provide an
indication of how this plan will help your organization attain overall
success in the future.
• Historical Background
 Give the reader an historical overview of the formation of your nonprofit,
how and/or by whom the organization was founded, and the scope of
your organization’s activities and opportunities for expansion. *Indicate
how the future success of the organization can be attributed
to the strategies found in the Marketing Plan.
• Situation Analysis
 Market Analysis
 Environmental Analysis
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• Profile of your ‘clients’ and past ‘clients’
o Provide information from your thorough examination
of customers present and past, focusing on their
characteristics:
 Demographically
 Psychographically
 Behaviorally
 And from a usage of your services point of view
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Marketing Goals and Objectives
Start with the positioning statement of the nonprofit.
 Identification of Target Markets
 Product/Service Objectives
 Revenue/Sales Objectives
 Margin Objectives
 Pricing Objectives
 Logistics (Channel) Objectives
 Marketing Communications and Promotion Objectives
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• Strategic Marketing Focus
 Product or Service
 Location
 Promotion
 Price
• Financial Information
 Show predicted level of sales – with and without
strategies outlined in the marketing plan.
 Forecast the “break even point” for each for 5 years
• Tables, Graphs, Diagrams and Picture Attachments
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Loud & Clear
Successfully Marketing Your Nonprofit
Nonprofit Marketing Fundamentals
Deborah Spector
deborah@creative-si.com
www.creative-si.com/blog
(888) 924-4648
Creative Solutions & Innovations |
June 2012
www.creative-si.com | 404.325.7031