It’s easy to put our own marketing efforts to the back burner when we’re busy focusing on our daily tasks. For many of the nonprofits we’ve spoken with, this feeling is even more intensified as they feel that they are too busy “out in the trenches” fighting the good fight to take a step back and focus on communicating their story through marketing. Sound familiar?
Since we are seeing a growing awareness of the importance of branding and marketing from local nonprofits and small businesses, this blog focuses on HOW to start building awareness of your brand, rather than WHY you should do so – that’s a whole blog post of its own!
Though marketing cannot be summed up in one quick list, here are five key tips to help get you started:
- Research. Understand who you are and how others see you. From this you should build a clear understanding of mission and vision as well as your brand promise, your audience, and your goals.
- Strategize. Your strategy should align with your brand promise. It is important that your actions and communications always reflect your larger mission/promise – this is how you build trust. Set goals and a timeline for these goals! Remember to make “SMART” goals (Specific, Measurable, Attainable, Relevant, Time-bound). Check out our marketing strategy template for more ideas on setting up your plan.
- Engage. Share what you are doing and pay attention to what others are saying. This is especially important with social media making conversations so fast and widely available. Build your own online presence and make sure to engage and support your brand ambassadors. Track any negative conversations and respond in a respectful manner – remember, social media is public! Show that you are engaged and open to feedback.
- Collaborate. Focus on building the success of your mission rather than focusing on your organization’s position within the “competitive landscape.” Collaborating with other organizations, for-profits and nonprofits alike, with similar missions will help build awareness and success.
- Measure. You’ve already set goals – now track those goals in order to measure success! There are plenty of tools out there to help measure your online brand awareness, we recommend tracking social media influence and engagement as well as your website analytics . We love Sprout Social for social media and Google Analytics for our websites.
While this list makes it look easy, we understand that stepping back and setting aside time to create and implement a marketing strategy can be daunting. Please don’t hesitate to send us questions or ask for help – that’s what we’re here for!
