Table 3.1. Elements of a Comprehensive Marketing Strategy
| Plan Section | What the Section Includes |
|---|---|
| Marketing Goals | The primary marketing outcomes that support your organization's larger mission-oriented goals. |
| Situational Analysis | The conditions under which you must operate. Sometimes includes a marketing audit. |
| Targeted Communities | Who you must reach and convince; their interests, values, habits, and preferences. |
| Organizational Brand or Personality | How you wish others to perceive your organization through your communications. |
| Messaging and Primary Calls to Action | The specific messages that will move your audience to action. |
| Marketing Strategies | The best approaches to reach your marketing goals. |
| Marketing Objectives | The SMART steps you take to achieve a strategy. SMART is Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Resourced, and Time-Bound. Includes how you will measure progress. |
| Marketing Tactics | The tools, channels, and types of content you will use to pursue the objectives. |
| Resources | Resources required to implement the plan, including budget and staffing. |
Marketing Goals
In this section, you define what you need to do or to accomplish.
What are your short-term and long-term goals? What do you want to achieve through marketing?
I suggest you begin with the twelve most common goals described in the previous chapter and winnow those down to what's most appropriate for your nonprofit.
The four most common marketing goals are engaging our community, brand building and reputation management, raising awareness of our issues, and supporting event fundraising.
Situational Analysis
Here you describe the conditions under which you must operate. This is also called an environmental scan. You'll also sometimes see a SWOT analysis – a review of the strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats. Some strategies also include a marketing audit of existing communications work.
You may want to answer some of the following questions. What are the internal conditions under which your marketing program must operate? What are the external conditions under which you must operate? What partnerships can you rely on? What skills do you need, and which do you have on staff now? What systems need to be in place in order for your plan to succeed? What barriers must be overcome for your plan to be successful?
Who is the competition – who else is providing similar resources and information? Who is providing information or urging actions that are in conflict with your approach? Are there any myths that must be overcome? Are there any policies that will positively affect the outcome of your marketing plan? Are there any policies that could negatively affect the success of the marketing strategy?
Targeted Communities
In this section, you describe in detail who you are communicating with and what their interests and needs are.
What groups of people are you trying to reach? Within those groups, what are the specific subgroups of people who are most important to you? Who are some personas within the groups? What do these people care about? What's important to them? What's not important to them? What is their current level of interest in you and your issues? How much knowledge do they already have? What else do you believe they need to know?
Organizational Brand or Personality
Your organizational brand or personality is your identity and how others see you and feel about you. Brands are communicated through everything from word choices and visuals to the timing and location of your communications. Speaking in a unified organizational voice across all of your communications channels is an important part of your brand.
You'll want to create a brand and style guide that articulates all of the specific details (we'll discuss brand and style guides more in Chapter 15); however, your strategy should answer some basic brand questions. What is your organization really all about? What's your story? What makes you special? What will others associate you with? What tone, voice, and style best represent your nonprofit?
Messaging and Primary Calls to Action
In this section you lay out the specific messages that are most likely to work with your target audiences. You'll answer questions like these.
What are you trying to get people to do? What kind of installment plan or baby steps can people take along the way? What's in it for them? Why should they care, and why now?
Given your target audiences’ interests, needs, and values, what specific messages about you and your work are most likely to resonate with them? What messages or approaches would they be most likely to ignore? What kind of information do the specific groups want to receive from you?
Marketing Strategies
In the previous chapter, we reviewed the twelve most common nonprofit marketing strategies. These are the marketing approaches you will take to achieve your goals.
The four most common marketing strategies are permission-based marketing, content marketing, event or experience marketing, and relationship marketing.
You can customize these strategies by being specific about which targeted communities each strategy will be used to reach and which programs or services you will market with each strategy.
Marketing Objectives
In this section, you define your marketing objectives, which are the measurable steps you take to implement a strategy. We encourage you to make your objectives SMART: Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Resourced, and Time-Bound. As you add the details to make your objectives SMART, you will be referencing the earlier sections of your strategy on your targeted communities and your messaging and primary calls to action.
What specific measures are available to track the effectiveness of the marketing campaign? Which measures are of primary importance and which are secondary? How often will you review and report on the metrics? How will the metrics influence adjustments to the plan? What's impossible to measure, but still important to consider, perhaps through anecdotal information? Are there any unstated or hidden expectations that need to be addressed?
The most popular objectives for nonprofits fall into these four categories: joining, subscribing, or following; participation levels; change in knowledge or understanding; and financial gains or savings.
Marketing Tactics
Here you describe the tactics you will use to deliver your messages to your audiences. Think about questions like these.
What communications tools should you use to deliver messages to the target audiences? How specific and personalized