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Non-Profit Marketing Tips

by Michele Alperin

Overview

Nonprofit marketing must reach several different constituencies: donors, board members and volunteers, and clients. At the same time, many nonprofits have limited funds and are trying to stretch every dollar as far as they can. Luckily, many core marketing principles developed to promote businesses serve nonprofits as well.
Know Thyself

Don't market until you're clear on who you are. Write down your mission and your goals and the strategies and tactics you will use to accomplish them.

Know Your Audience

Of course you want your audience to feel passionate about your organization's mission, but who indeed is that audience? The first step to developing a relationship with potential supporters and volunteers is to know who they are -- in detail. Old, young. Male, female. Educated or not. Urban or rural. Northern, Southern, or even Californian. What do they read, listen to, watch? If you have different segments within your audience, they will require different marketing messages.
Create a Brand

Name, look, and history are all part of a brand. Make sure your name reveals who you are and what you do; if changing an unworthy name would be too difficult or too expensive, add a distinctive tagline that speaks to your mission. Part of a brand is a consistent "look" to all written materials -- e-mails, brochures, stationery; freshen up the look every couple of years with new colors and fonts. Your history is also part of your brand; tell the short version on your Website. Develop a manual for staff and volunteers that defines your brand.
Develop a Public Relations Plan

Determine what messages you want to convey via the media, then get to work. Figure out which of your organization's events and other developments during the year will be newsworthy. Create a database of reporters and publications that are likely to reach your target constituencies. Match journalists with news possibilities. Contribute your own articles to magazines and newspapers. Develop case studies to help media representatives understand how your nonprofit functions and what it accomplishes. Speak publicly at meetings, in local chambers, at conferences, or in a Webinar. Blog to capture a regular audience.
Use the Internet and Social Networking

In ancient Rome, the agora was the social marketplace, but today the most far-reaching socializing takes place on the Web. An excellent Website is essential to convey who a nonprofit is, what it does and why, and who its movers and shakers are. An e-newsletter is useful for supporters who want more information. But a savvy nonprofit will also set up a Facebook group or become a Facebook cause; will post videos on YouTube and pass them on via e-mail; and will include a "forward to a friend" link in all their e-mails.