Or, as fundraiser/blogger Jeff Brooks, puts it "63% of nonprofits intend to fail."
My recommendation for your organization is to harvest the low-hanging fruit -- the tracking data that's inexpensive and easy to get and understand. And that's what's called analytics for your Web site, blogs, e-newsletters and mobile phone campaigns.
Here are some of the rest of the findings from the survey:
Over 60% of you don't evaluate the impact of your communications work, so you have no idea what's working and what's not, or how to target your resources.
Evaluation - which is challenging and limited in terms of branding and building awareness but easily executed for motivating action (giving, advocating, volunteering, requesting more information) is just as crucial as getting your campaigns out there.
Strategies range from the purely qualitative - such as a communications audit and audience research via focus groups - to the quantitative such as counts of unique visitors to Web page A versus page B, or advocates who emailed their representatives in response to e-campaign A vs. e-campaign B.
Without it, you're basically throwing your marketing resources into thin air. So build evaluation into every marketing budget and job description.
Most 2007 Marketing Agendas Focus on these 5 Opportunities:
Over 50% of nonprofit communicators are focused on two or more of the following initiatives this year:
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- Targeting campaigns to specific audience segments
- More audience research to track ROI and impact
- Training colleagues, volunteers and board members on marketing plans and messages
- Better integrating now confusing silos of communications - so that general program and organizational marketing is coordinated with fundraising, membership and volunteer communications.
- Experimenting with Web 2.0 social networking channels to find out what works, and what doesn't
2006 Marketing Successes Many and Varied - from Surpassing Fundraising Goals and Gaining Leadership Buy-In to Consistent, Pithy Messaging
95% of respondents had one or more significant success to report. Almost 80% cited three or more significant marketing successes.
Examples include: Launching a blog, developing, and using, a communication calendar, attracting some new and engaged board members, creating new earned income streams, placing high-profile op-eds and garnering colleagues' trust.
These are just a very few of the hundreds of marketing successes cited by survey respondents. They show me how many ways its possible to increase the impact of your nonprofit's marketing, even without an increase in resources.
Nonprofit Marketers Want to Hurdle these Barriers Faced in 2006
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- 55% percent of participating communicators cited lack of resources and leadership support as the greatest barriers to marketing success.
- 32% cited lack of clarity in messaging and marketing agenda.
- 52% are frustrated at not meeting fundraising, media coverage or other marketing goals.
Single-Pointed Focus on Strengthening Ties with Target Audiences, but few Innovative Ideas for Doing So - Get Cracking on Scouring the Marketing Landscape
Over 35% of the nearly 400 survey respondents cite strengthening relationships with target audiences as a top priority. But few have strategies in mind to make it happen.
Remember, strategies don't just come to you. You have to invent or discover them. I urge you to start (and keep) scouring the for-profit (and nonprofit) marketing landscapes for best practices, and the wider world for jumping off points for messaging, and trends critical to the issues your organization covers.
Sources: http://www.gettingattention.org/my_weblog/2007/05/2007_nonprofit_.html and http://www.nancyschwartz.com/2007_nonprofit_marketing_survey.html
About the Author
Nancy E. Schwartz helps nonprofits succeed through effective marketing and communications. As President of Nancy Schwartz & Company (http://www.nancyschwartz.com/), Nancy and her team provide marketing planning and implementation services to organizations as varied as the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, Center for Asian American Media, and Wake County (NC) Health Services.
Subscribe to her free e-newsletter "Getting Attention", (http://www.nancyschwartz.com/getting_attention.html) and read her blog at http://www.gettingattention.org/ for more insights, ideas and great tips on attracting the attention your organization deserves.
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