When it comes to the marketing goals for a town or community-focused nonprofit, no one knows what the destination should be more than the people who volunteer, work within, and support it. Traditional marketing strategies like billboards, expensive magazine ads, or advertising campaigns may seem like the most visible path to reach those goals, but these can get extremely costly and, a lot of times, do not line up with the goals for an organization.
With our combined expertise in community development and branding, we have created a process to identify the genuine stories and assets that make your city community- focused nonprofit unique. From there, we build a marketing pathway based on those assets to achieve your desired outcomes, whether it’s engaging the community, advocating for policy changes, attracting new businesses or clients to serve, or inviting private investment. You and your team know where you want to be, through our unique M.A.P. Plan, we can get you there.
STEPS TO THE PROCESS MESSAGING: Being able to identify your audience, empathize with their frustrations, and understand their motivations are invaluable tools to help build strong external and internal relationships, increase community engagement and buy-in of programming and initiatives, and attract donors and clients. Our M.A.P. Plan helps identify audiences, create sample personas, and suggest voice, tone, and key phrases that can be used to improve communication. We spend time with your nonprofit to collect the personal stories that help create the unique identity of your organization, then lay out a communication strategy for you to tell those stories to help increase engagement. We conduct a Touchpoint Audit, which is a process of looking closely at every aspect of your enterprise that a particular audience interacts with (social media, website, office space, signage etc) and suggest messaging improvements that can be made to ensure your are telling the right story to the right audience.
ASSETS: Every organization has a unique mix of assets that define its character and allow it to follow through on its promise to the community. Taking the time to identify these assets, as well as potential partnerships with organizations and institutions with similar interests and missions, provides us with specific, unique, and positive material to build a complete and authentic brand for your community-focused nonprofit.
PROMOTION: Once the work of identifying messaging and assets is complete, the process of sharing the unique stories and programs and inviting others to engage with your organization buy volunteering, deepening their understanding, or donating can begin. Unlike a traditional marketing plan, our nonprofit-specific and asset-based promotion plan identifies strategies and initiatives that are focused directly on your organizations identified goals. Items such as web presence, social media stories, and community events a lot of times do more to engage your community, build trust, and bring attention to the great work you are doing than large-scale advertising campaigns ever could. We take into consideration your team size, budget, and available resources and tailor an appropriate promotional strategy. Then, we break everything down into manageable phases and suggest teams, timeline, and budget to ensure its success and make each initiative easy to plan and delegate.
ADVANTAGES OF BEING “ON THE M.A.P.” Make your branding and marketing initiatives actionable Ensure your promotions match your goals & audience Save money and time by only engaging in marketing activities that align with the plan Make it easier for you to build teams and delegate work Differentiate your city or organization from others in the marketplace