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FIND AND REACH YOUR TARGET MARKET | BRANDING HELPS YOU REACH YOUR TARGET MARKET

Find and Reach Your Target Market

With competition for funding growing among non-profit organizations, it’s imperative that you know whom you are serving and the benefits that you provide to them
By Alan Siege

In order for a non-profit organization to be effective, it needs to know its niche: who constitutes its target market and how it is served. This is true whether it’s a new group or one bursting at the seams with too many clients.

Why? With the number of non-profit organizations climbing yearly, there is less and less funding to go around. It becomes imperative that you know whom you are serving and the benefits that you provide to them. If you cannot define your core constituencies, you will be squandering your limited resources and, I believe, your ability to fulfill your mission will be adversely affected.

This article uses concepts and terms that are very common to the for-profit community. I believe their use has great relevance to non-profits. After all, non-profits really are businesses and, as such, they need to operate and perform in ways that make them most effective and competitive.

Non-profits typically work from a Mission Statement that makes sweeping claims. But when it comes to actually serving, entertaining or educating people, or seeking volunteers and donor prospects, it is considered good business practice to know specifically which people you have in mind. If you can answer that question, then you have the basis for how to position your organization.

I’m referring to having a concise marketing plan, part of the larger business or strategic plan. Not everyone has a formal working business plan, yet all organizations are operating within business and marketing assumptions about who their group serves and for what reasons. Even if your services are offered for free or at very low cost, you still need to know who will use them and how to reach those people. Donors, too, need to be targeted and will only be responsive when you reach them on their terms.

“All nonprofits answer to many stakeholder groups: the beneficiaries of the services, board members, volunteers, foundations, corporate sponsors, individual donors, government, media and the community in which the operate. . . It is critical to build a brand [or identity] that is clear in its mandate, relevance and differentiation. Each nonprofit must have a strong, ownable proposition that is made relevant to each one of the stakeholder groups. The message must be consistent, yet tailored.” [Wise Moves: How to Successfully Refocus and Leverage Your Organization’s Brand, by Jacklyn P. Boice, Page 15, “Advancing Philanthropy,” November/December 2005]

What are the steps you should go through to achieve your objective, to reach your market's fullest potential? You need to ask the following questions:

What is your business now or, if you want to expand, what is the business you want to be in? The answer to this question is not as obvious as it seems. Consider:

• How do you really know if there is a market for your service and
• If you're currently in business, how did you define your strongest customers?
• How did you decide how to package and price your service?

There are specific steps to take in building a formal marketing plan. Start by putting your organization in its place in the broad or macro sphere, which means asking:

• Which factors in the overall economy and industry will affect the marketing of your service in the next year? Every business is affected by the economy in some way, particularly businesses that are cyclical in nature.

• Who or what kinds of people could conceivably be considered prospects for this service? Here, your ideal clients are described in detail.

• What is the potential market for your service in numbers? Provide specific numbers for each target group.

• What is the trend analysis or what is the history of who has used the service or product in the past? Review actual use.

• Who are your competitors for this service and how do you stand competitively? A clear description of who the competition is and what they’re doing in terms of sales and what they’ll likely do in the near future.

• What are the problems and opportunities, both internally and externally, that may inhibit the marketing of the service? This is a description of what’s gotten in the way of success in the past and what opportunities have been missed. What is now possible?

• What do you want to achieve with this service in terms of short and long-term goals? Stated in both qualitative and quantitative terms, this is where plans are described, justified and targets made.

• Given all these issues, what must we do next to reach the goals we’ve set? What are the specific things we are going to do to achieve these goals, which is a description of our marketing mix?

Now, on the micro level, your organization should develop a core marketing message that you can use almost daily in your interactions with prospects of all kinds.

This is often referred to as branding, which from a non-profit perspective is an authentic expression of your organization – its unique vision, goals, voice and personality. Simply put, it’s what you stand for in the mind of your audience, whoever that is.

In real life, it’s the art of creating and delivering a consistent message, image and experience that brings your organization’s unique difference to life in the minds of your current customers, stakeholders such as volunteers and donors, and those who you wish to become such.

Most of us are very familiar with one piece of the branding process – the slogans – of several highly successful non-profits.

• “Be prepared.” (The Boy Scouts)
• “We Bring the Caring Home. (The Visiting Nurse Service)
• “The Best Cancer Care. Anywhere.” (Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center)

Branding is the creation of a corporate image that helps distinguish it from all others. When successful, branding:

• Helps the intended audience know the product has them in mind
• Speaks to a certain level of quality that can be expected
• Differentiates the product (or service) from others in the marketplace
• Builds value and trust
• Reduces vulnerability to competition and marketing crises
• Makes it easier to introduce new services
• Increases marketing effectiveness and cost efficiencies
• Facilitates creating partnerships and collaborations

“At the Audubon Society, branding has had numerous benefits across the three areas of the society’s activities – education, public policy, and science. . . One of the key messages we developed during our branding process was ‘Protecting our Great National Heritage.’ It was meant to help people understand the core of our public policy mission. About a month after we started using that phrase, the White House began to pick it up in official press communications. [What’s In a Name? Branding Comes to the Nonprofit World, by David Vinjamuri, Page 3, “Journal For NonProfit Management,” 2004]

For branding to be effective, it has to include, even feature, the concept of WIFM or “What’s In It For Me?” for the people you are trying to reach. This is even more important now with competing interests creating “noise” that interferes with your message. Successful non-profits carefully position themselves within multiple markets to manage public perception of their purpose and quality. In some ways, your Mission Statement is the starting point in that it should describe what the organization does, who it serves and what makes it special or unique.

In the next installment, I’ll go through the five important aspects of getting to the WIFM and provide useful follow-up questions.

 But to do it you’ve got to tune into their favorite station, “WIFM,” or What’s In It for Me?
By Alan Siege

In a previous article on branding, I concluded with the comment that for branding to be effective, it has to include – even feature – the concept of “What’s In It For Me?” (WIFM) for the people you are trying to reach. This is even more important now with competing interests creating “noise” that interferes with your message.

Whether your organization is seeking to expand services or its donor base, you must carefully position yourself within multiple markets to manage public perception of your purpose and quality. In some ways, your mission statement is the starting point, in that it should describe what the organization does, whom it serves and what makes it special or unique.

To get to the WIFM, the positioning message should be based on these five important aspects:

1. Target markets – To whom is your message directed?
2. Problem/Solution – What is the concern or need of the user and what is your solution?
3. Benefits – What are all the various ways your services help your customer or client?
4. Unique Competitive Advantage or Unique Value Proposition - What makes your group
or membership stand out in a way the distinguishes your organization?
5. Risk Reversal – What are you promising to deliver that reduces the personal risk of
people joining your group?

Addressing these five points can also be viewed as the branding process, which helps organizations to bridge the gap between strategy and their identity in the marketplace.

1. Target Markets
Target markets are those people who buy or use your service. Look at them from demographic and psycho-graphic perspectives --your clients’ age, sex, income levels, education and psychographics. Secondarily, how you might describe these people? For example, are they creative, frugal, athletic, conservative?

Within the target market, you must know:

• What are they buying or looking for?
• What are you offering that they need?
• When do they buy or seek it out?
• Are there certain times of year they are most active? What influences them to buy?
• Why do they want what you provide? What makes them actually join/buy/donate? There’s an old rule that people don’t move or act until the cost of NOT moving or acting is greater than the cost of moving or acting.

It’s also important to know:
• To what organizations do they belong?
• Where do they network?
• What are their professions?
• What do they do or where do they go to advance their careers?
• What do they do for fun, entertainment or relaxation?
• What do they read?
• How do they like to be talked to: in person, phone, and e-mail?

2. Problem/Solution
This is probably one of the most important parts of any Core Marketing Message. You must be able to articulate a problem or need that your target market has and provide a viable, convincing, compelling solution. Above all, your message must be so clear that it just grabs people. And it must grab all of your constituencies, that is, your donors and volunteers, as well as the people who actually use your organization’s services.

3. Benefits
The key here is to know the difference between features and benefits. A feature, for example, might be: “Our social workers receive their training at the most prestigious universities in the U.S.” The implied benefit is: “You will work with gifted therapists who are compassionate, caring and effective.”

Features are your organization’s characteristics, the qualities (such as focusing on hiring the best-trained social workers) that create the benefits for the client or customer. Benefits are the results of your features. Ultimately, you need to get results, and results are what really sell. Show people these results with stories about what happened to a client or customer when he or she did or experienced the service your group provides.

4. Unique Competitive Advantage (UCA) or Unique Value Proposition
This is what helps all your customers/clients understand how you’re different and it shows how the difference is a real benefit to them. You must:
• Tell them your problem/solution statement
• Explain your approach to what your group does or how you do it.
• Describe the kind of customer you serve, or the way you provide your service
• Use a special visual identity such as a cool brand name or logo
• Tell them about the speed of your service
• Offer a great guarantee
• Offer a very attractive payment policy

A good UCA will:
• Address the “What’s In It For Me” question
• Clearly identify who the service/product is for
• Communicate something competitors are not
• Convey a difference that is really interesting
• Guarantee a level of performance

5. Risk Reversal
When your prospects are considering buying your kind of service, they have certain concerns or risks they are facing, such as:
• What if it doesn’t work?
• What if I look bad?
• What if I lose?

In essence, Risk Reversal means that you give a guarantee. While some people may wonder how you can give a formal guarantee, it’s important to be able to stand behind your service. All groups should be able to say, for example, “If you work with us in the manner described, there will be a specific result.” The idea is not to set up an impossible hurdle; rather it’s to create a statement that clients can hold onto as a benchmark of what will likely happen if they work with you. It really serves the purpose of getting your organization, the service provider, to make your offering very clear and specific. It doesn’t mean “giving away the store,” but it can help people make the decision in your favor.

Now, with all this information, you have the basis for creating an Ideal Client Profile Chart. Such a chart would describe your ideal clients demographically and psycho-graphically, followed by what kind of problems this population has, the solutions your group offers, followed by where and how to reach them. You would, in essence, have created your organization’s brand and determined who – clients, donors, volunteers – would be best served by it.

Despite some negative associations with branding, non-profit organizations can greatly benefit from learning and applying this time-tested tool used by the for-profit sector. Having a brand does not mean you’ve sold out or abandoned your vision. Your brand is a fully articulated mission that will let you stand out with clarity and integrity.

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