New Survey Shows Only 37% of Nonprofits Track
Marketing Impact – Without that Data You're
Driving Blind
Results from the 2007 Getting Attention Nonprofit Marketing
Survey provide a snapshot of key trends and benchmarks for
nonprofit marketing and communications drawn from
communicators working in or with nearly 350 nonprofit
organizations and foundations.
Here are some of the key findings:
- Only 37% of Nonprofits Track Marketing Impact, but
without that Data You're Driving Blind –
Implement a Marketing Evaluation Plan Today
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.
Here are some quick tips on evaluating your nonprofit
marketing:
How to Defend Your Marketing Budget
http://www.nancyschwartz.com/defending_marketing_budget.html
Marketing and Communications Audit 101
http://www.nancyschwartz.com/communications_audit.html
I'll continue to cover evaluation in future issues of
Getting Attention. Let me know – specifics, please –
what you need to learn most about.
- 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:
- Targeting campaigns to specific audience segments
- More audience research to track ROI and impact
(Not outputs – press coverage or letters mailed –
but what one respondent calls "uptake" – how campaigns
build awareness and/or motivate action)
- Training colleagues, volunteers and board members on
marketing plans and messages (they're marketers, too).
One respondent strategically calls this her "internal
marketing campaign."
- 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 – from
MySpace to podcasts and video blogs.
- 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
- 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
- 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.
- More on Survey Respondents
- These findings are derived from survey responses
provided by 347 communicators working in, or
consulting with, nonprofit organizations and
foundations.
- Survey respondents work in a variety of positions as
follows:
| 47% | Marketing and Communications |
| 15% | Leadership |
| 15% | Fundraising |
| 6% | Board Members |
| 17% | Other Roles |
- They work in a broad range of issue areas:
| 29% | Human Services |
| 25% | Education |
| 20% | Civil Society (civil rights,
community, advocacy, philanthropy) |
| 17% | Arts & Culture |
| 9% | Other (international, spiritual, service) |
- The data was collected January through March 2007,
via the survey available for your review at:
http://www.surveymonkey.com/s.asp?u=711542996299
For more articles and case studies, subscribe now to the Getting Attention e-update.
© 2002 - Nancy E. Schwartz. All rights reserved.
About the Author
Nancy E. Schwartz helps nonprofits succeed through effective marketing and communications. As President of Nancy Schwartz & Company (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 Getting Attention e-update (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.
NOTE: You're welcome to "reprint" this article online as long as it remains complete and unaltered (including the copyright and "about the author" info at the end), and you send a copy of your reprint.
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