Gettingattention.org

Update – July 29 – Nonprofit Tagline Award entries are now closed.  Please enter next year!

Your nonprofit could be a 2010 Getting Attention Nonprofit Tagline Award winner! But only if you enter your organizational, fundraising campaign, program/service and/or special event taglines by midnight tonight.

And, even if you don’t win this time round, all entrants will be invited to join me this fall in a game-changing webinar: How to Build Leadership Support for Critical Marketing Projects.

Take 3 minutes now to enter your nonprofit taglines today. Here’s more information on the tagline awards program.

You’ve been fantastically enthusiastic about this year’s award program. For those of you who have already entered, your organizational, fundraising, program and/or special event taglines are of astounding quality.

I thank you for your interest, and for spreading the word.

Let me also thank you for your contribution to strengthening the nonprofit communications field! All taglines entered will be integrated into the Getting Attention Nonprofit Tagline Database (will be online for the first time) and the updated 2010 Nonprofit Tagline Report.

Don’t miss this opportunity to enter. Today, until midnight,  is your last chance to enter your taglines.

All tagline entrants get a free copy of the report and access to the database when they are published in late fall! If you’d like a copy too, but you don’t want to enter your tagline, simply subscribe to the free Getting Attention e-update. That’ll ensure you’re on the list!

Enter your taglines today – or forever (till 2011) hold your peace!

Subject:  Secretary of State Hillary Clinton Visits HealthRight in Vietnam

Healthright-nonprofit-marketing

I was thrilled last Thursday to receive this timely e-news alert from HealthRight International.  It’s nonprofit marketing at it’s finest.

This scrappy organization doing fantastic grassroots public health work worldwide had learned just a week prior that it had a fantastic marketing opportunity on its hands: Hillary Clinton had selected its Smile of the Sun center in Hanoi (a model for providing support and advocacy services for children and families living with HIV) as the stage for her signing of a five- year agreement with the Vietnamese government to fight HIV/AIDS.

Healthright’s executive director Mila Rosenthal (in photo in white shirt) is a close friend who happened to be visiting us a few days before Clinton’s visit. She couldn’t leave her  Blackberry alone for a minute – not like her – and when I asked why, she shared the news as she continued to work on visa issues.

Mila knew that:

1. Nothing’s more powerful than connecting your nonprofit with a major news event. Clinton had already done that. It was HRI’s job to make the most of it.
2. Clinton’s visit was the biggest media/marketing opportunity HRI had ever had, especially since her team had vetted many programs before selecting HRI’s program as the “set.”
3. This was a priceless moment for HRI to a) build awareness of its work and impact with existing supporters, and to b) engage many others as supporters, or at least pique their interest.
4. Mila better be there, on the scene, herself.

Despite visa delays, Mila did make the signing.  Then she and the HRI team capitalized on it. They:

1. Captured as many photos as possible, with Mila included when possible (the visual connection between Mila and Hillary is worth a million dollars).
2. Distributed two press releases, one each the day before and the day of the visit, including one featuring the photos.
3. Sent out this e-news immediately.
4. Featuring the story on the HealthRight’s homepage

The only additional suggestion I have for HealthRight is that they continue the story across online and offline channels, including the blog (nothing there yet on Clinton’s visit).

Remember that engagement is fleeting: Once your organization does engage a new or re-engage an existing audience, make sure to keep in close touch with related content (in this case, more about the trip, the center and HealthRight’s work in Vietnam and other countries.  It’s much harder to re-engage them, than to keep the conversation going.

Please share your stories – in the comments box – of connecting your organization’s work and impact with a major news story. Don’t forget to mention the results. Thanks!

P.S. Get more in-depth articles, case studies and guides to nonprofit marketing (and video) success — all featured in the twice-monthly Getting Attention e-update. Subscribe today.

Welcome to guest blogger Allison Van Diest. Allison, Senior Product Marketing Manager at Blackbaud, prides herself on being not only a marketing “artist” but a marketing “scientist”  able to measure the marketing impact. She has some terrific guidance to share with you on shaping a tagline that works…

What has less than 140 characters and tells the world what you’re up to?

Yes, Twitter does.  But how do you think the Twitter folks got the idea that a short, punchy phrase or two can be among the best ways to communicate?  Decades ago, taglines showed the world that a few well-chosen words can mean more to a reader than pages of advertising copy.

The purpose of a tagline is to create an impression that is meaningful and moving, as succinctly as possible.  And in today’s landscape of light speed communication, with constraints on readers’ time and attention, a well-written tagline is critical.

It is your best tool in capturing the imagination of a prospective supporter and also arms them with the perfect message to send to their network (through Twitter, perhaps!).

Sold on the idea of taglines, but not sure yours is prize-worthy? Enter the Nonrpofit Tagline Awards program anyway, there’s nothing to lose. And every entrant will be invited to join me in a special free webinar on building leadership support for critical marketing projects. But back to taglines…

If you’re not satisfied with your tagline, consider sending it through a quick positioning refresh to make sure it truly captures your spirit.  As a reminder, a strong positioning statement answers these questions:

1. Who (what group) does your organization serve?
2. What does the group you serve hope to accomplish?
3. What does your organization provide to the group you serve?
4. What is the outcome if the group you serve accomplishes its goal?

Consider how how this information is conveyed by TexasNonprofits, a 2009 Nonprofit Tagline Award winner:  “Building community deep in the hearts of Texans”

1. Who (what group) does your organization serve?  Texas nonprofits
2. What does the group you serve hope to accomplish? To encourage higher levels of giving so they can do more good in Texas
3. What does your organization provide to the group you serve?  Resources and support to aid the nonprofit community
4. What is the end state if the group you serve accomplishes its goal?  Texans are even more philanthropic and nonprofit impact goes even further

With its tagline, TexasNonprofits conveys mission and impact in a clever and memorable way.   This year’s Taggies will once again celebrate well-crafted taglines and – hopefully – inspire other nonprofits to follow suit, so please enter yours today (deadline is July 28).

We can’t wait to see what you’ve been up to!

The 2010 Nonprofit Tagline Awards program is made possible thanks to the generous sponsorship of Blackbaud, Event360, Eventbrite and See3 Communications.

P. P. S. Follow the tagline award news on Twitter via the hashtag #taggies

I have some exciting news to share -

I’ll be holding a special, free webinar for all organizations that enter the 2010 Nonprofit Tagline Awards Program.

Here’s why:  You’ve told me time and time again how much marketing work you want and need to do to advance your organization’s mission. But frequently meet a roadblock in convincing your leadership (and sometimes colleagues too) of the value (a.k.a. ROI) of investing in key marketing projects.

Building understanding is first step to building support and this webinar will walk you through, step-by-step, how to build leadership understanding and support.

You’ll leave with a clear sense of what it takes, examples of what works and doesn’t work and a comprehensive checklist to work from in your initial “building awareness and support” campaign and on an ongoing basis.

Trust me. When your leadership feels like part of your marketing team – rather than like outsiders – you’ll be much more likely to get the support and budget you need to execute the marketing campaigns you know will make the greatest impact. You’re the marketing expert but leadership support is a key to success.

So, don’t waste a minute. Enter today - The 2010 Getting Attention Nonprofit Tagline Awards (a.k.a. The Taggies) close on July 28! Please enter today. And this year, for the first time, you can submit your organization’s program, fundraising campaign and/or and special event taglines, in addition to your organizational tagline.

When you do, your name will be placed on the invite list for the webinar, to be held mid-fall.

P.S. Learn more about building leadership support for critical nonprofit marketing projects:

Building Internal Support for Communications

How to Defend Your Marketing Budget, Even in Tough Times

Why Communications Advocacy Should Remain #1 on Your To-Do List

The 2010 Getting Attention Nonprofit Tagline Awards are open and waiting for your entry! But let me invite you to enter more than just your organizational tagline…

This year’s tagline awards program has been expanded from organizational taglines (awards for the best in each of 13 sectors – from human services to libraries) to include awards for the best taglines for nonprofit programs, fundraising campaigns and special events. Enter up to four separate taglines today.

I’ve heard from a few of you wondering what I mean by special event taglines. But they’re out there and they work! What’s easier to plug into a Facebook status update or mention in a call with a friend than a special event tagline. And the MS Society does a fantastic job in this series of three event taglines for its ride and walks.

Here are two more examples, from much smaller organizations, that clearly differentiate their special events.

• The Literary Feast – An evening to nourish you mind, body and soul (from the Morrin Society)
• LA Marathon – Start 2011 on the “Write” Foot (from Team Story Project)

Enter your tagline(s) today! Deadline is July 28 and I don’t want you to miss this opportunity to learn and be recognized for your great work.

Three great organizations are seeking nonprofit marketing experts and reached out to me recently, requesting that I spread the word.

Let’s take it as a sign that the economy is looking up! Most importantly, I wanted to share these fantastic opportunities with you:

• Greenpeace USA is looking for an experienced online organizer and campaigner who has a passion for making change. The Director of Online Strategy will leverage Greenpeace’s brand to build and grow a new, executive level department that will become a premiere environmental online team.
• See3 – an innovative interactive marketing agency for the nonprofit community, specializing in online campaigns, website development, and video production – is seeking a new Marketing and Research Coordinator. Congrats to current communications manager Elliot Greenberger who is headed to the Yale School of Public Management.
• VolunteerMatch - the Web’s most popular volunteer network – has an immediate opening for a dynamic, energetic and skilled Online Communications Manager to implement and manage the Communication Department’s online strategy. Bonus: The office is in San Francisco’s Chinatown.

If your organization is hiring in the nonprofit marketing field, I’m glad to share the opportunity with the Getting Attention community. Just email me!

I want to welcome guest blogger Susie Bowie.  As communications manager at the Community Foundation of Sarasota, she is a passionate and talented  force helping organizations in the region develop their nonprofit marketing finesse. Today, Susie heralds her call to action to us nonprofit marketers…

Recently, I’ve heard a couple of remarks about nonprofits and nonprofit staff that just kill me…

First a local business person shared his view that “most of us drawn to nonprofit leadership roles care about charitable work but generally lack the skills to be leaders in the for-profit world.”

Then Mark Zuckerberg, the founder of Facebook, bluntly stated (his modus operandi) that nonprofits don’t have the power to change the world because they “have no resources” and are “constantly out trying to raise money instead of generating it and being self-sufficient.”

My guess is that if I’ve heard such patronizing criticism from these vocal folks in just the past couple of weeks, that this perspective is fairly widespread.

Why should nonprofit marketers care about such silly comments?

Each time word goes out, in a comment, article or broadcast – about how ineffective or unprofessional our sector is – it costs us financial support. Those messages generate doubts among our supporters, much less those who are still prospects. A heavy onus lies with nonprofit communicators to set it straight, but we can’t do it alone.

So what can and should nonprofit communicators professionals do about it within our sector? Here are three ways we can advocate for the truth:

1) Nurture the business people who do understand the power of nonprofits, support us with sponsorship dollars and provide us with outstanding board leaders.

In Sarasota, FL, local companies like Cavanaugh & Co, Kerkering Barberio, SunTrust and Northern Trust are just a few of the successful for-profits doing their part. As nonprofit communicators, we must thank such boosters profusely and set the stage for keeping the relationships going, highlighting their good work in our nonprofit’s outreach and encouraging our leadership to spread the praise.

It’s simply good public relations. Your personal and business pages on Facebook provide a great forum for shout-outs. Don’t let them slide once a sponsored event or program is over. And let your business partners know what you’re doing—just because you see a good news announcement in your local paper doesn’t mean they’ve seen it.

2) Remember that it’s a constant education process to help those who live outside our sector recognize what important and vital work we do.

We can’t fault the business world for a lack of understanding about charitable work anymore than you can fault yourself for not understanding how to fix the oil spill. Consider yourself not only a marketing ambassador for your organization but one for the sector.

Get wise about the economic impact facts in our charitable sector. Sarasota County nonprofits, for instance, reported over $2.8 billion in assets and over $1.2 billion in revenue in 2008 alone. (Source: National Center for Charitable Statistics, January 2010) That’s a result of caring but inept people begging for money. Who’s the one to shed light on this? You. That’s right, it’s your job too.

3) If we’re going to be seen as professional, we have to stay ahead of the curve in professionalism and in our knowledge base.

All staff members, but particularly nonprofit leadership and communicators, represent the sector wherever they go – whether on the job or not. As the marketing ambassador for your organization, remind your staff of their personal brand (how they carry themselves, what they say about their work and your organization) and how it influences your nonprofit brand—and vice versa.

It’s not about “casual” versus “formal” in your virtual and geographic communities. It’s about aligning your actions and comments with respect and intelligence.

I think most of us do a great job of this. Our ongoing education can’t stop with awareness of the issues we care about most. Having one leg in that business world—with constant monitoring of the corporate news and trends—is critical. Communicating the intersections between the nonprofit and for-profit worlds is partly our responsibility. We have the skills to actively convey these connections to essential internal and external audiences. Leadership can determine where we go with them.

Nonprofits are taking (and historically have taken) a leading role in relationship building, the hallmark of success for any venture, public or private.  But it’s up to us to communicate our successes and strengths in a clear, consistent way, through all the grains of staff, board and program running through our organizations.

Powerful food for thought. Thank you, Susie.

What are your thoughts on how (and if) nonprofit marketers can best promote an accurate understanding of the strengths and power of the nonprofit sector and its people? Should we respond directly to slams such as Zuckerberg’s or take the high road  -showing rather than saying – our expertise and professionalism.

Please comment here. Thanks.

Enter your taglines today - organizational, fundraising, special event and/or program taglines – in the 2010 Nonprofit Tagline Awards!

I want to welcome guest blogger Jeff Brooks, creative director at TrueSense Marketing. Jeff has been serving the nonprofit community for more than 20 years and blogging about it since 2005. Today, he shares some guidance on what NOT to do with your nonprofit tagline…

Writing a good tagline for an organization is one of the toughest challenges around. You have to get a whole lot of things right.

So let me show you something that a lot of nonprofits get wrong with their taglines.

It’s abstraction.

A lot of really pointless nonprofit taglines merely throw out an abstraction that’s vaguely related to what they do. And that’s too bad, because most nonprofits I know actually do specific things. It seems to happen more often than not.

Here are some examples:

Schools seem to specialize in vague, say-nothing taglines like these:

• A Great School
• Experience It
• Be Central (”Central” is part of the school’s name)
• Learn More

I’d call those a waste of ink, but since I’m responsible for creating an enormous volume of direct mail in my life, that would be the pot calling the kettle black. But still. Surely something specific and worthwhile goes on at those schools. You wouldn’t know from their taglines.

Probably the most over-used abstraction in nonprofit taglines is the word hope. Now, hope is a good thing, and if you’re in social services or health, you should be increasing hope in a number of ways.

But the hope really says nothing concrete. Check this numbing selection of abstract taglines:

• Hope lives Here
• Empowered by hope
• Bringing Hope and Healing
• Building Hope for a Cure
• Providing Help, Hope and answers
• Help and Hope
• Sharing Knowledge. Sharing Hope.
• Our help is their hope
• Providing Healing, Help and Hope
• Bringing hope. Changing lives.
• Keeping Hope alive

And here’s one that combines the abstraction of hope with a sea of words:

Because at the heart of [name of organization] is what lives in the hearts of us all: The desire to help change the life of another and, in the process, change our own. Together we can perform extraordinary acts, and transform a life in crisis into a life of hope.

That’s clearly the work of a committee out of control.

The organizations with these taglines do a huge array of different things. Specific, useful, important, exciting things. But you’d never know by their abstract taglines.

Abstraction happens when committees are at work. They can’t agree on specifics, so they settle on the abstract. A lot of people actually believe an abstraction is better, because it’s “higher.” It’s not. It’s just airy vagueness that adds nothing to your messaging.

If your tagline is about “hope,” consider changing it. Have it tell people what your organization actually does.

P.S.  Enter today - The 2010 Getting Attention Nonprofit Tagline Awards (a.k.a. The Taggies) close on July 28! And this year, for the first time, you can submit your organization’s program, fundraising campaign and/or and special event taglines, in addition to your organizational tagline.

This program is made possible thanks to the generous sponsorship of Blackbaud, Event360, Eventbrite and See3 Communications.

P. P. S. Follow the tagline award news on Twitter via the hashtag #taggies

Addendum, 7/22/10: Here’s the YWCA’s response to the Y’s name change.

In case you haven’t heard, the YMCA is now the Y.  And believe it or not, the story is covered in the first section of today’s New York Times. Nonprofit marketing news doesn’t usually make the grade!

According to Kate Coleman, the Y’s chief marketing officer, this name change is motivated by the Y’s desire to use a name more closely matched with its mission and emphasizes the impact its programs have on youth, healthy living and communities.  This is definitely a critical focus to reflect in the Y’s branding but I’m not convinced that a single letter can do all that!

“It’s a way of being warmer, more genuine, more welcoming, when you call yourself what everyone else calls you,“  is the second reason for the change  Coleman cites. I don’t agree with that one either.

It is indeed important to know what your organization’s base thinks and what’s important to them. That’s the only way to identify the intersection of your organization’s needs and those of your base – the nexus of your brand. But that doesn’t mean your brand should be what your base is using as your name.

Already, the Y is set up to confuse audiences by asking that while affiliates should be referred to overall by the new name, a specific branch should be referred to the “South Mountain YMCA.” That’s a mess in the making.

I certainly understand the Y’s motivation to have its name more clearly reflect its current mission. That’s good marketing. And the same valid reasoning that moved the United Negro College Fund to change its name to UNCF – because it was serving more than students of a single race.

And the Y does a fantastic job of using the new brand to highlight what’s really important – its current programmatic focus.  No one cares that your branding is different but announcing your new focus is a great way to (implicitly) introduce your new brand. Take a look at this webcast of the Y’s press conference on the change.

But I envision the Y will face some real challenges with this name change, including:

• What about the YWCA?
• And the YMHA/YWHA (the Jewish Y)? New York City’s affiliate is already known as the 92nd Street Y.
• The name “Y” makes me ask “why not?”

What are your thoughts on this name change? Does it work? Should  a nonprofit’s name be whatever it’s called by its base? Please share your comments below. Thanks!

P.S.  Enter today - The 2010 Getting Attention Nonprofit Tagline Awards (a.k.a. The Taggies) close on July 28! Please enter today. And this year, for the first time, you can submit your organization’s program, fundraising campaign and/or and special event taglines, in addition to your organizational tagline.

I want to welcome guest blogger Colleen Farrell.  As senior director of marketing and communications at New York Cares, New York City’s largest volunteer organization, she is a master communicator re: volunteer engagement. Today, Colleen shares some social media insights for volunteer communications…

I’ve been immersed in social media for several years, but like everyone else, have much to learn.  New York Cares has a very credible (and fast growing) online presence, but I often feel like we’re just scratching the surface.

That’s one reason I attended last week’s 2010 National Conference on Volunteering and Service (NCVS). Social media was all the buzz, with its own dedicated track (standing room only) featuring speakers from Facebook, Twitter, Pepsi, Craigslist and others.  And most importantly, it created a vibrant forum for sharing experiences and wisdom from the crowd.

I came away with multiple takeaways (always a good sign). Here are my top five:

1.  There are no experts – There are no social media manuals, and there is no single right way to do it. The best way to learn is to get out there and do it. Twitter’s Jack Dorsey got laughs when he recommended not following panelists’ advice – instead trust and listen to your community.  They’ll tell you what matters.

2.  It’s not about us – The days of one-way communications are over.  Jessica Kirkwood of Points of Light Institute suggests thinking of social media like a cocktail party.  You can’t just walk in and expect people to listen to you.  You need to introduce yourself and ask questions – engage in a conversation.  If you do it right, you’ll get a chance to share your own story in a context that matters to people you meet.

3.  Measure – Many organizations – mine included – got into social media because it seemed like the right thing to do.  Now my team and I are looking hard at what we do, why we do it and results we get, e.g. ROI.  I’m interested to learn more about low-cost dashboards like Spredfast to automate measurement across channels.

4.  No silo zone – Don’t silo social media with one person or department.  Embed it in everything you do and empower people to participate, internally and externally. Set policies and guidelines, appoint owners, then mobilize your community to tell your shared story. Nonprofit leaders should lead by example and use the tools themselves.

5. Tone - Personalize, humanize, be transparent, and above all, be authentic.

The Case Foundation’s Sokunthea Sa Chhabra did a great summary of a session called ‘Social Media for Social Good.’  Check out conference hashtags on Twitter (#NCVS and #SM4SG) for notes and links on getting started, and more.

Do any of these topics resonate with challenges you’re facing?  How is your organization using social media to advance mission?

P.S.  Enter today - The 2010 Getting Attention Nonprofit Tagline Awards (a.k.a. The Taggies) close on July 28! And this year, for the first time, you can submit your organization’s program, fundraising campaign and/or and special event taglines, in addition to your organizational tagline.

Uniting Girls to Change the World
girls fundraising & empowerment program
Because There’s No Excuse for Abuse
domestic abuse prevention services
Your Lake. Love it or smell it. - lake water quality exhibit
Stop and Think - abstinence education program
Life.Support. - family services program

The 2010 Getting Attention Nonprofit Tagline Awards are open and I want to invite you to enter more than just your organizational tagline…

This year’s awards program has been expanded from organizational taglines (awards for the best in each of 13 sectors – from human services to libraries) with awards for the best taglines for nonprofit programs, fundraising campaigns and special events. So you can enter up to four separate taglines today.

I’ve heard from a few of you wondering what I mean by program (that includes products and services too) taglines. But you can see from the examples above that they’re out there and they work! What’s easier to plug into a Facebook status update or mention in a call with a friend than a tagline for the program you’re participating in, supporting or volunteering with.

Enter your tagline(s) today! The deadline is July 28

The late Senator Robert Byrd entered politics on a song. And your organization can do the same via savvy nonprofit marketing.

He took up the fiddle when he was growing up in West Virginia coal country. and put it to work years later to build support in his first run for office – a seat in the West Virginia House of Delegates.

Byrd fiddled his way into hostile meetings and bars in communities where he wasn’t known. And only after he had charmed his audience with his tunes, did he introduce himself, first as a fiddler and then as a candidate.

He knew that one-to-one engagement, especially when built on wonder and pleasure, was the strongest tie there was. So he made that personal, gut-level connection before anything else.

When you meet or greet your base as an individual, especially in a way that shows your humanity, special interest or quirk, connection. Your team should do the same from time to time, just like Patricia Wilson, executive director of the Greater Bay Area Make-a-Wish Foundation who launched a diet-based fund-raising campaign to help close the gap on her org’s $200,000 deficit.  It’s nonprofit marketing at its finest – read more case studies here.

Here is Byrd’s strategy. Put it to work for your organization!

“That fiddle has opened many doors for me. I’ve gone into hostile groups that back in those coal-mining towns might have been a group made up of United Mining Workers, or it might have been the opposition in those days. …A Republican lawyer had told me, ‘Bob, you take that fiddle and make that your briefcase.’

“You play a tune or two, put the fiddle down and quote a piece of poetry and tell them what you stand for and sit down. And that’s what I did. And I led the ticket. That fiddle got me places where I couldn’t have gotten in at all.”

P.S. Get more in-depth articles, case studies and guides to nonprofit marketing (and video) success — all featured in the twice-monthly Getting Attention e-update. Subscribe today.

I’m fascinated by the Russian spy ring’s attempt to  extract U.S. secrets. They counted on their ability to burrow deep into typical American life to develop their understanding of the U.S. government’s goals and strategies.

One of their primary strategies in doing so -  knowing their “audience,”  the neighbors and other folks who had to believe they were just “regular folks” – is the key to advancing your nonprofit’s marketing impact. In your case, it’s an absolute must for strengthening the relationships with your current and prospective donors, advocates, volunteers and more that are the foundation of effective nonprofit marketing.

The goal

To understand your audiences well, in order to find the intersection of their wants and needs and those of your organization. That intersection is where connection happens, followed by engagement.

The spies had their audience down cold

“A neighbor of the Murphy family described them as “suburbia personified. Richard Murphy mowed the lawn; Cynthia Murphy came home from work…with daffodils and French bread in her hands.

“Relatives, friends, classmates, neighbors and co-workers of the three couples expressed shock at the arrests, and they searched their memories for signs that something was amiss, but mostly came up blank,” according to a story in today’s New York Times.

Clearly, the spies and their colleagues back at Russia’s Foreign Intelligence Service had thoroughly studied these communities for the spies to embed themselves so successfully there.

Here’s how you can get to know your audience without putting espionage to work

1. Define your primary target audience (those you need to engage to meet your marketing goals) and group it into no more than three or four distinct segments. Sample segments for an organization building support for a child-focused health care bill in Nebraska include 1) policymakers and their staff members at the congressional district and county levels, currently against the pending state health care reform bill; 2) mothers of children 18 and under with chronic illnesses; 3) health care providers for those children.
2. Outline everything you know now about each one. Supplement those outlines with online research.
3. Reach out to one or two representatives of each segment to learn more. A causal phone conversation is a great place to start – perhaps even to non-work related acquaintances, just to build your understanding of what’s important to that group.
4. Concurrently, build a list of those you know within each segment (or whom your colleagues, friends, family or board know if you are reaching out to these segments for the first time). Numbers may be low if these are new segments for your organization to engage, but their qualitative feedback will be representative of the larger segment.
5. Once you have baseline understanding of each segments’ habits, wants and needs – reach out more broadly via online surveys, informal focus groups and/or brief phone interviews. Focus on learning what’s important to each segment and how that overlaps with your organization’s agenda.
6. Next craft personas – detailed profiles, including a photo - of imaginary representatives of each group you hope to engage.
7. Shape your marketing messages and delivery to these personas, just as the spies shaped themselves to fit into their neighborhoods.

Trench coat, anyone?

P.S. Learn more about personas here: Create Personas to Bridge the Gap with Target Audiences

Welcome back to guest blogger Tamara Mendelsohn, Director of Marketing for Eventbrite for Causes, a sponsor of the 2010 Nonprofit Tagline Awards (a.k.a., The Taggies). Tamara focuses day in and day out on making events more productive for nonprofits and has a valuable recommendation to share…

This year, the Taggies have added a category for special event taglines. (You can enter yours now here.) Take my advice: This is something you should get in on! If you’re reading this, you already know that a live event represents a unique fundraising and awareness opportunity. But you may not be aware of what event taglines can do for your cause.

Here are 5 reasons special event taglines are so helpful:

• They set your event apart from similar events - Attendees have a limited amount of time and resources for events. Imagine they’re picking between two great benefit concerts, one clearly branded with a tagline and one without. Which one do you think they’re more likely to remember, spread the word on and more likely to attend?

• They make it easy for attendees to become your best marketers – For attendees to convince their social networks to join them at an event, they need to be able to explain why it will be great. By creating a potent tagline, you’re doing much of that work for them.

• They’re built for social media – A great special event tagline is a snap for attendees to drop into the small text spaces of Twitter and Facebook. And drop again. And again.

• They promote repeat attendance – Even a great event can fade from attendees’ memories if it lacks a distinctive identity. A strong tagline makes your event unforgettable, and can give it a permanent place on attendees’ monthly or yearly calendars.

• They’re fun - A little humor, even a well-placed pun, communicates to attendees that you know how to show them a great time. And—especially since many organizations are raising money for quite serious causes—it’s key to remind them that your event is a gathering they’ll enjoy and feel good about.

So enter your special event tagline today in the 2010 Taggies. We already have some great entries and want to add yours! Deadline is July 28.

Great Words Promoting Good Causes

Your nonprofit or foundation could be one of this year’s Getting Attention Nonprofit Tagline Award (a.k.a. The Taggies) winners!  And this year, for the first time, you can submit your organization’s program, fundraising campaign and/or and special event taglines, in addition to your organizational tagline. So enter here now.

A strong tagline does double-duty—working to extend your organization’s name and mission, while delivering a focused, memorable and repeatable message to your base. It’s one of your most basic, and effective, marketing tools, but a GettingAttention.org survey showed that 72% of nonprofit organizations don’t have a tagline or rate theirs as performing poorly. The awards program is designed to help close this gap by providing both motivation and models.

All entrants receive a free copy of the fully-updated 2010 Nonprofit Tagline Report in late 2010. It’s the only complete guide to building your organizational, program, fundraising or special event brand in 8 words or less—filled with how-tos, don’t-dos and models. 

Here are the winners of the 2008 and 2009 Nonprofit Tagline Awards (with the 2009 winners selected by more than 4,800 voters in the field). This could be you in 2010! Please take 3 minutes now to enter your nonprofit’s taglines today while it’s on your mind. The deadline to enter is July 28.

This program is made possible thanks to the generous sponsorship of Blackbaud, Event360, Eventbrite and See3 Communications.

P. S. Follow the tagline award news on Twitter via the hashtag #taggies

Q: We’re trying to finalize our nonprofit tagline, but need your help.

Your nonprofit tagline report has been incredibly helpful.  But we’ve been trying to finalize  a new tagline here at Seattle Central Community College for over a year now!

Here are a few that we’ve come up with. I’d appreciate your thoughts:

• Seattle Central fits you – Based in large part on results from student/staff/faculty focus groups we conducted and is taken directly from a student quote. I’m hesitant to use this because one of your the tagline “don’ts” is repeating part of the organization’s name.

— Judy Kitzman, Communications Specialist

A. You’re right to pick up on that don’t, Judy, as repeating your organization’s name in your tagline IS a waste of messaging real estate, especially when the other words don’t differentiate your organization (and you are using just four words).

One thing in particular we would like to do is set Seattle Central apart geographically from other colleges -  we’re the only downtown community college campus and students love our urban location and diverse campus.

With that in mind, here are two options we’ve developed. I’m very interested in your feedback here:

• The college on Capitol Hill.
• Your college. Your future.

A: Judy, these are going in the right direction. But I don’t think either one does it: Location alone isn’t enough to motivate someone to matriculate, although diversity and/or a successful future may be. But put those concepts together and you’re far likelier to motivate prospective student interest:

Seattle Central Community College
Your future starts on Capitol Hill

This is just a quick draft Judy, that needs polishing, but take it from here!

If you have suggestions for Judy, please post them in Comments below.

Online video is one of the best ways to tell your nonprofit’s story. When done right, it can forge powerful connections between your organization and your supporters, but only when it stands out from the competition in three minutes or less.

Read my article in the latest Fundraising Success to learn the 11 steps to take to launch a successful video for your nonprofit!

Teaser: Modest production values can generate huge impact. Take a look at this simple but powerful video from the St. Joseph  Ballet, developed to build understanding of its work and impact around its name change.

P.S. Get more in-depth articles, case studies and guides to nonprofit marketing (and video) success — all featured in the twice-monthly Getting Attention e-update. Subscribe today.

I’m joining forces with my friend and colleague Kivi Leroux Miller to offer you a special opportunity to find the solutions to your 2011 marketing challenges: The Total Focus Marketing Plan Workshop. Plan in a day—blueprint forever.

Please join us for this intensive, limited-enrollment planning seminar for nonprofit communications and development staff members, board members and executive directors who do it all.

Here’s what we have in mind:

• Give us a day and we’ll strip away the muddled messages and the impossible to-do lists that are pulling you in too many directions and diminishing your marketing impact.
• You’ll leave with a focused, practical marketing plan that will work for your nonprofit – one that you are fully capable of implementing.

Two Total Focus Marketing Plan Workshop sessions are available, so save the date that’s best for you

• Thursday, October 7 in New York City (9:00 a.m. – 4:00 p.m.)
• Thursday, October 28 in Washington, DC (9:00 a.m. – 4:00 p.m.)

Email us today to be the first to know when registration opens, at a discount

The sessions are limited enrollment and we think they’ll fill up fast. So email us now at earlybird@nancyandkivi.com (with add me to the list in the subject line) and you’ll be the first to learn when registration opens in early July—and how to get an early bird discount.

Hope you’ll be able to join us!

P.S. To learn more, get on the early bird notification list. Just email us at earlybird@nancyandkivi.com with add me to the list in the subject line.

As pressure to perform grows for nonprofit marketing, many of you are trying to redefine priorities in your new, more streamlined environment.

The most effective way to define your nonprofit communications priorities is to evaluate what strategies are working best, and do more of them. But as you told me a couple of years ago, only 37% of nonprofits track communications outcomes. So you don’t know what’s working best.

Google Analytics are an an incredibly easy and cheap (no cost, beyond your time) way to evaluate what’s working best on your website and blog by measuring user behavior. You should be using them to track usage, and to assess what to do more of and what to change.

But here’s the problem — I bet most of  you (both nonprofit communicators and fundraisers) don’t use analytics data, even if the tool is set up. And that many of you don’t even think it’s your responsibility to do so.

That was confirmed last week, when I released 7 Easy Ways to Boost Your Nonprofit Marketing Impact with Google Analytics to Getting Attention e-update readers. Just 21% of readers opened the email (and the subject line is always the article title), compared to an average of 31%. That means 1/3 of you don’t think website analytics are not important to your work. Wrong!

Read the full article to learn the key metrics to focus on (analytics programs, including Google, generate so many analytics it’s hard to know where to start) to understand your audience better and shape your website to contribute even more to your org’s marketing impact.

For those of you who are using analytic data, please comment below on the top website usage metrics your organization focuses on to understand your audience and improve your site, and your process for putting those insights to work. Thank you.

Most importantly, dig into this valuable information and put it to work!

P.S. Get more in-depth articles, case studies and guides to nonprofit marketing (and video) success — all featured in the twice-monthly Getting Attention e-update. Subscribe today.

Let me introduce you to guest blogger Celeste Wroblewski, vice president of external relations at Donors Forum in Illinois.  Celeste is a longtime friend and colleague, and one of the smartest minds in the field…

As I review advice on social media for nonprofits, I often come across rules like these:

• It’s about conversing and listening: It’s not about sharing your own news.
• Post X times a week on your blog and X times a day on Facebook.
• For every tweet about your organization, tweet four times about others.

While this advice works well for some, I think it overwhelms beginners and those working in small organizations.  Moreover, this approach generates a flood of content for those who read these posts, updates and Tweets.

At Donors Forum in Illinois, we believe that there are no rules or,  at least, that it’s time to reexamine them.  Our strategy is to:

• Blog – which attracts attention from search engines to share – relatively infrequently – news, resources and ideas for nonprofits and grantmakers (And yes, it’s often our own stuff);

• Publish these posts on Facebook and Twitter (to reach additional members of our base, and as a convenience for those already active on those platforms), and;

• Display a rotating feed of this same information throughout our site.

This streamlined approach is shaped by the limited size of our communications team (1.5 people) and by the knowledge that our constituents are already overloaded.

As social media proliferates, the messages have become overwhelming and the conversations  recursive. And we know that, consistent with our mission,  our constituents want us to filter and curate information.

Our social media strategy follows suit.  We do not converse simply to converse—we don’t do #FollowFriday, we don’t retweet a lot, we don’t provide accounts of mundane activities.

What we do is to concentrate on what is most important to grantmakers and nonprofits in Illinois.

So, what do you think:  Can less be more in social media? Please share your comments here.