Mission-Based Marketing

A direct, practical guide revealing how you can lead your not-for-profit to success through mission-based marketing

Now in a Third Edition, Mission-Based Marketing is a direct, practical guide showing how you can lead your not-for-profit to success in a more competitive world. This book provides the knowledge and skills you need to build a market-driven organization that holds onto its core values, does a better job of providing mission, and successfully competes for funding, clients, referral sources, staff, and board members.

• Includes new material on nonprofit websites, social networking and new methods of communication, advances in technology, customer service in today's world, and the effects of marketing on fundraising
• Goes beyond the hows and whys to include lots of hands-on advice and real-world examples
• Other titles by Brinckerhoff: Mission-Based Management: Leading Your Not-for-Profit In the 21st Century, Faith-Based Management: Leading Organizations That Are Based on More than Just Mission, and Social Entrepreneurship: The Art of Mission-Based Venture Development

Filled with new material, this book appraises the trends that have dramatically affected the not-for-profit sector in the past several years, and explains how an organization can shape this shifting landscape to its ultimate benefit.

Acknowledgments xi

About the Author xiii

Chapter 1 Introduction 1

Overview 1

A Competitive and Always-Online World 3

Who This Book is Written For 7

The Benefits of Reading This Book 8

Preview of the Book 9

Recap 13

Chapter 2 Marketing: A Key to Better Mission 15

Overview 15

The Characteristics of a Mission-Based, Market-Driven Organization 16

Meeting Customer Wants 18

Treating Everyone Like a Customer 22

What about Your Competition? 23

A Team Effort 27

Recap 31

Discussion Questions 32

Chapter 3 Being Mission Based and Market Driven 33

Overview 33

Which is Right, the Markets or the Mission? 34

Moving with the Markets and Maintaining Your Mission 37

The Never-Ending Marketing Cycle 41

The Results of Becoming Market Driven 42

Motivating Board and Staff 44

Holding On to Your Core Values 49

Recap 53

Discussion Questions 54

Chapter 4 Being Flexible and Innovating with the Market 57

Overview 57

The Need for Flexibility 58

Retaining the Capacity for Flexibility 62

Being a Change Leader 68

The Pace of Change in a Competitive Environment 70

Recap 74

Discussion Questions 75

Chapter 5 The Marketing Cycle for a Nonprofit 77

Overview 77

The Marketing Cycle That Works 78

The Marketing Disability of Most Nonprofits 92

The Marketing Cycle and Your Competitors 94

Recap 97

Discussion Questions 98

Chapter 6 Who are Your Markets? 99

Overview 99

Market Identification and Quantification 100

Market Segmenting 108

Focusing on Target Markets 111

Treating All Your Markets Like Customers 112

Recap 116

Discussion Questions 116

Chapter 7 Who are Your Competitors? 119

Overview 119

Identifying Your Competition 120

Studying the Competition 129

Focusing on Your Core Competencies 137

Recap 139

Discussion Questions 139

Chapter 8 Asking Your Markets What They Want 141

Overview 141

Surveys 142

Focus Groups 150

Informal Asking 153

Asking (and Listening) Online 155

Asking Mistakes 157

After Asking 159

Recap 160

Discussion Questions 162

Chapter 9 Better Marketing Materials 163

Overview 163

The Problems with Most Nonprofits’ Marketing Materials 164

Solving Customers’ Problems 169

Things to Include in Your Marketing Materials 171

Things to Avoid in Your Marketing Materials 174

Developing Different Materials for Different Markets 176

Recap 177

Discussion Questions 179

Chapter 10 Technology and Marketing 181

Overview 181

Tech is an Accelerator of Good Marketing 182

(Your Web Site is) Your First Chance to Make a Good Impression 184

Asking and Listening 188

Beware the Digital Divide 191

Social Networking/Social Media 193

What’s Next? 194

Recap 194

Discussion Questions 195

Chapter 11 Incredible Customer Service 197

Overview 197

Three Customer Service Rules 199

The Customer is Not Always Right, but the Customer is Always the Customer, so Fix the Problem 200

Customers Never Have Problems; They Always Have Crises, so Fix the Problem Now 200

Never Settle for Good Customer Service—Seek Total Customer Satisfaction 205

The Unhappy Customer 209

Regular Customer Contact 211

Turning Customers into Referral Sources 213

Recap 215

Discussion Questions 215

Chapter 12 A Marketing Planning Process 217

Overview 217

Developing Your Marketing Team 218

An Asking Schedule 221

Targeting Your Marketing Effort 224

A Marketing Plan Outline 226

Marketing Planning Software 232

Recap 232

Discussion Questions 233

Final Words 235

Index 237

PETER C. BRINCKERHOFF is an internationally renowned trainer, author, and consultant to nonprofit organizations. He brings years of experience in the field to his work, as he is a former board member of local, state, and national not-for-profits, and has worked on the staff and as executive director of two regional not-for-profits. Since foundinghis consulting firm, Corporate Alternatives, in 1982, Mr. Brinckerhoff has helped thousands of organizations become more mission-capable. He is the author of eight books on nonprofit management, including three that have won the Terry McAdam Book Award for Best Nonprofit Book of the Year. Mr. Brinckerhoff's titles include the workbook associated with this book, Mission-Based Marketing Workbook, Second Edition, as well as Mission-Based Management, Third Edition; Mission-Based Management Workbook, Second Edition; Social Entrepreneurship; and Faith-Based Management, all published by Wiley.

MISSION-BASED MARKETING

Positioning Your Not-for-Profit in an Increasingly Competitive World

THIRD EDITION

Return on investment. Social enterprise. Social marketing. Social networks. Market-based pricing. These terms are now nearly everywhere in the literature of the nonprofit world. But what do they mean to your mission, your staff, your board, and the people that your nonprofit serves? Mission-Based Marketing, Third Edition shows you how your organization can optimally react, respond, innovate, and, yes, prosper, in an increasingly competitive and rapid-response environment.

This significantly updated edition of this classic expands on the invaluable hows and whys of not-for-profit empowerment covered in the second edition to offer highly effective new ideas and new criteria for marketing success.

This Third Edition of Mission-Based Marketing provides comprehensive, hands-on guidance, addressing:

• Getting on board with nonprofit web sites, social networking, and new methods of communication
• Advances in technology, customer service in today's world, and the effects of marketing on fundraising
• How your nonprofit can be both mission-based and market-driven
• Better ways to use technology in an always-online world
• The need for flexibility in your nonprofit
• The marketing cycle for a nonprofit
• Knowing your competition
• Active asking–what it is and how you do it

The people your organization serves depend on you to be there to provide services to them. You need them to guide you with their wants, help you locate the opportunities to serve, and work with you to move your organization, your mission, and your community to new heights of effectiveness, well- being, and success. Revealing how top-quality not-for-profits do marketing, Mission-Based Marketing, Third Edition gives your organization the tools to ensure it's doing it right, this year and throughout the twenty-first century.

MISSION-BASED MARKETING Positioning Your Not-for-Profit in an Increasingly Competitive World THIRD EDITION

Return on investment. Social enterprise. Social marketing. Social networks. Market-based pricing. These terms are now nearly everywhere in the literature of the nonprofit world. But what do they mean to your mission, your staff, your board, and the people that your nonprofit serves? Mission-Based Marketing, Third Edition shows you how your organization can optimally react, respond, innovate, and, yes, prosper, in an increasingly competitive and rapid-response environment.

This significantly updated edition of this classic expands on the invaluable hows and whys of not-for-profit empowerment covered in the second edition to offer highly effective new ideas and new criteria for marketing success.

This Third Edition of Mission-Based Marketing provides comprehensive, hands-on guidance, addressing:

• Getting on board with nonprofit web sites, social networking, and new methods of communication
• Advances in technology, customer service in today's world, and the effects of marketing on fundraising
• How your nonprofit can be both mission-based and market-driven
• Better ways to use technology in an always-online world
• The need for flexibility in your nonprofit
• The marketing cycle for a nonprofit
• Knowing your competition
• Active asking–what it is and how you do it

The people your organization serves depend on you to be there to provide services to them. You need them to guide you with their wants, help you locate the opportunities to serve, and work with you to move your organization, your mission, and your community to new heights of effectiveness, well-being, and success. Revealing how top-quality not-for-profits do marketing, Mission-Based Marketing, Third Edition gives your organization the tools to ensure it's doing it right, this year and throughout the twenty-first century.