Guest Blogger: Semiosis Communications

Nonprofit Marketing. What's your story?

Many nonprofits still resist the notion they must market themselves. You see, nonprofits have missions to attend to and needs to satisfy and money to raise. No time or money or staff to do marketing. The truth is, nonprofits do marketing all the time. Marketing happens in every interaction with a stakeholder, be it a phone call, an email, web page, brochure, newsletter, tweet, meeting, event... Products or services nonprofits provide are also part of marketing. Why is marketing important for nonprofits? Marketing comes before fundraising - it prepares the ground for the ask, creating awareness, knowledge, understanding, empathy, preference, and ultimately trust. In short, the main function of marketing is to cultivate relationships.
The best and most effective way to do all that is to tell stories. People communicate through stories. Stories are what people understand. Storytelling constitutes authentic marketing. What stories should you tell? You can talk about programs and services and metrics all you want, your stakeholders will relate to people. So, tell stories of the people (children, animals) you helped! It works; when Mercy Corps transitioned to a storytelling approach to marketing, they recorded a measurable increase in people taking action to support their work. Your nonprofit may not be Mercy Corps, but I'm sure you have tons of success stories about your beneficiaries.
Stories are marketing, marketing is stories. What's your story?

Peter Korchnak, Founder, Semiosis Communications