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“Robin Hood rules” for nonprofit marketing: Part one of MMC’s Interview with Katya Andresen
By chris | June 7, 2007
I just finished one of the best marketing books I have read in years, “Robin Hood Marketing” by Katya Andresen. It was so good that I plan on reading it again this month to study it closer. I don’t usually read books more than twice, but I may read this one several more times in the months to come—it’s that good!
I think Katya has done the nonprofit sector a favor and put nonprofit and social marketing concepts into plain English everyone can understand. Her book lays out the “Robin Hood rules” for turning big money marketing principles into affordable practical wisdom for nonprofits. Now here’s part one of MMC’s interview with the author. See her Blog here.
Interview with Katya Andresen author of “Robin Hood Marketing”
MMC: You explain in the book the reason behind your title, but could you explain in brief what you mean by “Robin Hood Marketing” for those who have not yet had the privilege of reading your book?
Katya: Robin Hood Marketing is about “stealing” the approach of corporate marketers to get people to take action for a good cause. It lays out ten sound principles (I call them “Robin Hood Rules”) behind some of the most successful marketing campaigns in history (from the Marlboro Man to Just Do It). Then it shows how anyone can use those rules to advance their cause. I wrote the book to demystify marketing so everyone from a PTA mom to a nonprofit executive could use marketing to accomplish more good in the world.
MMC: You write that nonprofits should go beyond the big picture mission and focus on getting people to take specific action, what specific action would you want nonprofits to take as a result of reading your book?
Katya: I’d like nonprofits to start doing things in reverse. Instead of talking about ourselves, we should listen to our audience – whether it’s donors, volunteers, members, etc. – and speak to what they value. This means turning our typical communications paradigm around on itself. Instead of going on a retreat, creating a mission statement, crafting a strategic plan, and devising a marketing campaign to “get the message out,” we need to use our audience as our starting point and move backwards from there into a marketing strategy. When you begin to operate from your audience’s perspective, wonderful things happen. Marketing becomes a conversation instead of a monologue.
MMC: I really like what you said about how nonprofits tend to talk to themselves in their marketing, speaking to themselves as you say as an “audience of one”. What is a good way to break out of such self talk?
Katya: Put yourself in the shoes of your audience and answer three questions from that audience’s perspective:
-Why me? Why is our issue personally relevant to our audience? What’s the personal connection we forge with them?
-Why now? Why should they take action now, as opposed to later or never? (This is where consequences of inaction can have a place, as with global warming or pandemic flu, IF AND ONLY IF there is a feasible call to action to prevent the dire scenario. Tell what’s wrong, but then show how to make it right.)
-What for? What impact will result? What lives will be saved, what credible goal will be achieved?
MMC: You talk about how nonprofits should be leveraging research to help them better align with their audience’s values, what to do say to organizations that say they can’t afford to do research?
Katya: I just blogged about this the other day , when I was horrified by Nancy Schwartz’s research into just how little research we do in our sector. A short two hours of research on your audience today will save you loads of time and money down the road. In fact, here are four things I said can do today without leaving your office or spending a dime:
1. Go sit down with the person at your organization who opens the mail and answers the phone and ask them what are the top three things they hear from your audience (whether your audience is donors, activists, volunteers, human services clients, etc.). Your frontline staff or customer service folks know a lot.
2. Go to Technorati and search for the name of your organization. See what bloggers are saying about you. Then set up a Google alert for your organization so you get an email when your organization name pops up somewhere on the Internet.
3. Mine the marketing data you already have. Nancy Schwartz says 63% of us don’t do that, yikes! Set up Google analytics or some other free program so you know what people are doing on your website. Go look at click-through rates and conversion on your last five emails and direct mailings. What do the results tell you? Which messages are working? Which are not?
4. Call three members of your audience and chat with them for ten minutes each. Ask them how they’re doing, what they are thinking about, and what they think of you. You’ll learn a lot, and next time you create a marketing piece, you’ll be able to better know the audience on the other side.
MMC: In your experience, is there a typical marketplace “blind spot” that even organizations that do use research fail to see?
Katya: Research is tricky. We tend to hear what we want to hear, so we may miss some important subtleties in what our audiences are saying. Our biggest blind spot is our own bias. The next problem is we forget the insights we learn from our audiences. We get so wrapped up in our work and passionate about our perspective, we revert to our old tendency to speak with a mission megaphone.
Stay tuned for part two…
Topics: Books |
June 14th, 2007 at 12:21 am
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