Marketing strategy

A marketing strategy in today's environment means that organisations have to be positively marketing oriented. That basically means that you have to know your market place. From a fundraising viewpoint this means the different types of people who give to you. This means focusing on anticipating, analysing and meeting customer needs and wants.

Knowing your market is going to include researching your client's needs, planning targets to meet overall objectives and taking action to achieve these objectives.

The environment that a fundraiser is working in must be thought about to be able to plan into the future. The things that effect our environment are two fold. Those we can control:

Suppliers. Changes in your suppliers' environment will affect you. Having a good relationship with your suppliers will have an impact on you - especially in finding ways to reduce costs, use outdated stock, and find out what is happening with their other customers. Find other ways to help the charity (e.g. may be they'll buy your Christmas cards this year!).

Clients. Clients must be continually researched and appraised. Especially in the fundraising world as clients who have enjoyed your relationship will pass on your charity's name both in their private world and in their working world. Don't forget when companies want to be associated with charities they want to know it is going to be happy and successful.

Competitors. A hard one to tackle. Although in the charity world we are vying for the same funds it is hard to consider that charities are in complete direct competition. That does not mean that one should not know ones equivalent charities to make sure that there are no conflicting campaigns, for example or to ensure that we don't collide in PR campaigns etc. Remember the public talk a lot about 'charities'. They do not segregate. It does not help us as individual charities, or the sector as a whole, to look upon each other as suspicious competition. It is much more important to work together to make the sector better.
Middlemen. Those who facilitate the charity's overall marketing process e.g. ad agencies, marketing research agencies, banks etc.

From these factors you should be able to see any marketing opportunity or threats that are close to home.
The other factors that need to be considered when you're looking at a marketing strategy includes:

Technological factors. This offers opportunities and threats. External technology will affect the way people do things.
Cultural Factors. Changes in trends of lifestyles, environmental, health matters.
Political Factors
Legal Factors
Economic Factors. E.g. GNP level of disposable income (note that although we have been coming through a 'depressive' period over historical time the people in the UK are better off than they have ever been)
Demographic Factors. E.G. People living longer.

A simple tool you will probably have already heard of is to use the SWOT analysis to assess the situation.

Assess the following:

Strengths
Weaknesses
Opportunities
Threats

to help you create a good solid plan.

Ask yourself these questions, which will help:

What trends/changes are there? Places for information include: Retail Sales Returns, Government Statistics, Trade Statistics, Financial Institutions, Transport Organisations.
What are your organisations strengths and weaknesses? Areas to include: Financial, Technical, Marketing, Human Resources.
Therefore what opportunities and/or threats are available to the charity because of 1 and 2?
How can you avoid the threats and take advantage of the opportunities?

Skills that you use:

Forecasting of your market size and potential
Analysis of charity's marketing strengths and weaknesses
Analysis of forecasting of client needs.

Specific marketing for your client

The idea of marketing is to understand what your client wants from you so you can see how you can satisfy that need.

Factors that influence buying decisions:

Culture
Social Class
Reference Groups - people who influence people e.g. friends, religious organisations etc
Family
Individual Needs/motives/personality/beliefs

Identify who is involved in the company in deciding what charity they are to be involved with.
Identify how they choose.

Look at your clients. Try and segment them into clients who share similar patterns.

By segmenting you achieve two things. You will
a) become better acquainted with the people who give you money and
b) know where your money comes from.

This will help you to target more efforts in areas that are most time and income efficient. This is terribly important because segmenting will give you an insight into your donors. When time is tight or when funds are needed you need to know where your time is best spent.

Also with fundraising there is always a probability of a knock-on effect. When you have segmented your market you can start to target specific segments e.g. what funds you can request from which segments, whether appeals work for particular segments, which way to attract attention e.g. certain segments may for example read a certain trade magazine or paper.

If you segment them properly, you will be able to target specific campaigns at specific donors and NOT bombard them with everything you have.

Criteria for your segments

Easy identification e.g. individual donor, groups of donors, active FR, one-off company donations, Charity of the Year, employee fundraising, GAYE. Each segment should have a set of 'needs' that are different. You need to clearly define each segment so that everyone understands and agrees.

Secondary segmentation

Now you've broken down your donors is it any good to also have:

Geographic Segmentation e.g. a chart that says from where your money comes from.
Demographic Segmentation e.g. age, sex, income, education, etc
Lifestyle

Lastly keep evaluating your strategy/segments. Discuss with your Fundraisers how to categorise and what to evaluate. If each of you have your own segments of donors to be dealing with but the same evaluating criteria.

Note: Start with information you already have as undoubtedly donors will not appreciate being questioned about their lifestyles in-depth, but you will have information already stored on your databases or through your income.

Other fact sheets in Organizational planning
Fact sheet index

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