Last Monday I introduced the Open Source Marketing Circuit Questionnaire and in this and future Monday posts I shall show how it can be adapted to marketing a cause. Many organisations market a cause although often their focus is on products or services and so their cause is not so obvious.
The circuit questionnaire includes five elements and the aim is to think about each element at a deep level.
- You / Your Brand
- Products / Services
- Proposition
- Problem
- Market
The analogy is to an electrical circuit. Get all five right and power will flow. I’ve used the order in the circuit questionnaire as it follows a logical sequence. However, many people may find a different order works for them. Some people work through completing what they can and then return to the beginning and find elements that were difficult are now easier.
I shall review the five elements first, before looking at specific questions. I shall describe the issue covered by an element or question in the circuit questionnaire, suggest how it can be used to market a cause and then use my business and perhaps others as an example. I’ll work through the five elements in this and the next four Monday posts, taking them in the order they appear for ease of reference. After that I shall return to the beginning and work through some of the questions. The overview of the five elements will provide context to the more detailed questions. So, onto today’s topic …
You and Your Brand
Most people believe they are marketing a product, a service or a cause. Actually, for small businesses and organisations, they are marketing themselves. It is really important to understand this. You will make a sale where there is a trusted relationship. Your product, service or cause might be brilliant and you might be able to convey to potential customers its fantastic properties but you need to speak to their hearts. People do not respond solely to logic.
Think of a general election. Many people do not pay a great deal of attention to the parties’ policies. When they enter the ballot box they decide which candidate they trust to run the country. This is not always understood by political activists, especially on the left.
Now you can see an immediate problem. Most organisations, including political parties, are big. There is no one person who is solely responsible for the relationship with the customer or voter. So, most organisations depend upon branding. Sometimes they associate their brand with an individual, perhaps the founder or maybe a patron, party leader or a celebrity. Still, they convey their brand in many ways such as a logo, advertisements, testimonials, stories in the public domain and so on.
Voluntary and community organisations often fail to engage with branding, perhaps because they don’t trust insights from marketers. But how do they convey their cause if they have no figurehead and lack a compelling story to engage potential followers or subscribers?
One challenge is to tell your story in a couple of lines, ideally one sentence. Here is my first attempt for my business:
“A community development worker for over 30 years, I’m committed to local regeneration and bringing community development support to online as well as real life activities.”
I wrote this a couple of months ago. Looking at it now I think it doesn’t really tell a story. It feels a little distant and I’m not happy with the words “I’m committed to” – he would say that wouldn’t he? Here’s my revision:
“My experience of over 30 years as a community development worker informs my support for local regeneration and my offer of support for online and real life activities.”
Which of these two versions do you prefer? How would you improve them? You can see a more detailed version of my story on my about me page.
Note the aim is to find something about your activities that is unique. Do you think either of my sentences achieves this? Or my longer story? How could what is distinct about my offer be sharpened further?
