Category Archives for "Analysis"

0 Finding a Unique Business Identity

Last Monday I wrote about my unique vision for my business. No organisation sets up without a purpose and so they all have a story. That story is important because it shows the world how what you are doing is unique.

Many voluntary organisations have mission statements, aims and objectives. These are lovingly presented on their website but the sad fact is, however worthy they may be, they are without exception deadly dull. Do you read them?  Maybe on occasions you want to engage with the organisation but for most people a story that explains why you exist and offer what you offer is far more effective.  Many organisations need help finding their unique business identity!

It can be helpful to ask:

What is utterly unique about my business?

I find this question helpful insofar as it sets the scene but it is not easy to answer. The Circuit Questionnaire offers a few additional questions that may help you think it through in greater depth. Here they are with indented answers for my business from a few months ago, followed by further comments:

What can no competitor ever claim?

Unique combination of experience in community economic development, strategic management, non-directive consultancy and online campaigning and marketing.

I’m aware of the financial constraints many small organisations and businesses experience and my approach helps them set up systems at a modest cost, integrating the work of volunteers and staff.

Complete the statement, “I am the only… that…”

I am the only web consultancy that supports the local economy, specialising in supporting voluntary organisations and small businesses online.

As far as I am aware I am the only community development worker who works online, offering an online service and helping groups and businesses integrate their real life and online campaigns.

When I started my offer was website design. It soon became clear many potential clients do not need a website. They want to run a campaign and a website may be part of that. Their campaign and its outcomes is what they want.  They need the support of a development worker who can help them integrate online with their offline work.

In what ways are you in a category of one?

I have the time to develop an online resource to promote localised economy, so building community with those who are working towards real transformation.

This answer focuses on my why. I offer a community development service because my vision is for the particular  types of community I want to see. Ideally my clients will be among those people who see value in my vision.

Is there a particular phrase that you could OWN?

“Community Development Online”;

“Thriving Marketplace in Every Neighbourhood”

I used the first on my old website and I don’t think it appears on my new site. It does actually say a lot in three words and maybe I should find a way to reintroduce it! The second appears on the home page as the main heading.

I decided to kick off my site with my vision, which is on my home page. Visitors are then introduced to my free ebook offer and later encounter my online service.

What would your business look like if you could magnify your brand to the highest degree imaginable?

Online community of communities where the widest possible range of experiences can be pooled. Such a community in time might invest in localised economy experiments, finding practical ways to help particular markets become viable.

I would like to develop this further, as it does not fully express my vision. I’m seeking a means to promote a real change in the way we structure our economy and this will have global implications. I shall write more about this over the coming months.

If you had a massive investment tomorrow, what would you do?

This question is immensely powerful and a bit of a headache. Usually it specifies a sum of money, eg £10 000 000, which is way too much. I would prefer something like £100 000. Does the higher figure help me think big or does it decontextualise my thinking? After all I’m not ever going to have that sort of money to spend.

When people encounter this question they think it is about money. It is about vision. Many organisations allow their cash flow to limit their imagination. They set their budget to what they have in the bank and not to what they want to do. Once you know what to do and how to cost it, you have a target for your fund-raising.

If you can answer this question, you may find elements of your answer are not cash dependent. If you allow available cash to limit your imagination, you can’t be sure it is censoring only those things you think you cannot afford.

Here are my answers from a few months ago:

Purpose of Money

I would use an injection of cash to invest in what I believe in. I’ve included some constraints, which perhaps illustrate how easy it is to allow your thinking to be curtailed by money.

Money exists to enable community, to build relationships. Business people recognise this and the successful ones are great at building relationships. What happens when community organisations apply this approach?

Many local initiatives need financial support but there are dangers, particularly with grant aid.  So, whilst I stand by the principle of local investment, I need to explore this in greater detail. This will help me find the best ways to invest locally and be a resource for clients.

If the barriers to your vision were removed, what would happen?

I would have a team of people with a clear vision about using small-scale funding to achieve big things. We would spread the message and open up an online resource for everyone interested in localised economies.

I’ll stand by that for the present but there’s a lot more to do!

0 Five Elements for Your Marketing Campaign: Your Market

This is the final element of the five found in the Open Source Marketing Circuit Questionnaire. Apologies for the delay, owing to my recent hardware meltdown. I have since made a start on a more detailed exploration of you and your brand.

The last post in this series, introduced the fourth element, the Problem. This time the focus is on your Market, which is the people who are likely to buy from you.

The aim of the five elements is to help you think about your business at a deep level. The order in which you think about each element depends on the nature of your work. This order is the order in the circuit questionnaire and follows a logical sequence. However, many people may find a different order works for them.

The pattern I’m using is to describe the element in the circuit questionnaire, show how it can be used in marketing a cause and then use my business as an example.

Market

Identifying your market can be the most difficult step any business owner takes. I’ve certainly found it hard and I’m still not satisfied I have fully defined my market. However, here are a few guidelines.

First, there are two essentials all markets must share, whether you are selling a cause, a product or a service.

People Who Value Your Offer

You want to find people who value what you have to offer. There is no point in designing a marketing campaign to appeal to people who will never respond to your message.

If you have a cause, you will want to find people who are sympathetic to it. You may wish to persuade people who have never thought about your cause, that it is worth their support. There is little value in trying to change the minds of those who have already decided they do not agree with you.

People Who Can Afford Your Offer

The second essential, if you are selling something, is your market must be able to afford it. If you charge a lot, this does not mean you necessarily cut your price, but are you sure there are enough people out there who can afford it? If you don’t want money, this might mean you have a bigger market but remember if you make demands on time, for example, this may exclude some people.

Three Dimensions for Every Market

Every market had three dimensions. They are independent of each other; the characteristics of one do not necessarily correlate with the others.

1. The first dimension is demographics. Can you define your market in terms of their age, sex, race or religion? This category may also include less obvious characteristics such as class, employment, hobbies, health.
2. The second dimension is your market’s beliefs and values. This may include their politics or religion, for example. So, we can see these characteristics are independent of demographics. We can imagine a twenty year old white man and a sixty year old black woman who are both supporters of the Green Party. The reasons why they share these values may be very different but they might both sign petitions and attend demonstrations.
3. The third dimension is their awareness of your cause, product or service. Let’s say your cause is to ban fox-hunting. The 20-year-old Green Party member may not have given it any thought and so has never supported a ban. He might respond if he can be persuaded to support it, so if you want him to support it, you need to persuade him. The 60-year-old woman may be enthusiastic about a ban but not know what she can do to support the cause. She doesn’t need persuading and might lose patience if you attempt it. But she may value a list of actions she could take in support of it. The younger man would simply not be interested in the list of actions unless you can persuade him of the cause. You can find out more about this in my post about the awareness ladder.

My Market

Here is a one sentence definition of my market, written a few months ago.

Local business owners or leaders of community organisations who started with a vision for transformation of their place but have lost track of it amidst the pressures of keeping the show on the road.

I believe this statement describes people who believe in my cause, the local economy and are likely to have the wherewithal to purchase my services.

There is little in the way of demographics because business owners and leaders can occupy pretty much any demographic. Their belief or value is their vision for transformation of their place. Perhaps I could mention the local economy here. They must know that they have lost sight of their vision through the pressures of keeping going.

My primary weakness, shared with many businesses, is that I don’t really know my market well enough. This is OK. You learn more as you get to know your market. I fully expect this definition to evolve as I make more contacts and discuss my offer with more people.

The value of the circuit questionnaire is that it encourages you to explore your business in-depth and by returning to it, to deepen your understanding of your business. It is the opportunity to revisit it that makes it such a valuable tool.

0 What Makes Your Business Unique?

Last Monday, I answered the question: why do I do what I do in two ways. I’m still searching for a definitive answer because this task is never complete; our businesses and other organisations evolve as our understanding of what they offer deepens.  One question you can ask about your business is: what makes your business unique? What makes it stand out from everyone else’s?

If you can find something no-one else can copy you are in a good place.  It may be easier than you think.  A business that only you can offer because of your unique skills and experience may be similar to some other people’s’ but it may be distinctive enough to appeal to a market that prefers your offer to everyone else’s.  This may be a sound starting point for a small business and the circuit questionnaire will help you plan for a bigger enterprise not dependent solely on your own skills and experience.

So, here’s my answer to the question, what would my Community Web Consultancy be like if I could take its mission or identity to the ultimate level? Naturally, whatever I write will evolve as my experience deepens but this is what I think now:

My Ultimate Business

An online community of groups committed to developing their local economies. They come together for mutual support, learning from each other’s online and offline experiences and regular online conversations about local economic models and how they can be supported online.

From this community some would be keen to grapple with the practicalities of transforming the local economy. They would take part in:

Conclusion

This is about the future, the general direction in which my business might develop. Building an online community, investing on other businesses and becoming a mutual. As my business develops I’ll revisit these ideas and see how they develop.

1 Finding Your Why

Last Monday I asked, Why Do I Do What I Do? Today, I shall explain how I arrived at the answer I offered last time. Why? Because through using my business as a worked example, I will show how anyone can plan their business or community venture. Following my journey may help you with finding your why.

Here is the answer I offered last time: Why do I do what I do?

You will see there is a difference! It’s not that I’ve abandoned this earlier version; indeed both offer a  perspective on what I do. This earlier version focuses on my offer. The later version on my values. The later version does not explain what I do and the earlier does not explain why I do it!

I have doubts about the second bullet in the earlier version because I need to explain how I help clients when the responsibility for their site is theirs.  I need to be clear about what I am seeking in a client. If they really do not understand my perspective on web design I may find it difficult to work with them. However the key is building trust and for many clients, if I start by working with them on their objectives, they are happy to follow when we get onto a website, whatever their understanding of web designers.  The problems are usually where they have a long-standing relationship with an old-school designer.

Conclusion

So, I am a community development worker who offers support to organisations planning online campaigns fully integrated with their offline activities.

This does not necessarily mean working on a website. One of my clients is unlikely to work on their website with me; their aim is to find partners who can help promote their resources.  A few years ago, this would have been a developmental role but today there are many online strands to their work as there are offline.

This insight has emerged from writing this post and I shall make some changes to my website as a result of it. The work of marketing is continuous and incremental. Mastering the circuit questionnaire and constantly reviewing it is helpful to any business.

1 Why You Do What You Do

On Friday I told the story of my recent hardware meltdown.  For this reason I’ve delayed the fifth element of the circuit questionnaire, in the hope I can recover the draft.  So, this post is the first in a new series about branding and asks: why you do what you do.

You may have followed my overview of the five elements of marketing found in the circuit questionnaire:

Your Response

Now, this may or may not appeal to you. If it does, sign up to my e-book, details below. It is free and you will also receive a weekly update of my blog posts, so you can follow what I’m doing. Apart from five introductory emails, I rarely send broadcast emails and so I will not clutter your inbox with loads of unwanted emails.

If it doesn’t appeal to you, why are you still reading? Maybe because you’re following what I’m saying about branding and you’re not distracted by my particular brand. That’s good. You can perhaps see you don’t need to agree with me. Your brand might be opposite of mine. If you think you can sell it, good luck with that. I’m using my business as a worked example throughout these posts. If you find the posts helpful, then you don’t need to be sympathetic to my brand. So, please consider signing up below. You don’t have to read the e-book and you will receive a weekly reminder about these posts and the other topics on my blog.

That’ll do for today. Next time I’ll explore why I do what I do in more depth.

1 Five Elements for Your Marketing Campaign: Problem

Last time I introduced the third element of the Open Source Marketing Circuit Questionnaire, Proposition and showed how causes can function as either a proposition or a commodity. This time the focus is on the problem your proposition solves.

The circuit covers five elements and aims to analyse each element at a very deep level. The order in which you think about each element depends on the nature of your work. This order is the order in the circuit questionnaire and follows a logical sequence. However, many people may find a different order works for them.

The pattern I’m using is to describe the element in the circuit questionnaire, show how it can be used in marketing a cause and then use my business as an example. I may use examples from other sources where they seem relevant.

Marketing Problems

This element takes a hard look at the nature of the problem your product, service or cause addresses. Of course, your offer may solve several problems and so it is important to know what your proposition is. For example, if you are selling home insulation, your proposition may be the promise of lower fuel bills. Alternatively it may appeal to a concern about climate change. The focus on the former would be about how heat is lost through poorly insulated homes and the savings made by insulating them properly. With the latter, the focus will be on the impact of climate change and the contribution poorly insulated homes make to the overall carbon footprint.  Both are true; the question is which argument appeals to which market?

But, you may be thinking, don’t most people decide on several factors? Well yes, but the most effective arguments will depend on the market. The market is the fifth and final element but you can see how all five elements interact. Using insulation as an example: essentially the same product can be marketed to two groups, those who wish to cut household expenditure and those concerned about climate change. Even though someone concerned about cutting household expenditure may welcome the impact of their purchase on climate change and someone concerned about climate change may welcome the savings in household costs, the problem they wish to solve captures their attention.

For example, if they are searching online, one might search for “how do I cut my fuel bills?” and another for “how do I cut my contribution to climate change?” The same company might have two landing pages for these markets and they might lead to the same product. The customer might see both pages in their exploration of the site and the other page might even clinch the deal for them.

You need to start where the customer is, with the problem they perceive and then lead them to consider all the advantages of using your solution. If you are interested in how this works in-depth, see my post about the awareness ladder. This shows how you need to start at the level of awareness of the customer and lead them to a point where they are ready to respond to your offer by making a purchase or otherwise supporting your cause.

For products and services, it is hard to move someone to a purchase if they are not aware of their problem. For example, some overweight people may not be aware they have a problem, so they are not going to click on a link that reads: “Are you overweight?” To engage their attention you may need to make them aware they have a problem. They might click on a link that reads: “Find out the biggest threat to your health today”, for example.

For causes though, it is likely most people are not aware of the problem. Climate change is an example of something that potentially will affect everyone but it is not an immediate problem. Most people campaigning about climate change will readily admit it is hard to build a sense of urgency. It is even harder if the issue is remote from the lives of those who can do something about it. Issues based a long way from where charity supporters live, for example. There are issues that affect one group but need the support of unaffected others for resolution. Same sex marriage is a good example of this. It directly affects a particular section of community but needed more general support to bring about the desired change.

We can all think of many causes that have caught the public mood and brought about significant change. These causes often do not include a direct appeal to self-interest but somehow capture the public’s imagination.

The Problem my Business Addresses

Here is my one sentence description of the problem my business addresses. I wrote this a few months ago and I’m reading it critically for the first time since I wrote it:

“The pressures to keep your business or organisation solvent, address internal and external conflict whilst maintaining a reasonable work life balance mean you rarely have time for strategic thinking about your vision.”

Overall I think this is pretty good! Two points about it. First, it lists three pressures that could each be a problem. Everyone involved in running a business or a community organisation will recognise they are forever fire-fighting. They will be familiar with the occasional shudder when they remember they are losing sight of their overall purpose.

The second point is your problem statement should make you feel it is incomplete. There is a slight lurch as you read to the end – oh yes I recognise that feeling that I’m rudderless in a stormy sea! If I feel that way, I’m more likely to read on …

The problem should help a prospective customer recognise, “this is someone who understands my problem”.  Often it is not only a good solution that counts but also a degree of empathy.  So the problem you address can be central to your brand.  As we head deeper into this topic we shall explore these connections in-depth.

3 Five Elements for Your Marketing Campaign: Proposition

Last Monday I introduced the second element of the Open Source Marketing Circuit Questionnaire, Products and Services, extending it to included Causes. This time the focus is on your proposition, the thing you actually sell.

The circuit questionnaire includes five elements and the aim is to explore each element at a very deep level. The order below is the order in the circuit questionnaire and follows a logical sequence. However, many people may find a different order works for them.

The pattern I’m using to describe the elements in the circuit questionnaire, is to show how each can be used in marketing a cause and then use my business as an example.

Proposition

You may remember a couple of posts ago, I mentioned you sell yourself or your brand and last time I suggested some businesses use a cause to sell their product or service. A cause can function in two ways.  It can be something you market in its own right, where you seek some action from the person who responds to the cause. I’ll call this the cause as commodity.  The other function is cause as a proposition, where the cause is a reason to purchase something else. So, for example, concern for the environment may be a reason to purchase an environmental soap powder.

Not all propositions are causes. For example, a proposition may appeal directly to self–interest so you are purchasing health, a career, wealth, friendship or whatever. It is important to understand self-interest as an ethical approach to marketing and indeed it is a principle underpinning mutual businesses as well as many conventional businesses.  The retail co-operatives were primarily an appeal to self-interest and they always had an ethical dimension.

In this table I illustrate the relationships between cause as commodity and cause as proposition.

Ethical Marketing

So, let’s say your cause is an alternative to high sugar foods. At (1) you appeal to people’s values to respond to your campaign for signatures, donations or some other action. They may do this because they object to corporations adding high concentrations of sugar to foods; damaging the health of the population for profit.   At (2) you could use the appeal to the same values to buy food guaranteed low in sugar. At (3) you appeal to people’s self-interest, for example the effect of adulterated food on your health or your family’s health. Many people may respond out of self-interest and see the ethical power of adding their voice to many others. At (4), you may sell the product because it is healthier.

All of these are ethical approaches to marketing. They can be combined, eg a campaign about high sugar in food might combine values and self-interest in its proposition. Equally a low sugar food could use both ethical and self-interest arguments: “You can eat this to protect your health and not support businesses that add too much sugar to foodstuffs.” The approach you use will depend on your overall marketing strategy.

My Proposition

So, here is the proposition for my business, written a few months ago:

“Here’s an opportunity for you to make substantial progress with your business or organisation’s strategy, whilst you integrate your online and real-life activities, with someone who understands the problems you’re likely to encounter.“

Reading it now it seems somewhat stilted and has no cause as proposition, it is an appeal solely to self-interest. Now, this is not necessarily a problem but it does not resonate with the material about the local economy on my website.  Here’s an alternative:

“If you find your plans to transform society through your business or organisation frustrated, here is an opportunity to build your strategy, integrating your online and real-life activities, accompanied by someone who understands the problems you’re likely to encounter.”

This makes it clear I am seeking clients who want to change things beyond their economic or community activities. Note also I am marketing myself! This combines a problem with the means to find a solution. Next time we’ll take a closer look at problems.

2 Five Elements for Your Marketing Campaign: Causes, Products and Services

Last time I introduced the first of five elements in the Open Source Marketing Circuit Questionnaire, You and Your Brand. In these posts, I’ll show how to adapt the circuit questionnaire to marketing a cause. Most organisations market a cause, often obscured by a focus on products and services. In each of these five posts, I introduce the element and show how to use it to market a cause and use my business as an example. This second post covers the full range of offers you can make, covering causes, products and services.

The circuit includes five elements …

… and this post is about the second: Products and Services. You will note the title of this post includes causes as well as products and services.

Marketing a Cause

The circuit questionnaire aims to help businesses find commercial opportunities. My interest is in organisations marketing a cause. Their priority is to find support for their cause. Their cause may be accompanied by products or services or it can stand alone.

Just as third sector organisations promoting causes can offer products and / or services, so a local business may find their products or services support a cause. For example, home insulation can be promoted as an environmental cause or to cut household bills (or both!).

I suspect more product and service promotions benefit from a cause than may seem likely. Next time I’ll show how a cause can work as a proposition to market a product or service.  I have no problem with businesses who discover a cause researching their marketing, so long as the cause is genuine. If there is a genuine cause, you may become aware of it as you work on your branding in-depth.

Causes, Products and Services

This section of the circuit questionnaire covers what the business or organisation delivers and is not to be confused with what it sells. For example, a sweatshirt is clearly a product. With a screen-print or embroidered motif, it could be sold in support of a cause. The motif may increase sales of sweatshirts and indeed may be the reason for the sweatshirt.  With or without a motif the sweatshirt is a product.

So, a cause is a commitment that leads to a transaction where the benefit is directly or indirectly to the cause.  The transaction may involve money but not always.  This may be frustrating to the purist but I don’t want to rule out the small business, for example, set up at its owners risk to sell products or services associated with a cause.  No-one would object to sales of home insulation, for example, benefiting the business that promotes and sells it.  Avoid implying direct third-party benefit where finance raised goes solely to the business.

Transactions that don’t include money might be: signatures on a petition or action in support of the cause, eg writing to an MP, joining a demonstration, attending a meeting. Online such transactions might include joining an email list and participating in an online forum. Commercial marketing campaigns use some of these activities, eg joining an email list.

Financial transactions that benefit a third-party include donations to charities, political parties and the like.

Example from My Business in June 2015

So here’s my single sentence description of my service:

“I offer 3 and 6 month non-directive consultancy packages to leaders who want traction between their online and real-life presence, need to address real-life and online problems and to maintain a work / life balance whilst focusing on their vision for local marketplace regeneration.”

It’s a few months since I wrote this it seems a bit long. More important it barely touches on my cause. When I completed this I was focusing on questions about my service and so that is what I have described. Many organisations and businesses have several product / service descriptions. So, here’s one for my cause:

“I’m inviting people to join an online community who share experiences, insights and ideas about regeneration of their local economy in neighbourhood, city or region.”

This does not replace the first sentence but together they offer a better description of my business activities. This element in the circuit questionnaire asks the question: what are you selling?  The next helps clarify: why are you selling it?

Do you market a cause when selling products or services?  What are the benefits and pitfalls?

2 Five Elements for Your Marketing Campaign: Branding

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.

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?

7 Introduction to the Circuit Questionnaire

Towards the end of last year I wrote a few posts about needs assessments. My assessment questionnaire, reviewed in those posts, was helpful. I’ve found a better approach that can take someone who has a cause, product or service into a deeper understanding of making their work better known.

Third sector organisations often do not appreciate the Internet is essentially a marketing platform. That is what it is and objections to marketing on ethical grounds somewhat miss the point. If you really don’t want to market, then don’t use the Internet.

The problem is many people associate marketing with buying and selling. In fact it is more accurately about exchange and exchange does not have to include money. A word some people may be happier with is campaigning. Here the exchange is information for support. I might stand on the streets and hand out leaflets and my hope is those who read the leaflet will support my cause. They might sign a petition, join my organisation, vote for me or my candidate. They might donate to the cause and so campaigning can involve financial transactions and so resemble conventional marketing.

Marketing and Campaigning

Sometimes we talk of a marketing campaign because campaigning and marketing are practically the same activity:

Marketing Causes

I’m interested in the overlap between third and private sectors, helping third sector organisations market their cause and possibly generate income too and helping local businesses market their offer as a cause.

Whatever they are doing, they must understand their marketing / campaigning activities holistically. No-one can be effective if they place their online and real life marketing in different boxes. It is the same message and activity carried out in different modes.

Yes, this is complex! The good news is the technical side of the work is far simpler than it used to be. Many people do not know what is possible online (or off for that matter!) or how easy it is. The problem is choosing the best approach to meet your desired outcomes and then building capacity to carry it out. The technical side may be simpler but maintenance of an online programme within an organisation, where you plan to reach people and build relationships with them, can be very demanding. It can have massive implications for the way you do things.

Most organisations and businesses, especially those who are working or plan to work online, need to think in-depth about their approach to all this complexity. They need an in-depth needs assessment.

Circuit Questionnaire

Ben Hunt and his team over at Open Source Marketing (OSM) have devised the Circuit Questionnaire. (OSM is an online resource of marketing techniques and it is free. If you are familiar with marketing, then you may find the site helpful.)  I’ve contributed to developing the Circuit Questionnaire and in this sequence will show how it can be used to market a cause.

The Circuit Questionnaire is a long and detailed series of questions that takes several hours to complete. My plan is to work through the Circuit Questionnaire, explaining the thinking behind it, showing how it can help market causes and use my business as a worked example.

This way I can illustrate how the approach can be used for causes as well as products and services. I will be using the Circuit Questionnaire in all my consultancy packages and this series of posts will help you understand something of the scope of what is possible.

I offer a free trial consultancy session and the details are below: