Bluefoot Blog

I clicked on a link in a Tweet this morning from a PR firm generally well respected for their social media savvy. Imagine my shock and dismay when I was confronted with a registration form to watch a short video. I didn’t fill out the form. I didn’t watch it. And I didn’t share it with anyone.

Am I missing the point, or is this agency’s registration form a failure to understand how social media marketing works?

I’m generally a big fan of this particular agency’s content and share it frequently, with full credit to the source and links directly back to their site, with colleagues via LinkedIn, Twitter, Facebook, etc. I had expected to do the same with this video, which I was very much looking forward to watching.

If even a small percentage of their followers watched & shared, that certainly would deliver more marketing bang for their buck than forcing those of us who are already following them to fill out a registration form.

I’m already on your lists. I get your newsletter. I follow you on Twitter. I follow you on LinkedIn. I’m clicking on your Twitter feed for Pete’s sake. Why are you asking me to fill out a registration form?

I’m not going to send people to a registration form. So you lost the opportunity for me to share your content right off the bat.

Does social media marketing mean the death of the lead generation registration form? The distribution of your content to people who will be interested in it and are likely to share it with others, expanding your reach well beyond your own network, has to be worth more than what you get from forcing someone to fill out a form to access your content.

Thoughts?

C’mon! Follow me on Twitter: twitter.com/Susan_Larson

The days of judging a nonprofit’s worthiness by the percentage of money spent on administration and fundraising seem to be coming to an end.  Foundations and philanthropists of all stripes are beginning to see the wisdom of investing in organizations based on their outcomes, their business strategy, their financial savvy, their history of innovation, their vision for the future, and their ability to deliver results.

This is a good thing. But it is also risky. Far too many nonprofits lack the financial rigor at the board or executive management level to be successful in this new world.

It was easy in the old world. “Keep the spending ratios within industry limits. We may not grow. We may not thrive. But the people who give us money will keep giving us money and we won’t risk anything.” In this new world, without risk those rewards are likely to dry up.

Now executives and board members previously only concerned with the amount of money coming in and how it looked on the books have to pay closer attention to how it is actually being spent. If your funders are expecting growth, innovation, partnership, and expansion, you’ll have to find a way to develop the financial backbone to make the tough decisions and invest for the future.

I was pleased to see the new partnership between The Wallace Foundation and Financial Management Associates to put high-quality resources at the fingertips of nonprofits that will help them ensure their financial fitness. I would encourage nonprofits, grant makers, and others in the philanthropic community to take advantage of these resources. Become financially aware. Prepare for the future of philanthropy.

C’mon! Follow me on Twitter: twitter.com/Susan_Larson

Senator Rubio’s rebuttal to the State of the Union address is another great example of why branding matters.

Just putting the same old stuff in new packaging isn’t enough.

It is what’s on the inside that matters.

Putting a Hispanic, young republican on television, just to have him repeat the same tired old boilerplate Republican Party talking points isn’t going to help.

They need to fix their insides first, and then focus on the outside. They can’t do it the other way around.

Whether it is a software product, a cereal, a soda, or apolitical party, what you present on the outside must match the reality of what is on the inside or consumers, voters, citizens, will see right through you and not be swayed.

C’mon! Follow me on Twitter: twitter.com/Susan_Larson

This photo was taken at my local Starbucks. The title of the free booklet that they have provided to help you achieve success with your new easy to use, fabulous Verismo is, “Helpful Troubleshooting Tips for your new Verismo™ System.” The booklet is on a POS display promoting $50 off the Verismo.

So, here’s the message you are sending, Starbucks, “We know it isn’t actually easy to use and we’re just going to go ahead and tell you that up front by honestly labeling this little booklet “trouble shooting tips.” And, people don’t really want it, so we’re giving it to you for $50 off since we didn’t sell enough for Christmas.

This is not just a messaging problem. Your lead is, “trouble shooting tips.” Really, Starbucks marketing department? What were you thinking? This is also a branding problem. It is likely another example of the brand promise, “fun, easy to use at home,” not matching reality.

Starbucks marketing department could have named the booklet, “Quick start guide for your super fun, easy to use, fantastic new Verismo”. That may have solved the messaging problem and maybe sold more Verismo systems. But if the “quick start guide” was still, in reality, a trouble-shooting guide, that doesn’t solve the branding problem.

Really, Starbucks Marketing Department? What were you thinking?

P.S. I still love you Starbucks. I think you are a great company. And I drink a LOT of your coffee. This was just a little disappointing and a good illustration of a problem a lot of organizations, nonprofit and for profit alike, have. Internal thinking, internal language, internal “speak”, going out out to your public because you think they’ll get what you mean. We are all sitting around the table saying “trouble shooting” to each other, so let’s put that on the cover of the free pamphlet that is meant to help sell this thing.”

C’mon! Follow me on Twitter: twitter.com/Susan_Larson

As we approach Christmas, our government leaders are stuck in an intractable battle over who is right, our newscasters claim that their network is the only one we can trust, and our business and civic leaders stand by throwing fuel on the fire.

How the heck did we get here?

Is it possible that it all started with you and me?  Maybe with those of us who say that tolerance is at the core of our value system but still can’t have a civil conversation with our father, mother, brother, sister, aunt or uncle…because we are right and they are wrong.

Or those of us that deserve the government benefits we’ve earned, but know that there are others that don’t. THEY are to blame. THEY are the problem. THEY must be stopped.

For Pete’s sake, who are THEY?

What if our behavior isn’t a reflection of our leadership, but their behavior is a reflection of us? Do they need our help to show them a better way?  Could we use this holiday season of goodwill, gratitude and forgiveness, to help the world’s leaders get “unstuck”?

We could start by having conversations instead of arguments….

• By reminding ourselves that whether the person sitting across the table is Conservative, Liberal, Gay, Straight, Christian, Jewish, Muslim, Black, White,  Brown or whatever—that we all just want the same things—a better future for our family, our community, our country and our planet.
• By saying out loud that just because someone believes, lives or loves differently than we do, that doesn’t make them bad or evil or even wrong.
• By realizing that no matter which side of the aisle we stand on, disagreeing about how to get from point A to point B is not a bad thing? That it is an AMERICAN thing.  A HUMAN thing.
• We could stop forwarding all of THOSE emails.
• And what if we just say THANK YOU when someone wishes us Happy Hanukkah, Merry Christmas, Happy Festivus, Joyous Kwanzaa,  or Happy Holidays, accepting and appreciating the well-wishes as they are intended.

What if WE stop fueling the fires of separateness and started building bridges?

Who knows? Maybe the leaders in our government, businesses, and news media would notice and join in.

Wouldn’t that be a wondrous Christmas, Kwanzaa, Hanukkah, Festivus, Holiday miracle?

Follow me on Twitter @Susan_Larson

All three of these things happened to me recently. And while I still care very much about these organizations and their missions, I can’t help but be concerned that their fundraising efforts are being so terribly mismanaged. Which leads me to wonder what else is being mismanaged behind the scenes.

1. Don’t be insincere. Don’t: Not contact a donor personally all year and then write a personal note on the holiday appeal letter saying something like , “Happy Holidays! Hope you and (insert spouse, kids, pets, etc) are doing great.  It has been a while since we’ve heard from you. We should find time to get together for coffee after the holiday madness. Hope you’ll think of us during your holiday giving this year!”I know based on your past behavior that I’m not going to get an invitation for coffee after the holidays. I know that I won’t  hear from you until your next appeal in the spring when you are asking me for money again.  Don’t pretend that we have a personal relationship when we don’t just to make me write you a check. It isn’t honest. It lacks integrity. And I’m smart enough to see through that.
2. Don’t confuse your personal relationships with your impersonal ones.  Don’t send a generic, “mass appeal” mailing to someone that has been involved with your organization actively for years as a volunteer, an advisor, a board member, or a major donor.  I received a “Dear friend of…” letter signed by the chairman of the board of an organization I support. I’m on friendly terms with the chairman and several other board members, and volunteer a lot of time for the organization. The letter wasn’t even addressed to me personally. Clearly didn’t know who they were sending what to. That doesn’t give me much confidence in the organization’s management skills. I have a personal relationship with their organization and they treated me like they didn’t know who I was. Big, big mistake.
3. Don’t forget to thank someone and don’t get it wrong!  Last year I made a considerable donation to an organization that I’ve supported for a long time. Enough to put me in their major donor category. I never received a thank you. My name didn’t appear with the other major donors on the annual report. And when I asked for an acknowledgement of my contribution, they got the amount wrong….twice! Wow. Really? This stuff isn’t rocket science. And this is not a small organization. They are big enough and have been around long enough to have their act together.

Does anyone else have any experiences they’d like to share or advice for nonprofits during this giving season?

Redefining or re branding your organization can seem daunting and creating some structure around the process may seem impossible at times. While it will never be easy, it can be fun and engaging.  And it can provide a great opportunity to strengthen relationships among and between key staff and board members.

Why would an organization need redefining?

• Maybe you are a local organization that is suddenly no longer a local organization but is now playing on a larger regional, national or international stage.
• Perhaps your mission has changed dramatically over the years. I know of an organization that started out over 50 years ago as an orphanage. Its mission is still all about the kids, but it isn’t an orphanage any more. At some point, it needed re-branding.
•  Has the funding for your organization shifted? Those that used to give don’t give any more and those that might give are interested in different aspects of your organization. Are those aspects well represented by your current brand?

I’m in the process of facilitating the re-branding process for a client. We just completed a fun, informative workshop in which we began to define the audience, beliefs, brand promises, and brand pillars for the new brand we are building together.

Facilitated Branding Workshop

Now it is my job to take all of this and put some structure to it so that we can take the next steps; fine-tune and test the messages; come up with a name for the new brand; create the brand voice and build all of the visual components that support the brand promise.

I love this stuff! I’ll keep you posted on how it is going.

C’mon! Follow me on Twitter: twitter.com/Susan_Larson

I keep looking at all of the good election news. Much of it, not all of it, is making me happy. But I just stopped to think about all of the people on the other side of the fence who are as angry or disappointed as I am happy. It is just not good to have such deep, deep divides. Doesn’t bode well for any of us. How do we mend things, come together as Americans (as human beings for that matter) for the common good? What role can you play? What role can those of us concerned with social justice play? Can we make a difference? Just wondering.

There has been a lot of talk recently about finding the right balance between performance and passion when it comes to hiring people for a cause. Here’s an answer. Hire based on passion for the job and fit with the organization. If the person is passionate about their work and a good fit for the organization, you’ve got a recipe for success.

Performance and passion are not mutually exclusive. You must hire someone who is passionate about the work they do. And you must hire someone who is a fit for your organization—someone who is moved by your mission, your values, and your outcomes. But you must not hire someone who is very passionate about your organizational mission and values but doesn’t have the requisite skills for the job at hand, or doesn’t care about doing a good job.

Where programs and advocacy are concerned, nonprofits seem to get it right. Hire passionate experts in your particular program area whether it is the environment, green jobs, youth empowerment, social services, etc. That’s the formula for success.

But when it comes to hiring managers or professionals whose expertise lies outside of the organization’s mission-based expertise, it seems nonprofit hiring often goes terribly wrong.  They wouldn’t hire a marketing expert to run their behavioral health division. But they might hire a behavioral healthcare expert to lead their marketing or communications efforts.  That’s just a recipe for disaster.  What they need is a passionate, professional communicator or marketer who is cares about the work they do and thinks it is important.

Here are two real life examples where I’ve seen the wrong type of hiring go very wrong.
I was very excited about promoting an online game I had developed for a client that would help teachers, students, and parents learn about the environment.  I joked in a PR meeting that my stretch goal was to have Rachel Maddow feature the game on her occasional “Moment of Geek” segment. The lead on the PR team responded by saying, “Who is Rachel Maddow?” Needless to say, I didn’t meet my stretch goal. You can’t be successful if you hire people to lead your media effort who aren’t avid consumers of media, who don’t love it, who are immersed in it, who don’t live it every day. But you can be successful by hiring someone who does all of those things, and who likes your mission and what you stand for but doesn’t live it day to day.

I had the opportunity to work with a nonprofit client that was having trouble raising money. After getting to know the team, one big problem became clear. The development director responsible for raising the money, had no business being in that job. They were introverted, awkward, a poor communicator, and had no real-life experience raising money.  It turns out that this person was hired because they lived the mission of the organization.  Generations of this person’s family were steeped in it. At one point, almost the entire family had worked in the business this nonprofit was in. This person wanted to continue the family tradition. They didn’t have training as a program expert or service provider and didn’t have specific skills like accounting or marketing. So the career path they chose was fundraising.  They went and got a master’s degree in it and figured that’s all it would take. Needless to say, this organization’s fundraising is still a disaster.

C’mon! Follow me on Twitter: twitter.com/Susan_Larson

I have to start by saying that the inspiration for this post came from Seth Godin and one of his brilliant blog posts, The Circles of Marketing. Seth’s blog clearly illustrates why marketing is much more than what happens on the outer circle—the place where you generate more customers, clicks, buzz, hype.

I’ve built on Seth’s idea to illustrate a concept I’ve been working on with friends, colleagues, and clients in the nonprofit world. I’ve given it the requisite “nonprofitiness” and made it all about brand.

Here’s my basic premise. Your insides have to match your outsides. This is the first in a series of posts that will focus on each of the circles.
Building a strong, sustainable brand that supports your mission and your financial goals, and elicits the desired response from your constituents is not just about what happens on the outer circles.

You know that feeling you get when a new person enters the conversation and your gut reaction is, “what a phony” or “this guy doesn’t now what he’s talking about”. Your instincts are probably right. And nonprofits end up in the same boat when they try to build a reputation on a faulty foundation. There is “no there there”.