OLD Jayne Blog on nonprofits/ngos, communications, community engagement, volunteerism, aid & development, women's empowerment, & random thoughts

Marketing a scary message

07:37, 4 January 2010

.. Posted in Communication, Outreach and General Mngmt


.. Link

• There is no one magic marketing formula.
• There is no one way of communicating successfully.
• Audiences are different.
• Messages are different.
• That fantastic FaceBook marketing campaign you read about for Organization A may fail with organizations B, C, D through M.
• Audience Purple may respond well to a television campaign, but Audience Orange may respond to old-fashioned lectures.

I'm reminded of all these very basic fundamentals of marketing and communications while reading Brand Skeptic by Steve Cuno. Whether or not you are a Skeptic, if you are someone who has to communicate an idea, particularly if you work for a nonprofit or government agency or political organization, you can learn a lot from this blog.

In addition to asserting that "Ensuring that people have a consistent, positive experience with a brand matters more than what you call it" (something I have said so many, many times to committees more concerned with a phrase than a way of working), Curo goes through a short, helpful list of outreach tips for those who might be marketing something that others find scary, controversial or hostile. The core of his message, is "be sure that opposing what many in your community hold dear does not represent the entirety of your public presence."

I have worked in a lot of religiously-conservative communities (and I don't just mean Afghanistan), and I've also introduced some ideas or topics that groups have found controversial or even threatening (buy me a beer and I'll tell you how many times the mere idea of Virtual Volunteering made people visibly angry). Even with this experience, I'm still learning.

Also see: How to Handle Online Criticism.

(thanks to the Bad Astronomy Blog by Phil Plait for bringing this to my attention)