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Importance of a marketing strategy
Paul Mills • 2 May 2019
Importance of a marketing strategy
Over the last year I have worked with a number of charities to develop their strategic plans. In most cases, it is about being very clear about what you want to achieve for your charity and how you are going to achieve it.
A good marketing strategy will help you generate income by reaching out to more people. But it’s not all just about fundraising. More and more charities are now thinking more broadly about their marketing activity in addition to fundraising, which is only one aspect. That means thinking about image, brand, values, supporter recruitment, volunteers, CRM, donor trends, market analysis, products, value and retention strategies to name just a few of the elements.
Developing a marketing strategy may sound daunting, especially to a smaller charity. But it can be very rewarding and provides structure and key performance measures for a growing third sector organisation.
The first step is to undertake an audit of where you are currently, ie: what works and what doesn’t in your marketing activity.
Aligning the outcome of a marketing audit with a set of clear organisational objectives provides an indication of whether the direction of travel for the charity is working or not. If it isn’t, then deeper analysis is a good next step. Identifying strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats in line with the internal and external factors the charity faces indicates where improvement and changes can be made.
Clear goal setting is a key requirement of strategic planning, and once agreed by an organisation it provides the journey for the next few years. From here, the ‘how we are going to reach our goals’ bit can be written. That’s the plan and mechanism that will deliver the result required. The marketing strategy is the supporting work that needs to be done to achieve those goals, and the measures that will be put in place to keep track.
Marketing strategy is not rocket science, but it does take clarity of thinking and commitment. Without a proper strategy it is easy to meander off course and put time and effort into activities that may well be costly or even draining of resource to deliver. Recovering from this position will be costly in the long term. For the sake of some investment and resource now, think about your marketing strategy and how it can really work for your charity.