Marketing is becoming more convenient and accessible everyday, especially with the easy use of marketing tools on social media. However, this makes the competition very difficult for organizations because we have to compete with thousands of ads on the newsfeed. Researching the audience is something that is often overlooked, so here are some ways to make your organization stand out.
Identify Your Customers
Before doing any marketing for your organization and products/services, you need to know who your consumer is. Find out information such as gender, age, income, and the reason for their purchase. This information will be very helpful for you to determine your marketing strategies.
Research and Get Feedback, USE the Feedback
If your organization is able to offer a test run of the service or a form of sampling, that is a huge advantage. This will make it easy to receive feedback, and make appropriate changes before the product is distributed to a larger population. For example, if your nonprofit focuses on a specific education program, you can ask a school to host you for a few classes where you can show your service, then provide questionnaires to the faculty and students to see what were the strength and weaknesses of your program. Simply doing the research is not enough. You need to use that feedback and make changes to your service to meet the consumers’ needs!
Use the four P’s of Marketing to Your Best Advantage
Product: What are you selling? Why do people need it? How is it different from other products in the market?
Price: What is the true value of the service you are offering? Are you offering any discounts?
Promotion: Based on the research you have done, you need to customize your promotional strategies. If your services are mostly for young adults, you need to use social media as the main source of advertisement. If your services are for a specific community, weekly magazines, radio, or direct mail might be better ways to advertise.
Place: Where are you offering your services? What is the venue for your event? Try to make people excited for the release of your product. Maybe you can offer some promotional gifts on the day of presenting your service, or you can partner up with a local store to hold a small reception at a gallery/store that people can stop by to learn more about your organization and programs while enjoying some desserts. In other words, make an event similar to a premium for your organization to create a buzz about it. This event will be more low-key than your Gala and other big events. This is a great way you can reach out to a new audience.
Until next time,
Sinella
