#GivingTuesday last week was a perfect reminder of the efforts charities make to promote our work and the causes we support. I believe it’s a fantastic movement to get the whole sector working together to be heard, but what about our everyday activities?
It would be absolutely amazing if everyone understood how crucial it is for charities to invest in things like marketing, instead of celebrating how little they spend, as Dan Pallotta brilliantly explains in this TED talk. It’s not often that small to medium-size charities get the opportunity to do a full-on marketing and communications campaign, but everyone knows that in order to grow you need to invest.
That was the rationale behind us taking the risk of investing in a marketing campaign for the first time and, although it’s still in its early stages, I wanted to share some tips from what I have learnt so far.
- You will need help – know when to ask for it. No one can plan, deliver and review a campaign on their own and you want to get people behind it so that they are happy to help. As most communications departments in small to medium-size charities consist of a single person, the absolute key – and I can’t emphasise this enough – is internal buy-in. To achieve this you need to get the team involved at the right stages. Communications is not a hard science and everyone has a very valuable opinion, but you need to make some decisions within a core group first and then share them with the rest of the team. Once you have people behind the idea, keep the momentum – it’s the comms person’s job to think about the campaign all the time, but everyone else has their own priorities, so keep them engaged and ready to do their bit.
- Work with people you trust. Nothing will be perfect from the start, and you will revise and change things over and over, but if you’re going to an external agency to help you create the campaign, make sure you trust them – not only that they are good at their jobs, but that you can express any doubts or concerns you have along the way. You need them to get you as an organisation. Remember you are paying for their service, you are the client (for once!) and ‘good enough’ is not good enough. So be open and express your doubts as well as appreciating the good work they do.
- If something doesn’t feel right, just don’t do it. In our case, we wanted to do something different from anything we’ve done before, but that doesn’t mean we were willing to change our image completely. No one knows the organisation like the people in it every day, so if an idea, design or tagline doesn’t give you a good feeling, keep working on it until you find one that does.
- Results won’t come overnight. Unfortunately this is true, but a way to see results is, again, to keep the momentum. The launch is an exciting time, but work with your team and stakeholders to keep the motivation up and remind them regularly of what you’re doing and why.
- Use your network. You have many channels of communication for a campaign and the most important one is your current network – starting with your staff, volunteers, trustees and supporters. Get them involved, be open about what you’re trying to achieve and use them to help you push out your message.
Thinking about a ‘campaign’ can be daunting and risky for the amount of time and money put into it; follow these five tips and you’ll go into your campaign feeling more comfortable and ready for the ride – and the rewards it brings.