Showcasing Marketing ROI

One of my favorite non profit marketing bloggers, Nancy E. Schwartz, was recently asked a question on her blog from a reader who wanted some professional help in creating a strategy for her declining organization. Like Nancy, I’ve been asked the same question myself many times and I was interested to see how she would answer.

Her 6 Steps to Showcasing Marketing ROI are below:

1. Stop asking marketing firms to call your decision makers and stop passing on firm materials as well.
2. Build understanding of what marketing is and the value that it will bring to the Council — and, most importantly, what the Council will lose if it continues without strategic marketing.
3. Come to the table with a succinct plan including a budget.
4. As you implement your initial marketing project, keep management and board posted on progress.
5. Serve as an ongoing marketing mentor to your management and board.
6. Once you have one or two successful marketing projects under your belt, then it’s time to develop a comprehensive marketing plan, derived from the Council’s goals.

Nancy is spot on and I suggest you read her entire column. However, I think there is a critical element that needs more emphasis. The biggest problem marketers face today from the Board or C-level suite is not a lack of funding or support but rather their own inability to connect marketing to the strategy of the business and demonstrate top- and bottom-line impact. In other words, marketers continue to run programs, campaigns, and tactics that spend money and create a flurry of activity, but those efforts are not linked to the things that are important to the CEO, Executive Director, or even the Board.

I’ve been marketing for more than 20 years and I’ve never run into a CEO that turned down a good investment in growing the business. But I consistently see CEOs turn down marketing plans that fail to demonstrate ROI. And the ROI I am talking about is NOT on how many calls were generated, or how many column inches were earned in the media, or even how many brochures were mailed out. Those are all activities and related to expenses. They’re not results. What the executive leadership wants to know is did you move the needle on the dial that is important to them. Those dials could include:

• New member acquisition
• Member retention/churn
• Brand loyalty as an indicator of referrals
• Income generated from fundraising
• Number of new donors
• Number of recurring donors
• % of fundraising to donor base and change from effort
• Share of wallet for donors

And we marketers must be better at financially analyzing the impact of our marketing efforts. It isn’t that we run a marketing campaign and say we spent $5,000 and generated 108 new enrollments. We need to know what the cost per new enrollment is, how one campaign performs against others, and what campaigns are more profitable and contribute to the margin.

Good for Nancy for identifying her top six steps. Good for her reader for asking what she could do better. And good for you if you begin to think in terms of investments from the perspective of the C-level suite.

But, what else would you add to the list of six from Nancy? Would you have a different list? And what is keeping you, or marketing, from getting the support from your executives?

-- David Kinard, PCM

[photo: Gavoon Products]

From Junk Mail to Power Mail

Last week blogger Nancy Schwartz wrote about receiving a direct mail piece from one of her favorite nonprofits -- the adoption agency they used. But instead of receiveing a direct mail piece that engaged and nurtured the relationship between the agency and Nancy's family, the piece ended up having them question the strength of the operation. Her experience inspired me to write a bit about how to turn your Junk Mail into Power Mail.

How much mail do you get every day? For some, that daily ubiquitous pile of paper is almost a status symbol. For others, it is just one more hassle and headache in an already crowded day.

The issue of what is so commonly referred to as an overload of “junk mail” has gotten worse, or so a report released by the Consumer Federation of America says. The report, which surveyed more than 1000 people found that 78 percent of respondents believe the amount of unsolicited mail, or junk mail, they receive irritates them "a lot or a little."

Of the 78 percent who found it irritating, 48 percent said junk mail irritates them a lot. That's an increase of 2 percentage points over the prior year's survey.

Direct marketers say, however, that if direct mail is targeted, it is a very effective and welcome form of marketing communications. And the United States Post Office agrees. They rank direct mail third just behind TV and newspapers in marketing effectiveness. The critical ingredient in making direct mail work, however, is targeting.

Think about it, sometimes that “junk mail” catches your eye, and quietly, while no one is looking, you may even open it. Why? The reason is quite simple. The offer or packaging of the mail interested you enough to cause you to look further. Junk mail are only those pieces which promote a product or service you don’t want or need, or a cause which doesn’t resonate in your hearts.

The most savvy direct mail experts all agree that you should have the best offer and packaging in your direct mail piece. However, it is the list that you send it to which determines your success.

Next time you prepare to send out a letter, brochure, or other direct mail piece consider the following questions which will help increase the effectiveness of your list.

1. Is direct mail the best medium to carry this important message? If not, go back to the creative drawing board and identify the best way to get your voice heard.


2. Who is the specific target audience for this piece (men, fathers, women, mothers, purchasers of fitness equipment, general public, registered voters, etc.)?


3. What is the audience’s profile and characteristics (age, sex, lifestyle, work habits, relationship to your product/service/issue)?


4. What does the target audience do in terms of lifestyle (What do they read on a regular basis, where do they live, or where do they go for vacations, dinner or entertainment)?


5. When is the best time to reach them with your message (time of year, day, month, event considerations)?

By identifying these basic characteristics of your target audience, you can purchase lists that more accurately match your ideal prospect, thus increasing your direct mail piece’s effectiveness and staying away from “junk mail”.

-- David Kinard, PCM