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Community Relations Marketing Creates Win-Win
Local community organizations and nonprofits can be wonderful marketing allies—if you understand their concerns and constraints and respect their mission. Once you understand the nonprofit and community approach, you can create collaborative efforts that benefit both your company and the nonprofit—and your community. Understand the Mission. Nonprofit/community organizations are generally mission-based, meaning that they were created to provide a specific service or solve a problem. That service or solution is their mission. In a well-run nonprofit, everything that the organization does is focused around its mission. Never approach a nonprofit for collaboration until you understand the organization’s mission. Any joint effort must be true to the mission and values of the organization. If the organization is religiously based or is part of a larger national organization, then there may be additional constraints. Avoid problems by thoroughly understanding the world view and values of your potential partner. Educate. Any joint effort must avoid the appearance that the nonprofit is promoting your company. This requires a soft-sell approach. One good way to partner with a nonprofit is to look at educational opportunities for the public. For example, a playground equipment company might partner with a children’s hospital on a campaign to reduce playground injuries. A wheelchair manufacturer might partner with a rehabilitation hospital on a public campaign to reduce spinal cord injuries. Piggyback. If the organization has a major annual event such as a golf outing or a sporting competition, there may be ways to augment a sponsorship. The opportunity to speak at a conference, put up a banner or poster, put an article in a newsletter enable your organization to show its support while gaining valuable exposure to the nonprofit’s target market. Find the Two-Hero Story. I talk a lot about helping clients discover the Real Story of their business, the unique, passionate reason they exist. In the Real Story of your business, your company is the hero who solves a painful problem or eliminates a danger for your clients. The hero of a nonprofit’s story helps to reduce or eliminate disease, avoid injuries, make the world a better place or ease suffering. To collaborate effectively, find a way to tell a two-hero story that makes a logical connection between their mission and your own. Be Patient. At first, a good collaboration brings media visibility to both partners. But the audience for the nonprofit will want to know if the business partner is sincere or just looking for a quick buck. Prove your sincerity by volunteering, featuring items about the nonprofit and being a visible part of the nonprofit’s outreach year-round. Once the nonprofit’s stakeholders believe that you really care, they will reward you with their business and referrals. Creating a successful marketing collaboration with a nonprofit organization isn’t going to get quick returns, but it can be a good investment that pays long-term dividends. By choosing a nonprofit partner with similar values you can spread the word about your company, make a positive impact and change a corner of the world. Gail Z. Martin owns DreamSpinner Communications and helps companies in the U.S. and Canada tell the Real Story of their business through exceptional writing and marketing. Gail has an MBA in marketing and over 20 years of corporate and non-profit experience at senior executive levels. She leads webinars and teleseminars for organizations and professional associations on marketing topics, and she is the author of The Summoner and The Blood King novels in the Chronicles of the Necromancer fantasy adventure series. Sign up for a FREE email mini course, FREE marketing conference call and a FREE teleseminar on Telling Your Real Story, at http://www.DreamSpinnerCommunications.com. Find out more about Gail’s books at http://www.ChroniclesOfTheNecromancer.com. Contact Gail at gail@dreamspinnercommunications.com to start telling the Real Story of your business.
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