Many organizations put together their marketing materials with the worst approach for getting attention from the people they want to reach. They send their messages out with “Me Marketing.” Me Marketing is the kind of communication that centers on the organization. When I pick up your brochure as a prospect, I am learning about you and what you want to do. You are talking about you. You are telling your side of the story.

You Marketing is just the opposite of Me Marketing. Most people are tuned into what matters to them. They tune in to the messages that speak to their needs from their perspective. If I pick up your brochure and it is talking about “you,” you are really talking to the people you want to reach. People are far more interested in what benefits them. This approach, forces you to find the benefits and life-application of what you are offering to people.

Now go back and look at your website or brochures. Do you tell about your mission, your great staff, your awards, your programs? Is it all about me-me, me? How can you change the copy to reflect more You Marketing?  Nonprofits are sometimes the worst offenders when it comes to “Me Marketing.” It’s not hard to find examples in the “About Us” sections of their websites. It’s true nonprofits need to be passionate about their mission. But it is important to understand that people visiting your site will have their own perceptions and will tune-in most to things that appeal to their needs.  Don’t just talk about yourself.

Help the person who is reading your website or printed materials put themselves in the story line. Put the people you want to reach into the picture and they will pay much closer attention to you.  Every sentence needs to be about the reader and how their involvement will make a difference in your community. As you write your first draft of the copy on your website or brochure, start all your sentences with the word you. As you write and after you edit, you will have a very compelling message that resonates with your readers.

Guerrilla Marketing for Nonprofits, released July 2, 2010, is the latest book in the guerrilla marketing series and it is hot off the press. Co-authors Jay Conrad Levinson, Frank Adkins and Chris Forbes team up to offer 250 tactics to promote, recruit, motivate and raise more money.

In this webinar co-author, Chris Forbes, will share his insights and expertise around marketing of nonprofit organizations and projects. Join us for what is sure to be an insightful and inspiring talk.

After the interview, there will be time for questions, answers and discussion with participants.

Event Creator: Sarah Eaton of Eaton International Consulting
Event Type: Web Event
Name: Guerrilla Marketing for Nonprofits with Chris Forbes
When: Aug 19 2010 – 9:00am – 10:00am-Aug 19 2010 , US/Pacific (GMT-08:00)*
Participant URL: http://tinyurl.com/lcpublic

Short Description: Join me as I interview Chris Forbes, co-author of Guerrilla Marketing for Nonprofits.
Detail Description:

A lot of nonprofits are doing a lot of good things that are ineffective in achieving their mission. Your organization’s ability to accomplish your mission can become strained when you don’t keep a sharp eye on your mission and objectives. Beware of mission drift in your product development, programing and other planning. Just because you can do something doesn’t mean you should. Even if you can do it well. Don’t let your mission be stampeded under a herd of Purple Cows! And don’t assume that because you have always done something in your organization that it is essential to your mission. Who knows, leaders before could have lost their focus on the mission too.  Guerrillas are focused on long term results and sustainable impact.

Could you be convicted of success?

One of the problems with nonprofit marketing is people have trouble finding the right metrics to track in their outreach. Well, here’s an idea to help. As an exercise, ask yourself if your organization were on trial for accomplishing your mission, what would be the evidence used to convict?  What would the charges be? Who would the lawyers interview as witnesses? Could your strategies stand up under cross-examination? What are the exhibits that would be used in the case? If the media were covering the trial, what would be the headlines? These are the metrics for your organization’s success, track these things.

The real crime is to be guilty of nonprofit marketing and only have a little circumstantial evidence of your effectiveness.

A Special Message from Jay Conrad Levinson:

Dear Guerrilla –

I promise that the best use of your time and energy this year will be to learn about marketing in the home of the Father of Guerrilla Marketing.  You’ll learn in face-to-face sessions with me and get the personal attention you deserve.

That means doing everything you can to attend the Guerrilla Marketing Intensive from August 16th through the 18th at my lakefront house just outside Orlando, Florida.  You’ll benefit from 21 hours of invaluable training, all delivered by me, personally, in an intimate and comfortable setting that overlooks Lake Monroe.

I plan on sharing insights, one after another, that will probably blow you away because so many of them fly in the face of conventional wisdom.  Our last Guerrilla Marketing Intensive, held in June of this year, was a resounding success, as you’ll hear when you view the video you can click to after you finish this email.  Every person who attended got a whole lot more out of it than they ever expected.

www.gmarketing.com/intensive

You’ll also get a signed copy of the latest Guerrilla Marketing book, and be awarded a handsome, framed Certificate of Completion, along with a highly professional workbook for the hands-on exercises you’ll be doing.  But most of all, you’ll leave the Intensive with more solid, usable, unforgettable, and practical marketing wisdom than your competitors will ever have.

Some attendees felt that the Guerrilla Marketing Strategy that they created, with my help, was their most important take-away of the three days.

We’ll explode myths you may have been believing, investigate new avenues that are still unknown to most business owners, and delve into the secrets of Guerrilla Marketing, many of which have created millionaires and a fair share of billionaires.

Guerrilla Marketing is rapidly becoming mainstream marketing, and those who don’t know why are suffering.  That’s why we’ve now sold over 21 million copies of Guerrilla Marketing books and why they’re now in 62 languages.  As there are now two kinds of businesses — growing and dying, there are also two kinds of business owners — constantly learning and hopelessly clueless.

The size of our Guerrilla Marketing Intensive is limited. But we’ve made it simple to afford by letting you make two payments of $2499 each.  That fee is expected to double when the recession ends, so don’t miss out on it now.

Just view the video about it by clicking on the blue hyperlink below, then register while you can still be admitted to this rare opportunity to learn what guerrillas must know about marketing in 2010 and beyond.

www.gmarketing.com/intensive

I look forward to meeting you and sharing crucial guerrilla marketing insights with you.  Every single word i say will be directed to improving your profits starting immediately and lasting forever.

Jay

ps: My daughter, Amy Levinson is standing by to answer your questions by phone at 360-791-7479 or by email at olympiagal@aol.com

Jay
The Father of Guerrilla Marketing
Author, “Guerrilla Marketing” series of books
Named one of the 100 best business books ever written
Over 21 million sold; now in 62 languages

PS: You’ll never enjoy learning more than at this Guerrilla Marketing Intensive.

IRVINE, Calif.–(BUSINESS WIRE)–Most ministries do not have a lot of money available to use for marketing. But you don’t have to have a lot of money if you use Guerrilla Marketing to promote your faith-based nonprofit. Much of what Guerrillas need to be effective in outreach is a little application of time, energy and imagination. Guerrilla Marketing takes the mystery out of nonprofit marketing and gives you practical actions your organization can take to get people to help you spread the word without spending a lot of money. With Guerrilla tactics a church can get a lot of attention and mobilize parishioners very quickly.

“Great things can happen when people are buzzing about the great things your ministry is doing”

“Great things can happen when people are buzzing about the great things your ministry is doing,” explains Chris Forbes, co-author of Guerrilla Marketing for Nonprofits with Jay Conrad Levinson and Frank Adkins. “If people are not talking up your faith-based nonprofit, you can start using Guerrilla Marketing to get them to help you spread your message. There are 200 Guerrilla Marketing weapons at your disposal, many of them are free. Guerrillas don’t rely on a single marketing tool to get the word out, they use a combination of them.”

Forbes offers the following ideas to get you started in your own Guerrilla ministry outreach:

Satisfying Relationships: Put first things first. The secret to getting real word-of-mouth advertising from members in your church is to treat people with respect and meet their needs better. Many churches are so busy looking for the next person they want to invite to their church, they overlook the active members and let lapsed attendees slip through the cracks. Satisfied members naturally talk about their good experiences to other people.

Use of Language: Outside people don’t understand church jargon, so don’t use it in your promotions. For example, you may know what words like “exalt,” “equip” and “anointed” mean, but what do these things mean to the people who have never visited your church? Be careful to use only terms that have a clear meaning to your target audience.

Word-of-mouse: Make it simple for your ministry’s messages to spread online. Use Internet widgets and digital tools that make it easy for inspired people to talk about your ministry to their contacts. Put your promotional materials on the web and make them compatible with social media networks. Posting your events on sites like Facebook and Twitter can help your church members spread the word within their personal relationship networks.

Mini-media: Give church members pocket sized invitation cards, mail post cards, post yard signs, give out t-shirts, hang posters, and use other tools to invite people and talk up your church. Guerrilla Marketing for Nonprofits lists and describes 30 Mini-media Guerrilla weapons you can use.

News releases: If you are going to have a special event that’s worth talking about, remember to also alert the media about it with a news release. If your event is newsworthy, the local media will cover your event and their reports will attract people to your ministry. Guerrilla Marketing is the truth made fascinating. What could be more newsworthy?

Testimonials: Ask people to share a testimony in person at your church, in writing, on video, and in other media. Always get permission before using a church member’s picture in promotional materials. When you use their image, you are implying their endorsement.

Going Guerrilla in faith-based marketing can get people talking about your church, your programs, the gospel, and anything else your church is doing. When good buzz is happening, your church reaches more people in ways that are the most credible to seekers and prospective members.

Learn more about mobilizing your faith-based nonprofit’s supporters and church’s members by reading the book Guerrilla Marketing for Nonprofits.

Chris Forbes http://gmnonprofits.com/ is the co-author of Guerrilla Marketing for Nonprofits with Jay Conrad Levinson and Frank Adkins. He is a certified Guerrilla Marketing coach specializing in nonprofit marketing. He frequently consults within the Southern Baptist Convention with 16 million+ members.

NOTE TO EDITORS: Forbes is available for interview. Review copies of Guerrilla Marketing for Nonprofits, cover image, and author headshots are available.

Guerrilla Marketing for Nonprofits

Free Nonprofit 911® Webinar
Tuesday, August 3 at 1 pm ET

Learn to develop a personalized battle plan for your organization using the proven weapons of Guerrilla marketing to promote, recruit, motivate, and raise more money for your nonprofit.  Chris Forbes and Frank Adkins, co-authors of thew new book, Guerrilla Marketing for Nonprofits with Jay Conrad Levinson, the father of Guerrilla marketing, will show you how “going guerrilla” can give your organization the survivor’s edge.

Join the webinar to find out how to:

• Cultivate the Guerrilla Marketer’s personality in yourself
• Turn your mission statement into a powerful marketing asset
• Use The Golden Rules of Fundraising Success
• Add your organization’s calendar to your marketing arsenal

A few lucky participants will win a free copy of their book so register today! >> Here!

Recently Pastor Rick Warren posted this article on his blog and newsletter “Eleven ideas for researching your community” with Guerrilla research tips useful to faith-based nonprofits for learning about their community. A large percentage of nonprofits, including the largest organizations in the United Stated, are affiliated with religion. We feel the ideas in the article are suitable for any nonprofit, so we are re-posting them here. Our book is designed to be useful for all types of nonprofits. You can find more easy-to-implement research ideas in our book that was recently published by Entrepreneur Press, available on Amazon and in bookstores. Do a zip code search (here) chances are high there’s a Barnes & Noble near you with Guerrilla Marketing for Nonprofits in stock right now!

How do you find out about those who live in your area?

• Media Representatives: Sales people who work for newspapers, radio and television stations, outdoor advertisers, know a lot about your community. Talk to them and also learn about the available communication channels in your marketplace.

• Book Stores: Read books and reports of religious surveys. Increasingly, books containing reports of religious research are published each year. Become familiar with the available research that is most similar to your target community.

• Site Visits: Take a ‘windshield survey’ by driving through the neighborhoods where you want to launch a new outreach.

• In-depth Interviews: Talk to community leaders, business, nonprofit groups, anyone who deals with the public locally. Make it a point to get to know the “gatekeepers” of your targeted community.

• Internet Search Engines: Don’t leave your house looking for research until you have spent time searching the internet for community information. So much is available online it would be a mistake to not take full advantage of what you can find on the web.

• Libraries: Get to know your local librarian, he/she knows where to find resources you might overlook like, the Sourcebook of Zip Code Demographics, a handy reference guide with the specifics about people in your community by zip code.

• Government Agencies: Your local school board, chamber of commerce, economic development authority often publish important statistics that are relevant to your ministry.

• Demographic Services: There are many companies that package demographic information at a relatively low cost. If your church is affiliated with a denomination, check your denominational office for available demographic data.

• Original Research Projects: You can conduct your own original surveys, interviews, and focus groups. A simple door-to-door survey could offer tremendous new insights about your community.

• Persona Profiles: Use the information you gain in your research to create a profile of the people you want to reach.

• Other churches: You might interview other pastors in the area to get a consensus on the spiritual climate of your community. Pastors who’ve served a dozen years in a community should be very aware of local issues and spiritual trends in an area.

The bottom line is this, no one should know more about your people than you do.

Only you can judge if your organization is ready to get involved in social media. Some organizations are hesitant to get involved in social media because they fear losing control of their message. You don’t lose control of your message with social media, you lose the illusion of control. You don’t have control.

New media have changed the face of communication forever. Gone are the days of one-way communication. New media are not going away and they are positioned to impact internet communications for the foreseeable future.  The question is not if your organization will use social media, it is more a question of when. Don’t be afraid to use social media to include people in the storyline of your nonprofit’s work. Your donors are looking for a more personalized relationship with your nonprofit. New generations of volunteers, donors, and clients don’t just prefer to use social media, they demand it. Today’s younger generation communicates with one another using social media and texting, not email and snail mail. If you want to reach them with your message, you would be crazy to eliminate the option of using social media in your nonprofit’s work.

Should your organization get started on social media now? Ask yourself a few questions. If you answer yes to most of them, it’s time to take the plunge.

• Are you committed to keeping your profile updated with fresh content?
• Are you willing to be open and candid about the good and bad in your organization?
• Are you ready to relate to people no matter how receptive or antagonistic they are to your message?
• Are you willing to be patient when results don’t happen overnight?
• Are you prepared to work hard to understand the people in your networks?
• Are you ready to reinvent your use of office time?
• Are you ready to listen and not only talk about yourself?
• Are you prepared to mix a little of your personal life with your nonprofit work?

Our book Guerrilla Marketing for Nonprofits was written with the needs of the smaller nonprofit in mind, but we also knew as we wrote it that even workers in larger nonprofits would benefit from the principles of guerrilla marketing. That’s why we researched our audience and tried to anticipate their needs in the book. Below is a profile of an average nonprofit communication director. It is based on statistics found in secondary sources and primary research interviews. We didn’t have to spend a lot of money to create the profile, all it took was the time and energy to do the research ourselves. You can create a persona profile of your audience too. It helps you put a face on the people you want to reach.

Nancy Nonprofit: Communication Director

The average nonprofit communication worker is a white (81%) female (68%) age 35-44 working for a small organization with $500,000 or less in annual budget.

She earns about $44k per year at her job. More than likely she has a Liberal Arts degree and does not have any formal background in marketing. What she knows about marketing she picks up from practical experience, by reading books, while browsing the internet, or by attending workshops and conferences every other year or so.

Her job title is more likely to be Public Relations or Communications Director than Director of Marketing.

The Executive Director of the organization she works for is an idealistic Baby Boomer male in his mid to late fifties. Her boss is very affirming, but she sometimes has trouble explaining the importance of marketing to leadership. Often she only interacts with the board members of her organization (51% white) when she produces the annual report.

She prefers an informal approach to working with her colleagues and willingly collaborates with others who can help her accomplish the goals of her organization. She is very mission-driven in her focus, but feels the lack of resources available and the low administrative clout she has hinders the real impact she could help her organization make.

Her organization most likely is either providing health care programs, engaged in education, dedicated to human services for families, public safety, housing, crime & legal protection, or provides counseling in employment and financial matters. Her organization (20%) may have affiliation with a religious organization.

Her bosses saw fit to put her in charge of communications, but she often doesn’t get to sit in on the type of meetings that would help her do her job best, such as meeting with the board of directors, program leaders, volunteer coordinators, or sitting in on strategic planning sessions.

She is mainly expected to coordinate the media production needs of the organization rather than work proactively in branding it. If her organization engages in branding, it will usually hire an outside firm with annoying creative types who haven’t the least idea what is really needed in her organization. They will change the logo and leave her saddled with a branding style guide book she doesn’t particularly like. After the branding firm is finished with its recommendations and leaves, her organization will return to business as usual, until the next time someone decides they want another logo.

There isn’t a formal place for marketing in the strategic planning or budgeting process at her organization. Marketing is often considered as synonymous with fundraising. She spends a good deal of her time developing media for use in fundraising for her organization. The biggest hindrance to her organization’s marketing is that people within it are not on the same page about what messages connect best with the people they want to reach. Her organization rarely, if ever, uses research or testing before launching a new program.

In addition, she is not able to put her focus on marketing communications as much as she would like because she is often tasked with duties that pertain to other aspects of running the nonprofit she works for that are not in her job description. Her job requires multitasking and she is frequently asked to take on tasks that are far beyond her background and training. She often feels frustrated and burned-out. The fact that the various department leaders and staff in her organization don’t understand marketing and sometimes even resist her input frustrates her.

She is barely aware of the need to adapt to the demographic (ethnicity and age) changes in the marketplace in volunteer recruitment and fundraising, though she is keenly aware of changes in the clients her organization serves. She knows the market is getting more complex with the 64% increase in the nonprofit sector in the last decade, but she may not have made the connection to what that means for her work for the future of her job.

She wants practical help in planning the marketing of her organization and she needs to produce results. With such demands on her time, she can’t afford to waste time with theory and academics.

She loves what she does because she believes in the cause. And even though the people she works with can drive her to the brink of insanity sometimes, she loves them like family and will defend them with all her heart.

Many nonprofits make the mistake of trying to get the people they want to reach to think exactly like them, when they really should focus on getting people to take action by understanding their audiences better. Nonprofit marketing results don’t require the target audience to accept the worldview of the marketer before they take action. Your goal as a nonprofit leader is not to turn everyone into a exact clone of yourself. It is to get people to sense ownership of the problems and take action.  You don’t need people to think like you, you need to train yourself to think like them. A key to knowing how to get people to take action, is knowledge of your market.

Guerrillas understand the context of the people they want to adopt new behaviors and use that understanding to provoke meaningful action. If people don’t respond to your nonprofit marketing campaign, it is likely a sign that your nonprofit’s advocacy is not a good match for the target audience. Non-guerrillas assume people who don’t take action are unresponsive and criticize them as if they are in denial and are unwilling to accept the plain facts. They fail to consider that perhaps the breakdown in connecting with the mind of their target audience originates in their presentation and approach and not having a sound understanding of their context. Guerrillas know their outreach’s call to action needs compatibility with the community to work well, that’s why Guerrillas use research to understand their target audience.

A good place to start your Guerrilla Marketing strategy is by researching as much as you can about your target market. Nobody should know more about your market than you. And if there is someone who does know more, make friends with them and learn. Knowledge increases creativity and is a powerful competitive advantage.

1. The Guerrilla Marketing for Nonprofits book shows you the tools for becoming an expert on the people you want to reach.
2. We show you how to leverage the information your nonprofit already has
3. Give you the steps for designing your own Guerrilla Marketing research
4. How to manage error in research
5. Information on using focus groups, in-depth interviews, secret shoppers, and case studies.

Knowledge of your market is gives your organization a Guerrilla’s edge and helps insure your nonprofits survival in tough times.

Order Guerrilla Marketing for Nonprofits now on Amazon. In stores July 2nd.