Getting to Know You: A Rodgers & Hammerstein Approach to Understanding Your Audience
Are you an expert on your audience, like Anna was on The King, in the classic tale of “The King and I”? Do you have a deep understanding of the people who give to your mission? To determine successful, strategic marketing efforts, rich data to is required.
Do you know who your supporters are?
Do you know what their interests are? Do you know why they support your mission and not another? These are the questions you should be asking about the people who donate to your organization, attend your events, sign your petitions and contribute time to your cause.
In my experience, many nonprofits are spending, spending, spending to execute marketing efforts to a general audience, yielding little return because the audience isn’t defined. This method is less than ideal.
Understanding your audience is vital to the success of your marketing efforts.
Why should you care?
You have a marketing plan, right? Are your marketing efforts effective? Are you talking to your audience about issues they care about? If you understand the interests and demographics of your audience, promotions can be more strategic, relevant, and in the end, significantly more effective.
Understanding the make-up of your supporters offers your organization the ability to influence their behavior and drive those people to a determined action.
You have sponsors, right? Are your sponsor relationships effective? Are you able to illustrate to current and potential sponsors why they should invest in your organization and who they will reach by doing so?
There are millions of nonprofit organizations out there, talking to your donor and soliciting your potential sponsor. Understanding your constituents can differentiate your organization. Knowing your supporter-base, gives your organization the advantage of being able to communicate more effectively, drive action and illustrate tangible value to sponsors.
What do you need to know?
- Demographics – People in Texas have very different interests than people in New York. Women respond very differently to messaging than men do, twenty-somethings get their information from completely different sources than people in their sixties. This is what you need to be considering when composing content and planning your integrated marketing efforts.
- Purchase Behavior – What do your donors spend their money on? What lifestyle groups do they fall into? Where do they do most of their shopping? Online? Retail? Knowing the buying behavior of your supporter gives you better insight into which corporate partners you should be soliciting and where your cause marketing dollars should be spent to drive conversions.
- Donor Behavior – Are the people in your pledge list likely to donate? Are the folks in your donor list really most likely to donate to causes related to yours? What are they motivated by? Knowing donor habits will help you convert specific segments to a desired action.
Ok, I get it. Now what?
Most likely, your organization has some demographic information on the folks in your database. Maybe you know gender, age and location. I’m assuming you would like to know more.
Giveo can help you improve your outreach efforts by providing insights into traits such as marital status, income, buying behaviors, lifestyle, donor likelihood, etc.
What traits would you like to know about your audience?
Andrea Steffes-Tuttle, Client Services Manager for Giveo. Email Andrea: andrea@giveo.com
Add a Comment No Comments