Your brand can be one of your greatest assets… but it probably isn’t.
Why not? Well, have you defined your brand for your supporters? Do you strengthen your brand with actions that resonate with your stakeholders? Do you utilize your brand’s good-will as much as you should? How do you use your brand to drive growth?
If you’re like most non-profits, you just had a tough time answering those questions. And your mission suffers because of it.
The concept of a “Brand” is huge for all businesses. But it’s even more important in non-profit direct mail marketing because your current and potential donors open their mailboxes to find hundreds-upon-hundreds of solicitations every year from organizations like yours – groups that have done very little to distinguish themselves from each other.
So let me ask you this: What makes you so hot?
A well-conceived brand strategy must highlight what makes you different, better, more effective -- unique. That strategy will result in more donations, volunteers, press, employees… and ultimately, will strengthen the mission.
What shouldn’t your brand strategy be?
Well, in consumer marketing there’s a term called “selling the category.”
Lets say you’re a cancer research group. You send an appeal that basically sells the idea of curing cancer, saving lives, easing pain. In that appeal, you’re convincing people only of the need to fund research, but not your specific “brand” of research. Unless you’re the market-share leader, selling the category benefits the competition as much (or more) than it benefits you.
You must go well-beyond convincing people of the general importance of a cause. You must differentiate your organization to position it as the solution. However noble “selling the category” may be, this doesn’t help your organization build “market share” or brand equity.
Without representing some sort of a contrast, your brand will just blend into the pack. And you’ll be leaving a lot of dollars in the mailbox.
The Quadiga Art goal is to partner with you to “personalize” the brand. To offer both the collective identity and the unique reason to believe. To strike on an emotional level with your donors – the people who will become your evangelists.
Next in our Quadriga Art Presents series:
Strengthening the Brand
