All About Marketing
Written by Carter McNamara, MBA, PhDAdapted from Field Guide to Nonprofit Program Design, Marketing and Evaluation
"Marketing" -- A Commonly Misunderstood Term
Before you learn more about marketing, you should get a basic impression of what marketing is. See What's "Advertising, Marketing, Promotion, Public Relations and Publicity, and Sales?". Basically, you might look at marketing as the wide range of activities involved in making sure that you're continuing to meet the needs of your customers and are getting appropriate value in return. Think about marketing as "inbound" and "outbound" marketing. (In the following, consider "product" to be either a tangible product or a service -- nonprofits often refer to these as "programs".)
Inbound Marketing Includes Market Research to Find Out:
- What specific groups of potential customers/clients (markets) might have which specific needs (nonprofits often already have a very clear community need in mind when starting out with a new program -- however, the emerging practice of nonprofit business development, or earned income development, often starts by researching a broad group of clients to identify new opportunities for programs)
- How those needs might be met for each group (or target market), which suggests how a product might be designed to meet the need (nonprofits might think in terms of outcomes, or changes, to accomplish among the groups of clients in order to meet the needs)
- How each of the target markets might choose to access the product, etc. (its "packaging")
- How much the customers/clients might be willing pay and how (pricing analysis)
- Who the competitors are (competitor analysis)
- How to design and describe the product such that customers/clients will buy from the organization, rather than from its competitors (its unique value proposition)
- How the product should be identified -- its personality -- to be most identifiable (its naming and branding)
Outbound Marketing Includes:
- Advertising and promotions (focused on the product)
- Sales
- Public and media relations (focused on the entire organization)
- Customer service
- Customer satisfaction
Too often, people jump right to the outbound marketing. As a result, they often end up trying to push products onto people who really don't want the products at all. Effective inbound marketing often results in much more effective -- and less difficult -- outbound marketing and sales.
Sections of This Topic Include:
Basics and Planning
Basics of MarketingMarket Planning
Inbound Marketing
Marketing Research (tools & methods to examine markets, their needs, competitors, etc.)Competitive Analysis
Pricing
Positioning (including writing your positioning statement)
Naming and Branding
Outbound Marketing
Advertising and PromotionsPublic and Media Relations
Sales
Customer Service
Customer Satisfaction
Protecting Ownership of Your Products/Services
Intellectual Property
Evaluating Your Marketing Efforts
Measuring Results of Advertising7 Ways to Evaluate Your Marketing Program
Planning and Evaluating Internet Marketing Program
Measuring the Effectivness of Your Advertising
Marketing On Telephone and/or Online
TelemarketingMarketing Online
General Resources
Additional Information for NonprofitsGeneral Resources
Additional Information for Nonprofits
Additional Information for NonprofitsProgram Design and Marketing (Nonprofit)
General Resources
Good Marketing Ideas: a collection of marketing ideas and articles aimed at a variety of marketing forms and business types. Includes offline and internet marketing as well as non-profit marketing ideas.A table with numerous links to marketing-related sites
Extensive lists of lists ...
Marketing Resource Center
List of useful articles
Industry Standard
Marketing Blog
For the Category of Marketing:
Related Library Topics
Recommended Books
Basics, Planning and General Information
Basics, Planning and General Information
The following books are recommended because of their highly practical nature and often because they include a wide range of information about this Library topic. To get more information about each book, just hover your cursor over the image of the book. A "bubble" of information will be displayed. You can click on the title of the book in that bubble to get more information, too.
Market Research and Trends
The following books are recommended because of their highly practical nature and often because they include a wide range of information about this Library topic. To get more information about each book, just hover your cursor over the image of the book. A "bubble" of information will be displayed. You can click on the title of the book in that bubble to get more information, too.
Competitive Intelligence
The following books are recommended because of their highly practical nature and often because they include a wide range of information about this Library topic. To get more information about each book, just hover your cursor over the image of the book. A "bubble" of information will be displayed. You can click on the title of the book in that bubble to get more information, too.
Note to nonprofits: Nonprofits "compete" with other nonprofits, too. They compete for funding, attention from their communities and for staff. Also, funders often want to see if their grantees have closely considered whether other nonprofits are already offering the same services in the same areas. So nonprofits should use competitive intelligence, too.
Nonprofit
Field
Guide to Nonprofit Program Design, Marketing and Evaluation
- by Carter McNamara, published by Authenticity Consulting, LLC. There are few books, if any, that explain how to carefully plan, organize, develop and market a nonprofit program. Also, too many books completely separate the highly integrated activities of planning, marketing and evaluating programs. This book integrates all three into a comprehensive, straightforward approach that anyone can follow in order to provide high-quality programs with strong appeal to funders. Includes many online forms that can be downloaded. Many materials in this Library topic are adapted from this book.
The following books are recommended because of their highly practical nature and often because they include a wide range of information about this Library topic. To get more information about each book, just hover your cursor over the image of the book. A "bubble" of information will be displayed. You can click on the title of the book in that bubble to get more information, too.
Also See
Public Relations -- Recommended Books
Sales -- Recommended Books
