Tag Archive for: branding

Mr. Santorum’s “snob” remark about higher education is getting push back from surprising quarters.  That’s because millions of Americans look to higher education as a way to pull their families forward both economically, and in increased job satisfaction. While fewer than one third of Americans hold a B.A. or higher, 75% of Americans polled believe that a college education is “very important” in today’s economy. And 92 percent of public school parents believe that their children will go to college. (Both stats from Phi Delta Kappa/Gallup Poll, September 2010) That’s because they know intuitively the what many of us in my region show students through a program called Achievement Counts (AC), created by the  Maryland Business Roundtable for Education (yup, a group of business executives). That is, that with every year of schooling you get beyond high school, your job opportunities and income level increase. Despite his rhetoric, Mr. Santorum knows this, given the millions he’s made as a Washington, D.C. consultant with his B.A., J.D. and M.B.A.  When I’ve led these brief AC classes at my local high schools, I always poll the kids about what they want to be when they graduate. Many of them plan to play in the NBA or NFL.  “What if you get injured?” I ask, knowing it’s hopeless to make the case that a tiny fraction of American athletes could ever even qualify.  That’s when a light-bulb goes off for a few of the kids. If you like the science of the body and athletics, I say, consider getting trained in Physical Therapy, one of the fastest-growing careers in the country. (This requires a minimum Associates Dgree to be an Assistant, and a full B.A. and post-graduate work to become a PT.) Maybe it’s worth getting an accounting degree (B.A. and CPA license required), so you could help those NFL guys manage their millions. Maybe you might even want to go into business for yourself—so you could buy your own team one day!

Mr. Santorum’s father was an Italian immigrant. My dad’s grandparents immigrated from Italy a generation earlier.  And while my grandmother completed junior high and my grandfather elementary school, it was a point of great pride that they were able to send their son to college. He worked the entire time he attended Fordham University (run by the Jesuits, hardly the bastion of radicalism Santorum paints for campus life), driving a laundry truck to deliver linens to the fancy yachts at the docks on the river.  He told me once that while it was tough to get up so early to make his deliveries and still stay awake for classes, the job reminded him of the tedium he could avoid by getting that college degree. He went on to get a graduate degree from Columbia in Economics and worked as an economist his entire life.

The road through high school is hard for many kids. College is not for everyone. But getting a foothold in 21st century life requires more training than a high school degree can offer. Mr. Santorum knows it. And those of us who care about and work in the education field need to keep reminding Americans that higher education is a brand worth celebrating.

It’s easy to forget that your Employment Brand matters. But it affects your overall brand perception significantly. How people perceive your organization as an employer affects staff morale, customer service, and your ability to achieve results. Companies like Walmart learned quickly back in 2005, when their poor healthcare coverage was revealed, that they ignored employee needs at the peril of their brand. In addition to health coverage, your employment brand includes policies like flex-time and maternity/paternity/parental care leave.

And the impact of the choices you make towards employees extends beyond them to their family members–your company’s extended family.  I worked with a 50-year-old corporation on a branding and marketing project, and as part of the process polled and interviewed many of the staff. One of the founders shared his concern that the company was losing its reputation as family-friendly. He recalled how they used to invite families to an annual picnic, go to ballgames together, and invite the wives (back then!) to special company dinners and recognition events.  He acknowledged the firm needed to find new ways to involve families. I pointed out the firm could become more family-friendly by also acknowledging its people needed time away from the company.

With a Blackberry in every pocket, setting boundaries that allow employees to have “off limits” time is difficult, but in my view essential to creating a positive employment brand. But let’s face it: when you burn people out, they don’t perform at their best for you or your customers.  Calvert Investments has repeatedly won awards as a great place to work largely because it supports work-life balance and good health for its team. Some of their non-traditional benefits include paying 100% towards health club membership, paying 100% towards public transportation, helping employees pay for a bike or walking shoes if they use them to get to work, paid parental leave—to see school plays, chaperone a field trip, etc.

So what can you do to ensure that you create a culture of a great employer?

  • Focus on your mission and let staff do the same. Empl0yees get very frustrated when they are side-tracked from job goals by things like excessive meetings or unproductive reviews.
  • Offer routes to advancement and professional development. People need to feel they can improve and learn.
  • Offer feedback loops. If staff get additional training or educational experiences, give them the opportunity to share back to the group.
  • Consider non-traditional benefits that don’t cost a lot but encourage good behaviors–time to work out, time to volunteer in the community.
  • Consider how much time “on” you are really expecting from employees and assess staffing. If you’re expecting one person to respond to customers 16 hours a day, that job probably needs to be split up among more people.
  • Assess what flex-time and telecommuting options you can offer that reduce employee stress and time on crowded roads.
  • Look at the companies that repeatedly win top employer awards and see how they have developed a positive employment culture

An often overlooked component of employment brand is the perception of your company from the outside–from those applying for jobs. A job applicant today could be a staff leader tomorrow. Or a customer.  Or a donor or volunteer. Except when that person is completely turned off by your job application process. Today, job applicants are faced with a “buyer’s market.”  So employers may think it’s acceptable to not be responsive to applicants. I have a friend who’s an executive and has been in the job market for many months and it’s shocking how many corporations have had high level managers interview her face to face as a finalist for a job, but then not made the effort to even send an email if she is not selected.  Don’t think that I’m not influenced by this treatment when I consider doing business with these entities.

What should you consider about  your job application process as it relates to your brand?

  • Who is receiving applications and responding to applicants? This person is now the “face” of your organization. Make it clear they should be courteous and prompt in their responses.
  • What is the process by which you notify applicants you have received their application? At a minimum, send applicants a brief, polite email acknowledging the application. This will save time and frustration handling phone calls.
  • What is the timeline for your process? Let applicants know what to expect.
  • If an applicant doesn’t succeed, you should notify them–again a brief email will do.

These aren’t difficult steps, but they can make a difference in how well your company competes in the marketplace–both for excellent employees and for satisfied customers.

It’s time to kick off the New Year.  Are you ready? Here are some of my resolutions, when it comes to branding and marketing, that is.

1. Add more video content. YouTube is the second most popular search engine after Google. So it’s important that people searching for a brand find the content there. I’ve been primarily using Vimeo, because I prefer its copyright protections, but this year I may have to give in and post some clips on YouTube.  I already have video clips on my site, but I could do more to keep them fresh–I am a video producer, after all!

2. Set aside less time for email, more time for social media.  According to Neilsen Research, social media has now surpassed email for communication. I want to be sure I’m working in this space and not still getting sucked into the batting-away-emails mode.  Facebook also just surpassed Google in terms of most sought website. So maybe I have to suck it up and put a professional page there, in addition to my personal one. What do you think?

3. Be a more consistent blogger. I’ll admit this year I fell off the wagon a few times and didn’t post weekly. That reduces pickup by Google and other search engines. Guest posting was really successful and I want to add some more guest bloggers this year. Let me know if you’d like to be one!

4. More speaking engagements.  I got pretty tied up with content production this year, and only did a handful of engagements. This year I’ll be giving 5 workshops at the NAB Convention in Vegas, so I’m already on my way to doing more presentations in 2011.  It’s a great way to meet people, and take time to consider the big picture of social media, marketing and brand strategy.

5. More comments from you.  I’ll admit it, I’m a little anxious about posting on controversial subjects. It gets more hits but the comments can get rough. But I’ll try to be a little more daring this year. Shoot me a topic you’d like to hear more about.

Happy New Year to you and yours. May it be a great year for advancing your mission, raising awareness about your issue, or bringing more impact for your company.

Nautilus-1“We can’t afford branding” is a frequent refrain I hear from smaller nonprofit groups.  In reality, you can’t afford not to brand.

The term branding seems to carry with it the image of an expensive and long-term contract with ad agencies and experts.  Advocacy groups are generally the exception to this rule.  Because they are trying to make bold changes in policy—whether towards the environment, social welfare or healthcare—they have learned that their brand alone can mean the difference between getting or losing a donation, a volunteer, or the attention of a lawmaker.   Greenpeace is an excellent example.  Whether or not you approve of their tactics, their name immediately conveys action on behalf of the environment.  If someone from Greenpeace approaches you about making a contribution, joining a petition, or setting up a meeting, you don’t need a lot of time to learn about what they do.  It is already conveyed by the brand.

Organizations of all sizes can benefit financially from better branding. And it doesn’t always have to cost a lot. Here are three cost-effective branding tools.

1. Email is Free Advertising

I often receive emails from executives at nonprofits without any “signature” that indicates who they are, who they work for, and how to reach them.  This is a missed opportunity for free advertising, which should be employed unilaterally—and uniformly–across the organization.

But e-mail isn’t just an opportunity to give out contact information.  An e-mail signature tag can be updated, creating a free way to notify all your email recipients about current events related to your issue, programs, or membership opportunities.  You can also include web links other than your main site. For example, if you have an upcoming conference, that website can be included. Here’s a simple and free way you can give donors, members and the general public a better sense of the “value” of being part of your cause.

2. Use Podcasts to Cross-Promote

One of the main reasons people become involved in nonprofits, whether as staff members, donors or volunteers, is that they believe in the mission and want to create change.  And one of the keys to creating change is educating ourselves about what needs changing. Millions of people got involved in the green movement because Al Gore’s movie “An Inconvenient Truth” made the case for climate change visually compelling.

Now you can do the same thing with a podcast.

With just an investment in a digital audio recorder, or a small digital camera, and some basic audio recording/mixing software, you can give out some useful information, and cross-promote your organization’s other content–books, websites, conferences, upcoming events.  Here’s an example of an organization that is helping to promote its cause and its members through podcasts

3. Mine Your Own Content

The other terrific resource nonprofits have—and rarely use—to promote mission and brand is their own media libraries.  The cost is essentially free, since you have already paid to acquire these materials, which include graphics, photographs, audio interviews or videotape footage.  The only investment is the time to organize it in such a way that it becomes useful to multiple people for a variety of projects.  The ultimate cost savings is large, since you will avoid re-shooting or re-acquiring images or footage where something from your own “stock” library would work to tell the story.

Just using these three low-cost or free tools can help you gain ground with your brand, which in turn can help you increase fundraising, visibility, memberships or issue awareness.

c 2009 Amy DeLouise

Social media and the web of access provided by Web 2.0 have had a profound impact on how organizations function.  And while corporations were early adopters, government agencies and nonprofits have now caught up and are fundamentally changing the way they connect to the people they serve.

But there are pitfalls to instant communications.

As anyone who has sent an email and wished they hadn’t knows, in a Blackberry world, it is all too easy to push something out of our in-box and into someone else’s without taking much time to think about that transaction. We need to remember that we represent a brand–for ourselves, or perhaps as a staff person for a government entity or board volunteer for a nonprofit.  We need to remind ourselves that however trivial it may seem, every piece of information we send communicates something about our brand.

I thought about this recently when I sent an email to the head of an organization with whom I’ve been involved for five years with a concern about a staff policy with respect to its “customers.”  Within seconds, he had forwarded my email to those very staff whose actions concerned me (note to self: mark such emails Confidential).  He later explained that he was busy getting ready for an upcoming conference and didn’t really have time to deal with it himself and wanted to be sure the matter was handled. The takeaway I got from that interaction–rightly or wrongly–was 1) he was overwhelmed by the job;  2) he didn’t value the direct communication of an involved supporter; 3) he wasn’t a great communicator.

We can all be more mindful of how quickly we press that “send” or “forward” button, whether we represent only ourselves or an entire organization.

On the positive side, the instant message world offers new opportunities to promote your mission and brand. Many organizations routinely change the “tag line” for staff emails to include current campaigns, web links, new You Tube videos, twitter feeds, etc.  But there are just as many who miss the opportunity and have staff who send emails with no information at all.

Here are the kinds of communications that are often overlooked, but which your staff (and board) should always consider affects the perception of your brand:

1. Letters to Your Constituents/Community.  Especially those updating people on an important issue (for example, how you are handling swine flu with respect to your upcoming conference)

2. External Emails.  Every staff person should have contact info, tag line, web links, and any other relevant link-of-the week on their emails to keep your constituents up to date.  Anyone with a Blackberry should be careful where they point that thing!

3. Internal/Staff Emails. Be sure it’s clear these are for internal consumption only, but still think about how it would look posted on your website.

4. Staff Blogs. This is becoming a significant issue for hospitals, law firms and universities, since many doctors, legal experts and professors have their own blogs. And while they are independent individuals with opinions, they also must operate within the framework of their institution (not to mention federal laws like HIPPA).

5. You Tube Videos. Be sure you have permission from anyone in your videos and any music or voiceover talent you use in them to be on the Internet (often, organizations create internal videos and the licensing for the music and narrator, as well as the permissions for on-camera appearances have not been cleared for internet use).

6. Facebook Pages. Many organizations are now encouraging staff to post to their FB pages and to show a more personal side. Just think about exactly how personal you really want to be in a work context.

7. Twitter Feeds. Thankfully brief, these should still link back to mission and direct readers to your other brand presences.

Your brand can both benefit from and suffer from our Web 2.0/Blackberry world. Taking the time to think through your electronic brand extensions is now mission-critical.

The board and other supporters are the voice of your nonprofit brand in the community. Properly trained, these volunteers are your marketing secret weapon. But they need tools to become effective and prepared.
Here are four steps you can take to ensure your volunteers are a positive force for your brand.
1. Teach the Message.Board members, donors and programmatic or “field” volunteers should each have an “elevator pitch” for your organization, so named because it should only take about as long as a trip in an elevator. The pitch includes your mission and vision for the world, who you reach, why you care, and what change you are making in your community.
2.Connect the Message. It is also essential that the pitch include the volunteer’s own personal connection to the cause.They should include a personal story or anecdote of why they care so passionately about your organization and cause.
3. Practice the Message.Even experienced staff, volunteers and board members can get off message. That’s because they are so involved in the day-to-day work of the organization. Provide regular opportunities for everyone to practice their brand message and hone it in a friendly atmosphere. I’ve done trainings where board members practice giving the pitch to one another, and you’d be surprised how even the most experienced among them have a hard time getting the pitch down to something under 90 seconds. One pitfall that leads to too lengthy a description, is board members often try to describe “how” rather than “who.”
4. Live the Message. Once they’ve practiced their pitch, volunteers and board members should be encouraged to introduce the nonprofit to people they know, through family, work and play.These individuals may become future donors, volunteers or board leaders.
With these four steps, you are on your way to ensuring your volunteers extend your brand effectively into the communities you serve.

In a recession, successful branding may seem to be a challenge for nonprofits, but there are also opportunities to improve brand awareness.

Brand defines an emotional connection between the entity providing a good or service and the people it wants to reach. Corporations measure the impact of their brand by market share and profits. For nonprofits, the product is change. Successful nonprofit branding communicates the change the organization makes in the world quickly and easily to a multi-layered audience: people in need, donors, volunteers, staff, public policymakers, and the general public.
In difficult financial times, some for-profits will be able to increase market share because advertising costs go down and/or their competitors go out of business.  Nonprofits can also take advantage of the new fiscal playing field to jockey for better position. One tool they can use is social networking sites. These allow nonprofits to magnify their brand power and increase reach for minimal overhead and out-of-pocket costs. For example, an increasing number of nonprofits are creating Facebook group and fan page sites to increase “market share.” Readers/viewers are not just potential donors, but also current and future volunteers–the lifeblood of nonprofit work. Organizations can use traditional online tools (web, email) to drive existing supporters to these pages.  At the same time, they can encourage their “fans” or “members” on the social networking site to spread the word about the mission they care about.  501(c)3’s can also register as a “cause” in order to raise funds. And they can take content originally created for web, print and video and re-purpose it to find new audiences on these sites. You-Tube offers another opportunity for building brand awareness. Video through this web portal can be a powerful tool to tell how a nonprofit is changing lives.
So while the economic times are creating fundraising challenges, nonprofits can and must take advantage of social networks to spread their unique brand of change.