This is part 2 of 3 from our April Roundtable: Leveraging Your Marketing Dollars to Increase Fundraising Success)
Building Your Walls: Marketing Tools
When it comes to creating your marketing tools, it’s important to know your audience. The audience you serve is going to care about different things than your donors care about.  Talk to donors about impact and sustainability, not about your schedule and program details.  You typically can only communicate well with one audience in one piece – everyone tries to create the “one size fits all” and it ends up fitting no one well!
Understand what you want the piece to accomplish when you’re thinking about what to include in the content.  Answer the reporter’s questions: know who, what, and why before you start to create. Consider what someone would need to know in order to do what you want them to do.  Also – start from their perspective, not yours! What is important to you might not matter to the reader.
Know how you’re going to use the tool before you build it.  For example, if you are going to put something in a brochure rack, it must be the right size.  If you are going to mail it, it must fit in a standard envelope.  If you design a square piece, you will pay extra postage.  If you design something that can’t be filed, it will most likely be thrown away.
Carry through the themes of your case. Â You should be able to go through your marketing items with a highlighter and find common language in every piece. Â Don’t reinvent the wheel! Â Once you land on the language and look, keep using it. Â Repetition is an asset, not a liability.
Stay tuned for Decorating The Outside: Building a Cohesive Brand Identity!
Content provided by Julie Hordyk of Mind Over Marketing.
Visit Julie’s website to learn more about ways she can help your organization!