As published at Philanthropy.com, by Andy Semons and Will Hajjar

It’s a slow but steady evolution: More and more marketers are migrating from companies to nonprofits. But most charities are still far from marketing-centric, and few have board members with expertise in the field. That can make it hard to get buy-in for a bigger marketing budget, and it may require you to defend or justify the cost of your work.

However, if you use data to back up your claims, and speak in terms your trustees understand, you’ll stand a much better chance of getting approval for a bigger investment in marketing and communications.

To help you make a strong case, here are several techniques marketers at nonprofits have employed successfully to win support for budget increases. You can adapt these approaches to fit your organization’s needs.

1. First, drop the marketing jargon. Terms like “brand positioning,” “core benefits,” and “brand imagery” may be unfamiliar to trustees. However, your board members should understand the notion that a higher profile for the institution can lead to more donations. So build your case on this premise ― and use data to demonstrate how money spent on raising your nonprofit’s profile and acquiring new donors will result in more revenue.

2. Figure out how much you need to spend on advertising to get positive results. A good data analyst can use basic metrics about the public’s awareness of your organization, combined with sector-wide spending on advertising and reported revenue, to determine the “breakthrough” cost; that is, the amount of money you should invest to produce a positive return for your organization. This estimate will enable you to set benchmarks and projections for specific time periods, which you can share with your board in your budget forecasts. This analytical rigor is rare among nonprofits, but it provides a level of clarity your trustees will appreciate.

The analyst will need to make a number of assumptions about your key competitors. These considerations include how likely it is that their spending will increase, decrease, or stay the same, along with external market factors (such as issues in the news, the state of the economy, changes to laws, etc.). The relevant factors may differ according to the particular mission of a nonprofit and the market it serves.

You don’t need to spend a lot of money; even small nonprofits can gather data on their competitors, such as the “ad spend” and the revenue raised. Find a data-analytics firm that will work with you to identify, for the purposes of the study, your key competitors and sources of data about them. The Data and Marketing Association offers a list of analytics companies that can help you.

If your organization doesn’t have current “awareness data,” analysts can interview your senior staff to make an educated guess about the relative position of your nonprofit compared with key competitors and help you set some rough benchmarks. Most analytics and advertising firms can access spending data from the research company Kantar Media. You also can purchase, at low cost, data from GuideStar, which tracks donations by organization.

For example, the Leukemia & Lymphoma Society needed to establish a budget for the launch of its campaign “Someday Is Today,” which aimed to increase national awareness of the society by 10 percent and donations by 25 percent.

To estimate the right advertising budget, we used data from Kantar to analyze what the organization and its key competitors were spending. Then, based on awareness data the group had already gathered, our analyst used a forecasting formula to calculate the breakthrough cost, or the amount needed to meet the group’s communications goals of greater awareness and more revenue. While the forecasting model can’t be represented by a simple equation, it does take into account three key variables:

• Awareness, which depends on an organization’s advertising budget and other factors, such as media coverage and endorsements.
• Revenue from all types of donors, which is driven in part by awareness.
• Return on Investment, or the amount of revenue you must raise to exceed the marketing expenses.

Knowing the breakthrough cost allowed us to forecast how spending different amounts on marketing would affect giving. Then, with input from the Leukemia & Lymphoma Society, we developed a budget for the campaign that increased spending on marketing and projected an increase in revenue.

Contributions for that year were nearly double the fundraising goal. The following year the society’s marketing staff got a further increase in its budget, with little resistance from the board.

3. Collect the data you’ll need to build a strong case for your budget. Numbers don’t lie. So it’s important to develop a consistent way to track metrics on brand awareness and perceptions of the brand (known as brand imagery).

Many nonprofits also like to monitor “claimed intent.” This entails comparing the public’s expressed intent to give money to a specific charity with the amount actually donated.

Using both of these metrics increases the accuracy of your forecasts over time and can give you a competitive advantage. Consider this: According to a Stanford Business School survey, 57 percent of charity boards don’t benchmark their groups’ performance against peer organizations. Those that do have a much better idea of what they’ll need to spend in the coming year to boost their revenue.

Before the Leukemia & Lymphoma Society launched its “Someday Is Today” campaign, we helped the group measure a number of factors, including brand awareness in comparison with that of key competitors; intent to donate in the future; and perceptions of the organization as a leader in science and discovery, which is a main theme in the organization’s communications strategy.

We pulled these data points, as well as overall donations, into a performance dashboard, an easy-to-follow spreadsheet that tracked key metrics and was updated twice a year at both the national and regional levels. This information helped the Leukemia & Lymphoma Society understand how to optimize its messages and allocate spending in pivotal markets.

4. Put your own data in the context of your competitors. Tracking data regularly can do much more than provide an ongoing barometer of campaign performance. It can help you make the connection between the amount spent on advertising and the competitive advantage you’ll gain or lose if you alter your spending. That’s the “holy grail” of budget planning.

Take another nonprofit, the City of Hope Medical Center in Los Angeles. After running its “Miracle of Science with Soul” awareness-campaign for several years, the nonprofit reached the highest level of brand recognition among its competitors. Yet, as too often happens, when the center increased its advertising budget, so did its key peers, which led to a decline in awareness of the City of Hope.

The organization wanted to understand, based on its competitors’ behavior, how much it needed to spend the next year to maintain the level of awareness, or better yet, boost it. To do so, we combined the group’s data from three consecutive years with Kantar’s data about spending on advertising by the center’s peers. In particular, we looked at yearly changes in “share of voice”: the amount City of Hope spent on advertising compared with the total spent on advertising by the center and its designated competitors. That provided a longer-term view of the relationship between spending and awareness.

Based on past spending patterns for each competitor, and assessing the market environment, we predicted how much each competitor was likely to spend in the future. Using this data and City of Hope’s expected budget for the next year, we forecast what would happen if the medical center reduced spending by 10 percent, maintained its present budget, or spent 10 percent more.

Because the center’s peers were increasing their investment, we advised City of Hope to do the same to maintain its current level of awareness. We also learned that a boost of 10 percent could yield a 1 to 2 percent increase in awareness. This data gave the center’s executive the information needed to argue for a bigger budget.

Going before your board to ask for more marketing dollars doesn’t have to be an untenable situation. Whether you gather basic metrics or conduct a more rigorous study that ties awareness to greater giving, a little data analysis, combined with a bit of preparation, goes a long way.

Andy Semons is founding and strategic-planning partner at the advertising agency IPNY. Will Hajjar is the global executive director of the management consulting firm Rivelare.

As published in adweek.com

It takes art and science to build social awareness and lift bottom lines.

Over the past decade and particularly as millennials have flexed their buying muscles, marketers have learned the value of being “socially conscious” in attracting and retaining consumers. But as marketers attach themselves to specific causes, it’s worth noting that some have failed spectacularly. Misses can take many forms—from having no apparent relationship with the cause itself to poor implementation or just overall lack of authenticity.

Doing cause marketing well requires a bit of art and a bit of science. And increasingly marketers are seeing that when a campaign is planned, well-executed and nurtured, it does more than build social consciousness; it makes money. Here are a four quick guidelines to create beneficial results for the brand and nonprofit:

1. Make the synergy apparent. The common ground between a for-profit and a cause should appear as more than a random or haphazard decision. Some are easy to understand, like Patagonia and the environment, or Staples and education.

Still others need to be explained. Take for example Häagen-Dazs’ seemingly irrelevant connection between ice cream and honeybees. By explaining that just under half of the Häagen-Dazs flavors are impacted by bee pollination, a clear connection can be made between the brand and the cause of stemming bee colony collapse, resulting in a powerful message that consumers can understand and embrace.

Now contrast that example with a poorly executed one, as when Baker Hughes partnered with Susan G. Komen to raise awareness about breast cancer (and funds for research). Baker Hughes painted 1,000 of its giant drill bits pink for Breast Cancer Awareness Month while it launched 1,000 new fracking projects across the country. Better known as “frack-for-the-cure,” it is an example of “pinkwashing” and a thinly veiled cause initiative done poorly.

2. Take a long-term view. Many successful brands have baked cause marketing right into their DNA and have made it an unwavering component of how they act. There’s nothing new about this—Ronald McDonald House is over 40 years old. AmEx has been linking nonprofit donations to consumer behavior since 1985. And when Procter & Gamble develops brands, it looks for natural ways to extend the brand values into long-term cause-based initiatives. For example, Tide’s Loads of Hope brings clean clothes to areas around the globe that have been devastated by natural disasters. Pampers partners with Unicef to provide vaccines to eradicate neonatal tetanus in 58 countries.

According to P&G’s global marketing and brand building officer Marc Pritchard, building brands that serve a higher purpose produce better business results. Brands like Pampers and Tide have consistently delivered double-digit sales growth.

3. Walk the talk from the inside out. The CMO’s commitment to the cause starts internally by engaging and activating the entire company. By seeking and identifying internal brand ambassadors who are empowered to motivate employee participation, internal adoption is accelerated and becomes just as important as external activation. It’s about taking the same amount of effort and rigor you’d take with any other marketing program.

Employees are a significant component of a successful cause marketing campaign, not just because they may contribute on their own, but because they become evangelists for the cause. This is especially true in retail where a significant majority (70 percent) of U.S. consumers indicated they are more likely to participate in a cause-related purchase/donation if an employee recommends it.

A prime example of this is Kmart’s raising $22 million for St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital in 2014. Despite the fact that Kmart has struggled as a retailer, the initiative was an unparalleled success. And much of this was due to the zeal of Kmart employees. According to Kmart, not only was this “a cause that clearly resonates with our Kmart Shop Your Way members and customers, but Kmart associates were as dedicated as ever, consistently reminding and educating our shoppers about the campaign.”

4. Demonstrate real-world commitment. Creating connections that go beyond just saying you care serves to validate a brand’s commitment to the cause and becomes a publicity treasure trove via social media and other channels.

A great example is Patagonia, which tied its value proposition—making lasting products that are environmentally friendly—to an ad asking customers to reconsider their purchases because continued consumption increases stress on the global environment. Patagonia also created actual events where consumers learned how to fix worn garments, could share their stories on the Worn Wear blog and carved out a section of its Portland, Ore., store to sell second-hand clothing. Not only did consumers keep their clothing longer, but revenue and sales actually increased the following year.

By strategically and thoughtfully aligning a for-profit’s core values with the cause and identifying a correlation between mission and the brand, there are tremendous opportunities to make a long-term impact and build customer loyalty that will likely lead to increased purchasing. Supporting a cause is no longer just a marketing tactic; rather it is becoming a brand attribute.

Our commentary on holiday ads as posted in MediaPost’s MarketingDaily blog.

As 2016 begins, another season of warm and fuzzy ads has ended and we are no longer bombarded by smiling faces, weeping grandparents, holiday sweaters and sleigh bell music. And now that our focus is turning towards the upcoming onslaught of political ads, we’re almost nostalgic for holiday clutter. But we still wonder whether any holiday advertiser truly benefitted from all those ads?

Even the biggest of spenders can get lost in holiday noise. Years of seasonal tracking have shown us that even when marketers spend more during this period, they often get less: lower brand recall, lower advertising awareness, and less retention of key messages. Holiday spending numbers, although indicative of consumer confidence as well as response to advertising, also seem to support these findings. Early reports show that 2015 holiday sales rose only slightly over last year.

Yet not spending during the holiday period isn’t an option, particularly for retailers who need to boost sales, non-profits who rely heavily on charitable contributions or manufacturers of big-ticket items that are “considered decisions.”

It’s not too early to think about how to maximize impact during this coming year’s holiday season. And for 2016 we’d like to see advertisers draw more heavily on the values of their brand. In short, what is said matters as much as how much is spent — all year round.

Here are three suggestions for how to make your sales and fundraising work throughout 2016.

1. Never lose sight of what makes you different. Don’t forget why a consumer would be drawn to you in the first place. Mercedes Benz has always done a wonderful job of combining its heritage of performance and luxury and Santa. And Mercedes brand recall rates, according to Phoenix Marketing International, remain higher than other luxury cars.

2. Give people a compelling reason to engage with you. Compelling, positive proof points can help consumers make a connection and stick with you. TD Bank’s 2014 digital #MakeTodayMatter campaign showcased what 24 people in 24 communities could give back with $30,000, making positive statement for the bank while truly walking the talk of the holiday spirit.

3. Keep your momentum going. For retailers in particular, holidays are an easy time of year to focus on a one-time purchase. But what about reasons to stay engaged? Target’s 2015 “Journey Begins” spot kept consumers coming back during the entire holiday season by depicting an imagination-fueled world filled with Minions, Lego people, ninja turtles, Barbie and Elmo and more. The goodwill built will last well into the coming year.

Here’s to getting it right in 2016.