So you and your team have created a marketing plan. It’s nice and shiny.
You’ve worked hard. You’ve outlined your goals, you’ve gathered your materials, and you’re feeling as motivated as ever. Your team is ready to get your name out there, grow your audience, and raise even more money and awareness for your cause.
But then…
A few weeks pass, maybe even a few months…and the traction is gone.
You’re overwhelmed by the sheer volume of the plan, or perhaps you haven’t quite stuck to it like you thought you would. And the things you ARE putting out there are falling flat.
There aren’t many benefits to sow from your efforts, and things aren’t really panning out how you’d hoped. Maybe it feels like you’re spinning your wheels, but things just don’t seem to be working. You’re frustrated and ready to give up. Or maybe you already have!
What are you missing?
In my experience, this is all too common in nonprofit marketing teams. It’s why many of my clients come to me in the first place.
They know they need to up their marketing game and they’ve put time and effort into creating a plan, but somehow still end up stuck scratching their heads about why it isn’t working. They feel like they’ve done the work, but are missing the secret sauce.
Funnily enough, the secret sauce…more often than not…isn’t actually the plan itself at all.
When a client comes to me and says, “We already have a marketing plan, it just isn’t working…can you help us change it?”
I let them know that it’s really more about actualizing your plan, rather than the plan itself.
Whether you’re a small organization that may not have the time, capacity, or in house skills to accomplish everything you’d like to or you’re a large organization that’s trying to do too much too soon and scrapping your plan three months down the road, making sure you think through how your plan will be executed will make all the difference.
Here are a few questions to ask yourself:
- What resources do you have to see this plan come to life?
- What are the people, skills, and budget you need to accomplish these goals?
- Which marketing efforts are going to have the greatest impact?
- How do we prioritize those and throw out the rest?
- What does this plan look like implemented long term?
- How do we keep going when we aren’t seeing results?
Creating a plan is one thing, but putting it into action in an effective and sustainable way is another. Let’s talk about how to do that.
Operationalizing your Nonprofit Marketing Plan
In order for your marketing plan to be worthwhile, you have to execute it well. Here’s a look at how to break down your marketing plan and prioritize the most important things so you can start seeing results.
Assess your internal resources
First things first when breaking down your marketing plan for execution is to get clear on what resources you already have.
Who’s on your team?
What skills do they have?
Do they have time in their schedule to devote to marketing?
Getting very clear and realistic here is essential. I can’t tell you how many nonprofit marketing teams I speak with have big plans and even bigger dreams, but significantly underestimate the amount of time and resources they have available while overestimating the availability in their employees’ work time. Get honest about your capacity – it will help you be more effective and prioritize what is most important.
Find the gaps
Once you’ve gotten honest about the internal resources you have available, highlight the gaps. What other skills do you need to make this happen? Maybe it’s copywriting, or design. Or perhaps it’s someone fully dedicated to social media, or a Fractional CMO to lead the charge.
Once you’ve assessed the need, ask yourself what kind of capacity you need these people to have to fill the gaps. Note whether or not you’d need to hire new employees to make it happen or whether you can work with freelancers, contractors, or agencies. Map out different ways you might fill the holes in your team to complete your vision. And again – be realistic.
Get real about your budget
Most of the clients I work with don’t have a budget in mind for marketing. At the same time, they want to do ALL THE THINGS on the marketing plan. Both can’t be true.
It’s essential for you to have a nonprofit marketing budget that makes sense for the size and stage of your organization, and you need to know what return on investment (ROI) to expect for the money you spend. Setting a realistic budget is an important beginning step to work through before you think through tactics because it gives you a realistic foundation for what you can and should expect and prioritize.
Prioritize your marketing activities
Now that you’ve established a budget, start prioritizing the marketing activities in your plan that are going to be the most useful to you. This means understanding which activities will have the greatest ROI and maximizing the people and skills you already have.
For example, if you don’t have a dedicated person to grow, manage, and maintain your email list and email marketing campaigns, it may not be time to focus on email marketing – yet.
In a 2019 Forbes article on prioritizing your marketing strategy, Forbes Council Member Douglass Karr says, “Understanding how to properly discover, weigh and prioritize your marketing strategy will not only help your marketing meet its full potential; it can also help align all of your resources toward the same goal. With everyone informed, accountable and moving forward, your chances of failure are dramatically reduced.”
Getting your whole team clear on your priorities will do wonders for the effectiveness of your marketing efforts.
Decide what NOT to focus on
An important part of prioritizing your marketing activities and getting clear on how to operationalize your marketing strategy is deciding what your team will NOT focus on.
While this may sound counterintuitive, there are so many bright and shiny tools, strategies, and resources out there that look important and fun but can act as huge distractions for your team if they aren’t aligned with your goals. It’s important to identify them, put them on your no-fly list, and avoid them at all costs.
While some options may seem essential or like “everybody is doing them,” if they aren’t aligned with your specific plan, then ultimately they will get in the way of your team doing the work that will actually move the needle forward. Set them aside so you can move forward.
Get started
Woohoo – it’s time to get started! But that doesn’t mean you’re done with your process – this part takes longer than you might think.
Implementing a new marketing plan means that many people in your organization are doing things they haven’t done before. As with any change, there’s a learning curve for your team. Be patient.
In this stage, it can be helpful to have someone dedicated to making sure the strategy gets off the ground by coaching team members, following up, answering questions when problems arise, and continuing to move things forward. A Fractional CMO may be a great choice for you, if you don’t already have a dedicated marketing lead on your team.
Keep going
This. Part. Is. Critical.
A MAJOR mistake that I see many nonprofit marketing teams make when putting their marketing plan into action is stopping abruptly when things don’t go as expected or when they don’t see results as quickly as they’d like to. Most marketing strategies take time. You won’t always see an immediate payoff.
Consistently implementing your laser focused strategies over time and being patient with results is when you will really begin to reap the benefits and achieve a return on your investment.
This doesn’t mean you can’t make small tweaks here and there, but don’t give up and stop all together. Keep going to see results.
Test and try again
This first phase of implementing your plan is all about testing, seeing what works, and trying again. You can’t look for a slam dunk on every tactic.
Instead, focus on fine tuning your marketing approaches. What seems to be working? Is there anywhere you over or underestimated your capacity? Are there any tweaks that need to be made?
Understanding that the early stages of implementing a new marketing plan are going to have some hiccups is important for not losing steam and quitting all together.
Measure results
Creating and implementing a marketing plan takes a lot of time, effort, and resources. This is why it’s so important to measure your results.
If you aren’t paying attention to what’s working and what isn’t, then there’s no way to know if all of your effort was with it, and it becomes much easier to abandon the plan.
When operationalizing your marketing plan, it’s important to build a dashboard to help you assess your progress and identify risks and opportunities for moving forward. It will also help you see slow growth that you may not notice without highlighting specific measurements over time.
Revisit, readjust, and revamp
You did it! Your marketing plan is off the ground and moving forward. What’s important now is to revisit every six months or so to make sure you are en route to where you want to be.
Take some intentional time with your team to review your efforts, make tweaks and adjustments where necessary, and set new priorities if you have them.
Your marketing plan should change and grow as your organization changes and grows. By scheduling a check in every 6 months, you can be sure your marketing efforts will continue to match your direction and goals rather than become outdated and forgotten.
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Need help walking through the steps of operationalizing your marketing plan? Wayward Kind can help. We offer guidance and practical support in a Fractional CMO capacity to help purpose driven organizations thrive.
Contact us to find out how we can work together to reach your goals!
