Selling Socks

May 28, 2014      Admin

In a recent Fundraising Success post, Angie Moore asked: “Are you marketing and raising funds the right way for today’s donors?”

She went on to discuss ‘outward-focused’ and ‘inward-focused’ marketing, using these definitions:

  • Outward-focused: This type of marketing and sales is focused primarily on identifying the needs of the customers and matching the products and services to the consumer need. This doesn’t mean that companies follow customer needs into areas that are not primary focus areas for them — but it means they build the features and benefits of their key products around meeting the needs and solving the challenges of their key customer bases.
  • Inward-focused: This type of marketing and sales is focused on what the company believes is its best product and what it can do/serve/produce in the way of customer benefits. In some ways, you could call this type of marketing focused on the company and what the company wants and thinks versus the customer.

Others in the fundraising biz use the term ‘donor centric’ to describe the ‘outward-focused’ approach.

Angie’s concerned — rightly, I think — that too many nonprofits are inward-focused and thus simply ‘present themselves’ to donors — here we are … please like us. She gives a ‘selling socks’ example to illustrate her point.

Here’s my version of the distinction.

Outward-focused: “Customers like you have told us they want socks that feel super-cushiony and have heels that last forever. So we make those. Would you like to wear some?”

Inward-focused: “We work hard to make blue, red and black socks. What color would you like to buy?”

Are your fundraising messages touting the socks you have to sell, or are they selling the socks your donor needs? Simply put, are you aligning your offer with your donor’s needs?

Angie winds up with some good questions to ask in reviewing your donor communications:

  1. “How much of the focus is centered on what the organization does and how the organization measures progress?
  2. How much of your focus is centered on how your donor benefits from being involved with you?
  3. How much of your focus is on helping your donor understand his/her involvement and his/her part of the greater picture (versus telling donors how they can help the organization)?
  4. How much of your overall strategy is focused on the profiles of your donors — are you marketing to your donors through their eyes or just marketing about your organization?
  5. How much of your overall strategy is focused on recognizing the strength of the relationship the donor already has with your organization BEFORE you simply ask for more?”

I’ll take the cushiony socks with the indestructible heels, please.

Tom

5 responses to “Selling Socks”

  1. Tom Ahern says:
    May 28, 2014 at 4:03 am

    When given an organization’s work to audit, I’ve learned to lean on two simple labels: (1) ABOUT US and (2) ABOUT THE DONOR. I go, for instance, to the NGO’s home page and quickly label (1) everything that’s about how wonderful the organization is and (2) everything that’s about how wonderful the donor is. What I typically find is that there is a HUGE imbalance. There have been as many as 15 ABOUT US labels on that home page to every one ABOUT THE DONOR label. A 15-to-1 ratio is NOT donor-centered, obviously. Literally seeing the problem (that’s what the labels are for) is the first step toward correcting the problem. By the way, THANKS Angie and Tom. The Agitator is always worth the read.

  2. Greg Warner says:
    May 28, 2014 at 6:52 am

    The point is a good one but choosing words like “inward-focused” and “outward-focused” is sure to confuse marketers/fundraisers these days because there’s so much talk about “inbound” and “outbound” marketing. Inbound marketing attracts people to causes, products or services. Outbound marketing interrupts people.

    Most fundraisers use outbound marketing too often (such as telemarketing, mass junk mail, and email spam).

    Here’s a graphic that explains what I mean: http://imarketsmart.com/smartideas/2014/05/interrupting-donors-engaging/

  3. Mary Cahalane says:
    May 28, 2014 at 12:29 pm

    Tom, it’s funny you say that. I got a piece in the mail yesterday, and the first thing I did was grab a pen and circle all the “we” “our” “Organization XZY” and put a square around the “you”. (You’ve taught me that over the years of reading, thank you very much!).

    The difference was pretty sad. 2 “your” – both preceding “gift”. 11 references to themselves. And this was a quickie, reminder mail.

    It’s the difference between the guy who talks about himself all night, trying to impress his date. Versus the one who says very little, but listens a lot. Who’s getting the second date?

  4. Gary Bukowski says:
    May 29, 2014 at 1:18 am

    Received a Annual Fund letter in the mail the other day and it was “infographic driven”and it was so much “About Us” and not “About The Donor”I couldn’t believe it.
    They talked about their accomplishments and felt from reading this piece they had no idea that they should be appealing to the donor and not giving me a running score of what they thought were important accomplishments.

    It was a real turn off..I will take the cushy socks as well!!
    Thanks Angie and Tom

  5. Harry Lynch says:
    May 29, 2014 at 4:50 pm

    Completely off topic, but I think you’d both appreciate this blog post that I just stumbled across (actually, a colleague Tweeted it out). If you haven’t already seen it, check it out. Down to earth and wise.

    My favorite quote is, “Not long ago, the best way to get young people to donate was to wait thirty years.”

    http://bit.ly/1jxOO3W

    P.S. I didn’t see an Agitator post today. Everything OK?

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