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Thinking Like a Marketer to Promote Social Change - What is Your Sales Strategy, Part 1

This is going to be the first of a series of articles on how to sell social change by adopting some of the ideas and practices of an advertiser. If you want to sell social change of any kind, you are a marketer and can benefit from using some of the tools companies use to market themselves.

Evaluating the Marketplace:

How many people are open to going vegan, ditching their cars for mass transit, or donating money for an anti-poverty program in the city?

What types of people are there who might appreciate your message and how do you connect with them. Your program goal is to convert people into vegans. These are some questions you need to ask:
  • What types of people might be interested, and what are their interests? 
  • What challenges in their lives might make them resistant to going vegan? 
  • What misconceptions do they have? 
  • How much do they know about the vegan lifestyle?
  • What values do they have that are relevant? 
Perhaps they think they'll have to live on boring food or that they won't get enough calories. If you want to get people to stop consuming animal products you have to clear up those misconceptions.

THINK ABOUT IT: What concerns or challenges does your audience face? 

Match Message to Customer:

Marketers sometimes engage in market segmentation, which basically means dividing the market into segments based on differences in their perspectives and needs. A company that provides training in project management might divide the market into individuals looking for training in specific topics like risk management, individuals seeking Project Management Professional certification, and senior managers who select training vendors. 

Like those three potential customers for project management training, your audience will have different types of customers. You have to figure out who they are, what they want or need, and how to reach them. If you have this information, you can reach different people and satisfy their demands. If you want to sell people on "going vegan" what market segments are there, and how will you reach them?

THINK ABOUT IT: How can you segment that market to create the right messages and put them out in the right way?

The Need = Demand Fallacy:

Make sure there is a demand for your idea or, if you are really determined, figure out how to create enough demand to make your program viable. For most nonprofits, it makes sense to focus on what your constituents know they need. Generating demand is an advanced topic, so we'll hold off on that for now.

You can't assume because there is a problem and you can solve it, there will be a demand for your program. This has been called the "build it and they will come" fallacy. There are three guidelines that can help you avoid sinking tons of time and money into something no one wants:
  1. Don't start a program unless you know there are enough people who need it.
  2. Make sure you have the resources to create the demand for your program before you launch it. 
  3. Keep the idea, but look for a new way to use it. 
Start by learning what people say they want or need. This may indicate your great social marketing idea, actually isn't a great social marketing idea. What you learn may even inspire a better idea that you can "sell."

Monitor Progress:

Everyone in the business world knows to monitor their return-on-investment, and some nonprofits do this. Many organizations have to track and report on their performance to fulfill the terms of the grant. Whether required or not though, you need to know how many people you are reaching with your message. How many are signing up for your newsletter, signing that petition you emailed them about, pledging to honor "Meatless Mondays" or whatever?



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