Welcome to 2010 — a new year and a new decade for us all.  For many in the non-profit community, January 2010 marks a survival celebration of the tough economy we’ve endured, and a time to invest for growth.

The TREW Crew, and others in the non-profit blog community, have put together some resolutions to consider as you plan your marketing investments for the new year.

I resolve to invest time in a sound strategy. Where do I want my organization to be in January 2011?  January 2013?  What do we hope to accomplish?  How will we measure our success?  Does the whole organization know what our strategy is, and are resources aligned to meet our goals?  Time spent in strategic planning pays off exponentially.  By investing time in developing a strategic marketing plan, you have the ability to tie budget dollars to goals, to prioritize initiatives and ensure each individual activity reinforces the next, and to ensure consistent messages are delivered in an integrated manner so the impact of your investment spreads rapidly.

I resolve to establish partnerships. Cultivating partnership can hold many benefits, including increased credibility, exposure to new audiences, and supplementing your limited budget. Co-marketing partnerships can be time-intensive, but once established with goals aligned, they can have a long and powerful win-win contribution to both organizations. Examples of potential partners include major donors or complementary organizations. We recommend choosing a select few potential partners that best align to your organizational goals, dedicating time to understanding each others’ goals and care-abouts, and creating formal, measurable plans with agreed-upon, consistent messages for joint activities.  Sample partnership activities can be as simple as website cross-linking and joint e-mail campaigns to event presentations and co-service offerings.

I resolve to deepen my relationships with top audience segments. The better you understand your audience segments, the more success you will have engaging them with your organization.  We recommend you invest time in analyzing a few prioritized audience segments and building a contact strategy customized to them.  Do this thoroughly, even if it means not getting to all of your segments today.  Conduct research — what do they care about?  What are their triggers for engaging with your organization?  For volunteering or donating?  What method of communication do they prefer?  Use low-cost research methods such as online surveys or social networking to gather data. Then, build a profile from this research and craft messages and a communications strategy appropriate for this audience. You will not only speak more effectively to this audience, but you will use your finite dollars more efficiently.

I resolve to learn more ideas through TREW Marketing Spotlight and these other industry blogs supporting the non-profit community:

• Convio ConnectionCafe
• Tech Soup
• Robert Weiner Blog
• Social Actions Blog
• NTEN Blog
• Mobile Commons
• FI Space
• Everyday Giving
• Donor Power Blog
• Beth’s Blog
• Beaconfire Wire
• A View from Judi Sohn

Need help getting started with your new year’s marketing resolutions? Contact TREW Marketing today.

TREW Marketing is proud to be working with Convio, a supplier of marketing, fundraising, and advocacy tools for cause organizations.  Convio selected TREW Marketing for their deep knowledge and experience in trade show marketing.

TREW marketing also recently participated in Convio’s New Year’s Resolution campaign, where a dozen or so bloggers and many Convio customers, shared their goals for 2009 such as technology adoption, research, and measurement.   The output is an interesting guide and set of blogs.  View our TREW resolutions in the Spotlight blog archive.

We’ve all been watching the news.  Or perhaps trying to escape the news.  These are indeed unprecedented times in our nation’s economy.  At the same time, we fully embrace the optimism that the ringing in of a new year brings.  It might be our glass-half-full nature here at TREW, or maybe we all want to tackle 2009 looking for the (budget-conscious) bright sparks amid the fog.  

Below are a few “bright spark” resolutions that TREW Marketing is sharing with clients in 2009:

Test, measure and act.  With today’s sophisticated e-marketing tools such as Convio’s suite of software for cause organizations, and Google Analytics, just about everything is measurable.  From email open rates and click throughs to web visits and average time on your site, you can quickly decipher whether your audience is interested in what you have to say.  This empowers you to tweak your message, and your marketing spend.  In 2009, you will likely need to scrape for every marketing or fundraising dollar you can, and measuring return on investment is a requirement, not an option.  

Leverage content.  Your editorial calendar may appear to be a simple process-helper, allowing you to efficiently assign tasks and deadlines.  If used properly, it is a powerful tool to forge alignment and efficiency within leadership and across multiple marketing medias.  In 2009, TREW clients such as The Academy of Medicine, Engineering and Science will use their EdCals to leverage the same content on the web, in their e-newsletters, events, and even key constituent meetings.  In 2009, challenge yourself to see how many ways you can leverage the same piece of content.  

Be constituent-centric.  Your constituents may be your employees, your customers, your donors, or your prospects.  One of the most important (and difficult!) tasks of an organization is to determine your segments and then be true to them.  Learn about them.  How often do they want to hear from you, and through what medium?  What type of information do they seek?  How can you meet their needs as efficiently and effectively as possible?  How is success measured?  We are in 2009 and the shotgun approach is, well, 1999.  But your budgets sadly were probably higher in 1999, so TREW Marketing advises customers to choose 1-2 segments and execute a thoughtful strategy with brilliance.  With a bit of help from TREW Marketing, Gemalto North America is doing just this — focusing on their most valuable asset, their employees.  

Innovate.  Have I mentioned that budgets are tight?  Statistics clearly show that constraints lead to innovation.  Challenge yourself and your staff to cut the fat and make room for innovative, low-cost, new ideas.  Utilize social marketing.  Leverage some freeware to move a project forward.  Say no to some legacy activities that are difficult to measure, and find a new, cheaper, measurable activity to replace them.  The Children’s Medical Center of Central Texas is working with TREW to enhance successful, traditional activities including fundraising events, printed newsletters, and print direct marketing campaigns, with email and social marketing that extend the life of their thoughtful content and efforts. 

The 2009 spark awaits us all.  Best of luck with your journey this year, and if you are seeking a few more New Year’s perspectives, I recommend checking out the following cause-centric blogs:

• Tech Soup
• Social Actions Blog
• Nonprofit Technology Exchange Network
• Mobile Commons
• FI Space
• Everyday Giving
• Donor Power Blog
• Convio Connection Cafe
• Beth’s Blog
• Beaconfire Wire
• A View from Judi Sohn

TREW was recently seen attending the Convio Annual Users Conference, where non-profit fundraisers meet to discover marketing trends and new products for CRM.  One of the hottest sessions hosted by YouTube highlighted the many unique, free benefits non-profits can take advantage of, such as extended videos, hosted fund collection, and dedicated channels.  Presenters highlighted how they have successfully built fundraising campaigns around YouTube, such as The Humane Society of the United States, whose video contest voting drove tens of thousands to their website.  Oxfamamerica.org utilized their YouTube presence to stage a day of protest against Starbucks’ alleged exploitation of farmers in third-world countries.