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But to do it you’ve
got to tune into their favorite station, “WIFM,”
or What’s In It for Me?
By Alan Siege
In a previous article on branding, I concluded with
the comment that
for branding to be effective, it has to include – even
feature – the concept of “What’s In It
For Me?” (WIFM) for the people you are trying to
reach. This is even more important now with competing
interests creating “noise” that interferes with
your message.
Whether your organization is seeking to expand services or its donor
base, you must carefully position yourself within multiple markets to
manage public perception of your purpose and quality. In some
ways, your mission statement is the starting point, in that it should
describe what the organization does, whom it serves and what makes it
special or unique.
To get to the WIFM, the positioning message should be based on these
five important aspects:
1. Target
markets – To whom is
your message directed?
2. Problem/Solution
– What is
the concern or need of the user and what is your solution?
3. Benefits
– What are all the
various ways your services help your customer or client?
4. Unique
Competitive Advantage or Unique
Value Proposition - What makes your group
or
membership
stand out in a
way the distinguishes your organization?
5. Risk
Reversal – What are you
promising to deliver that reduces the personal risk of
people
joining
your group?
Addressing these five points can also be viewed as the branding
process, which helps organizations to bridge the gap between strategy
and their identity in the marketplace.
1.
Target Markets
Target markets are those people who buy or use your service.
Look at them from demographic and psycho-graphic perspectives --your
clients’ age, sex, income levels, education and
psychographics. Secondarily, how you might describe these
people? For example, are they creative, frugal, athletic,
conservative?
Within the target market, you must know:
- What are they buying or
looking for?
- What are you offering that they need?
- When do they buy or seek it
out?
- Are there certain times of year they are most
active? What influences them to buy?
- Why do they want what you
provide? What makes them actually join/buy/donate?
There’s an old rule that people don’t move or act
until the cost of NOT moving or acting is greater than the cost of
moving or acting.
It’s also important to know:
- To what organizations do
they
belong?
- Where do they network?
- What are their professions?
- What do they do or where
do they go
to advance their careers?
- What do they do for fun,
entertainment or relaxation?
- What do they read?
- How do they like to be
talked
to: in person, phone, and e-mail?
2.
Problem/Solution
This is probably one of the most important parts of any Core Marketing
Message. You must be able to articulate a problem or need
that your target market has and provide a viable, convincing,
compelling solution. Above all, your message must be so clear
that it just grabs people. And it must grab all of your
constituencies, that is, your donors and volunteers, as well as the
people who actually use your organization’s services.
3.
Benefits
The key here is to know the difference between features and
benefits. A feature, for example, might be:
“Our social workers receive their training at the most
prestigious universities in the U.S.” The implied
benefit is: “You will work with gifted therapists who are
compassionate, caring and effective.”
Features are your organization’s characteristics, the
qualities (such as focusing on hiring the best-trained social workers)
that create the benefits for the client or customer. Benefits
are the results of your features. Ultimately, you need to get
results, and results are what really sell. Show people these
results with stories about what happened to a client or customer when
he or she did or experienced the service your group
provides.
4.
Unique Competitive Advantage (UCA) or
Unique Value Proposition
This is what helps all your customers/clients understand how
you’re different and it shows how the difference is a real
benefit to them. You must:
- Tell them your
problem/solution statement
- Explain your approach to
what
your group does or how you do it.
- Describe the kind of
customer
you serve, or the way you provide your service
- Use a special visual
identity
such as a cool brand name or logo
- Tell them about the speed
of
your service
- Offer a great guarantee
- Offer a very attractive
payment policy
A good UCA will:
- Address the
“What’s In It For Me” question
- Clearly identify who the
service/product is for
- Communicate something
competitors are not
- Convey a difference that is
really interesting
- Guarantee a level of
performance
5.
Risk Reversal
When your prospects are considering buying your kind of service, they
have certain concerns or risks they are facing, such as:
- What if it
doesn’t
work?
- What if I look bad?
- What if I lose?
In essence, Risk Reversal means that you give a guarantee.
While some people may wonder how you can give a formal guarantee,
it’s important to be able to stand behind your
service. All groups should be able to say, for example,
“If you work with us in the manner described, there will be a
specific result.” The idea is not to set up an
impossible hurdle; rather it’s to create a statement that
clients can hold onto as a benchmark of what will likely happen if they
work with you. It really serves the purpose of getting your
organization, the service provider, to make your offering very clear
and specific. It doesn’t mean “giving
away the store,” but it can help people make the decision in
your favor.
Now, with all this information, you have the basis for creating an
Ideal Client Profile Chart. Such a chart would describe your
ideal clients demographically and psycho-graphically, followed by what
kind of problems this population has, the solutions your group offers,
followed by where and how to reach them. You would, in
essence, have created your organization’s brand and
determined who – clients, donors, volunteers –
would be best served by it.
Despite some negative associations with branding, non-profit
organizations can greatly benefit from learning and applying this
time-tested tool used by the for-profit sector. Having a
brand does not mean you’ve sold out or abandoned your
vision. Your brand is a fully articulated mission that will
let you stand out with clarity and integrity.
Alan Siege,
MBA, CFRE, has 20 years’ experience in the
non-profit sector with experience in writing grants for human service,
cultural and faith-based organizations. In addition, he
provides business consulting services to small businesses. He
can be reached at 718-768-1672, alan.siege@SBMC.biz,
or visit his web
site, www.SBMC.biz.
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