Are You a “Fingers Crossed” Marketer?

The Seven Types of Marketers

What kind of marketer are you? Are you a “hopeful” marketer? The kind of person whose entire marketing strategy consists of crossing your fingers, sending out an occasional mailer and hoping you get a few responses?

Well, I hope this post shows you the error of your ways.

We’ve identified seven different types of marketers — one for every day of the week — who work at nonprofits large and small all over the country. But only one type of marketer enjoys consistent, positive results for their efforts. Read on to find out who it is.

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The Fingers Crossed Marketer

This marketer believes success happens by luck — and they believe luck happens by chance. They don’t believe in keeping updated donor records, visiting, or calling donors, or spending time working on people skills. They think that a “millionaire donor” is just around the corner, waiting to solve all their problems.

Sometimes they get lucky and pull off a successful campaign, or they persuade a prospect to make a generous bequest. But The Fingers Crossed Marketer spends most of their time spinning their wheels, looking for a quick fix, and hoping the next mailing makes the phones ring.

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The Scared Marketer

“No! You can’t send that!” the scared marketer screams, snatching that slightly edgy mailing from your hands and quickly feeding it into the closest paper shredder. “You might offend someone!”

The scared marketer is constantly worried she’s going to upset a donor or prospect. She refuses to consider anything that’s not bland, boring, blasé, or vanilla. She does everything by committee, getting as many opinions as possible (and pulling the plug on the entire project if even one of those opinions is slightly unfavorable).

In the end, she takes months to create a vanilla, forgettable mailing that’s about as exciting to read as paint is to watch dry. Most of the recipients will drop it into the recycling bin, not even giving it a second glance. When the campaign ends without coming close to the goal, she’ll say, “Well, at least we played it safe.”

What she doesn’t know is that edgy gets noticed — and getting noticed is what brings in donations. Even if the recipient is offended, the ones who care the most (and who, therefore, are most likely to give) will contact you to voice their displeasure, giving you an opportunity to present your pitch in a more appealing manner.

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The Doubting Thomas Marketer

This is the guy who always finds some way to say, “We spend too much on marketing!” at every staff meeting. He doubts a direct-mail campaign will work, so he puts as little effort into it as possible. He doubts a flier is effective, so he doesn’t bother to send one.

He doesn’t take the time to target the mailing by going through your list of donors and finding those who’ve consistently contributed for the last 10 years. He doesn’t refine messages by age, or interest, or gender. He doesn’t bother to hand-write addresses or send anything first-class, instead opting for bulk mail, printed addresses, and Post Office-stamped postage (rather than a real stamp).

And then, when the ROI numbers come in even lower than expected, he says, “SEE! I told you so!”

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The Reluctant Marketer

Like The Doubting Thomas Marketer, above, The Reluctant Marketer doesn’t see much use for marketing, either.

He figures prospects will be able to magically find his nonprofit’s brand new planned giving website, all by themselves. He believes that people who care enough about his nonprofit’s cause will seek his organization out and fill its coffers with money — all without being asked!

The Reluctant Marketer worries that prospects and donors will be annoyed or offended if his organization sends out “too many” direct mail appeals or materials that explain planned gifts.

The Reluctant Marketer doesn’t understand that the more marketing touches he sends out, the better.

And he definitely doesn’t understand that big, successful nonprofits send out all different kinds of marketing materials constantly, without worrying that they’re annoying prospects, because consistency counts.

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The Surprised Marketer

Surprised Marketers have two default reactions: Surprise when a direct mail campaign works, and surprise when it doesn’t.

The Surprised Marketer has no concept of their target audience. They have only a general idea of how to run a campaign. They know you have to send out fliers and postcards, but aren’t sure when to send what, or to whom. They usually take a shotgun approach — firing off a bunch of stuff a few times a year at random and hoping something hits their target audience (if they even have one) directly in the wallet.

The surprised marketer doesn’t know that random acts of marketing are useless. They don’t understand that the key to success is consistency.

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The Puzzled Marketer

The Puzzled Marketer doesn’t understand why or how marketing works. They don’t keep track of analytics — and as a result, don’t know why the April-June campaign was a moderate success, but the August-October campaign was a complete flop.

They don’t know the difference between e-mail and direct-mail marketing. They wouldn’t know a call to action if it hit them in the face. The Puzzled Marketer’s default response is, “I dunno.”

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The Successful Marketer

The Successful Marketer knows that consistency counts. They comprehend that the more touches you send to your prospects, the better.

The Successful Marketer understands that they need to know their audience before talking with them. And they know that any information they need shouldn’t be hard to find — if it’s not already in their database, sending out a short survey will go a long way toward getting the answers.

In short, The Successful Marketer understands that regularly sending out edgy, targeted direct mail campaigns — combined with stewardship efforts, SEO strategies to bring prospects to their website, and top-notch people skills — is the best way to raise awareness of their mission and build their endowment.

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Everything else is just
Hopeful Marketing.