How to Market to your Target Audience

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 53:29 — 73.6MB) | Embed

For those who have heard the podcast already… the subtitle to this article is: “Why your Mother Never Reads your Newsletter”. (It’s an inside joke. You have to listen to the podcast to get it 🙂

If you are working with a small nonprofit, then the chances are part of your job includes “Nonprofit Communications and Marketing”. If you publish a blog, post to facebook or twitter, give presentations, make videos or publish a newsletter then, yes – you are a “Communications Manager”. In this podcast I talk with Kivi Leroux Miller from NonprofitMarketingGuide.com. She is the author of two award winning books, a coach, a consultant and a trainer.

To create a successful communications plan you have to start with a good strategy. There are three core questions you need to ask to help you with your marketing/communication strategy.

Three Core Communications Strategy Questions

Who is your target audience? Demographics is important, but even better is to determine what their values are and how they spend their time.
What is you message to those people? What is your call to action?
How do you get that message to those people?

Learn More about your Audience

Once you have a plan, you need to craft your message. It is important to create content that is relevant to your audience. Kivi suggest “listening in” to social media to learn more about what people are talking about. If possible, do a mini focus group – nothing formal – just a cup of coffee with a few people. Then just asked some questions to find out what is important to them and what their challenges are. You can also try a survey (read this great article – Get better results from surveys). This can give you valuable nuggets of information on what is important to your audience. Once you determine this, it is time to get the message out.

The Three Avenues of Communication

Online – email, social media, newsletters, video
Personal – give presentations, meet in person, call on phone
Advertising: posters, flyers, mailers, adwords, radio

With a better idea of who your audience is it will be easier to develop and deliver your content. So make your plan, target your audience and then produce your content.