Social Marketing University Early Registration Ending Wed!

by | Jan 28, 2007 | Blog, Professional Development

Registration for Social Marketing University is in full swing, and so far we have what looks like an amazing group of participants. In case you missed the announcement, it will be in Washington, DC on March 28-30. Just a reminder that the early registration deadline is this Wednesday, January 31st, and you can save $100 off the registration fee by signing up before then.

If you’re a social marketer in the DC area, consider joining us for the Next Generation Social Marketing Seminar on the morning of March 30th. We’ll be talking about how to use some of the newer tools available online to reach your audience.

I would love to see you there!

Social Marketing University Returns!

by | Dec 10, 2006 | Blog, Professional Development

I hope you will consider joining me in Washington DC this March, when I will be offering another Social Marketing University training. This is a great introduction to using social marketing to bring about health and social change.

This time I have expanded it to 2-1/2 days, with the last half-day focusing on Next Generation Social Marketing. If you are a social marketer who already knows the basics and are interested in expanding your bag of tricks to include newer marketing methods using social media and other technologies — many of the things I write about on this blog — you can register just for the last day.

Here’s all the important information:

Social Marketing University
March 28-30, 2007
Cafritz Conference Center
The George Washington University

Next Generation Social Marketing Seminar
March 30, 2007, 8:30 am – 12:00 pm
included in registration for SMU
OR register separately for seminar only

Complete information about the agenda and topics to be covered, hotel reservations, registration fees and what past participants have said can be found on the Social Marketing University information page.

The training is co-sponsored by the Public Health Communication & Marketing Program at the George Washington University School of Public Health and Health Services. Ed Maibach, veteran social marketer and director of the new program, will be speaking at the training, along with other guest speakers to be announced.

If you register before January 31st, you will receive $100 off the regular price. There are also discounts for additional participants coming from the same organization (send your team to be trained!) and a student discount. Seats are limited, so reserve your spot soon.

And, as a special bonus just for my blog readers, use this discount code to get an additional $50 off the registration cost of the full Social Marketing University tuition: SMU50.

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The Secret Code

by | Aug 7, 2006 | Blog, Professional Development

No, it’s not the DaVinci Code.  It’s the code that will get readers of this blog $50 off of the cost of registration for Social Marketing University.  Just enter “SMU50” in the online registration form when it asks for a code and you will get the discount.

If you are planning on registering, keep in mind that the room availability at the UCLA Guest House is guaranteed until August 15th, but after that it is on an as-available basis.  So if you are coming in from out of town and want to stay in the same accommodations as most of the other participants, it would be a good idea to register soon.

I hope you will consider joining us for two content-jammed days devoted to building social marketing knowledge and skills.  I’m looking forward to it!

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The Insider’s Guide to Writing a Winning Proposal

by | Aug 2, 2006 | Blog, Professional Development

I have a secret I’m going to share with you — one that could mean the difference between hundreds of thousands of dollars and zero. I’ve just gotten a glimpse into the other side of the proposal process, and I have learned some very important lessons from it.

As a consultant, a substantial chunk of my time goes to writing proposals to get new business. Quite often, the proposals are in response to a request for proposals (RFP) from a government agency at the Federal, State or local level. Nonprofit organizations also have to spend time on grantwriting to find funding to provide their services.

This week and last, I have been a member of a Federal grant review panel for a Dept. of Health & Human Services agency. This means that I am on a team that reads stacks of grant applications that have been submitted by nonprofits in response to an announcement requesting proposals for funding. I read each proposal and score it according to the evaluation criteria set forth in the announcement, and when the many teams are done reading and scoring, the agency will offer funding to the organizations who scored highest. The difference between those who are funded and those who are not can be a matter of a point or two.

While I’m not allowed to say anything specific about the grant and applications I am reviewing now, I can give you some guidelines I’ve learned in the process that will make the people like me want to give you a high score.

Here then are my insider tips for how to write your proposals to increase your chances of success when responding to an RFP or grant announcement:

  1. Read the RFP and then read it again (and again). Most RFPs that are put out by government agencies are full of details and requirements. Make sure you get both the big picture of what they are asking for and the details of how they want it. Highlight the relevant sections. Make notes to yourself on it. Know the document inside out and backwards before you start to write your proposal.
  2. Choose well. Deciding which RFPs to respond to takes judgment and a willingness to wait for the right fit. Writing a proposal is a time-consuming process, and you should not jump into it without being sure that you have a good chance of being selected. If your organization has an annual operating budget of $100,000, you will probably not be seen as appropriate for receiving a grant of $1.5 million. Likewise, if the RFP requires specific experience or capabilities that you don’t have, you probably won’t be able to fudge that. Knowing your strengths and limitations going in makes it more likely that you will go for projects that are appropriate and thus get funded.
  3. Follow their directions to the word. Most RFPs put out by government agencies (and often those by other organizations as well) include a section that lays out the evaluation criteria that will be used to score the proposals. As a reviewer, I have to measure how closely a given proposal meets the criteria. Therefore, if the RFP requires that you discuss how you will bring in community partners to participate in the project, you’d darn well better talk about that in the proposal. If it says that you need to put a picture of a purple triangle at the bottom of page 28, you’d better do that too, even if you think it’s ridiculous. So often in the proposals I reviewed, they were missing a requirement that could have been met by the inclusion of a single sentence, but because they did not include it, I had to deduct points.
  4. Don’t send the reviewer on a scavenger hunt. Make the structure of the proposal as clear and easy to read as possible. This means following the same structure and order that the RFP used, even if you think it would be more logically presented another way. As I was reviewing a proposal, the closer it was to the sections in the evaluation criteria, the easier it was for me to score. Believe me, you don’t want to make me search through your 60-page proposal to see if you meet all the criteria because if I miss something that’s hidden in a different section, you don’t get the points. I had to get through ten thick proposals that each took several hours to complete so I had no patience for playing hide and seek.
  5. Speak the same language as the RFP. As I said, the RFP required specific points to be discussed in order to meet the evaluation criteria. By presenting your project using the same language as the funder–even if it’s not exactly how you usually talk about your work–you will make sure that you receive the points you deserve. If the RFP says to describe your experience in providing “capacity building,” use that term even if your organization usually calls it “improving nonprofit effectiveness.”
  6. Spell it all out. Agencies purposefully select people from a broad range of backgrounds to act as grant reviewers. Some are experts in the subject matter, but others are brought on because they understand program design or process. When you write your proposal, don’t assume that the person reading it knows the subject well. One proposal I read used the acronym PYD throughout the project description and never defined it; maybe that’s a common abbreviation in that field, but I had no idea what they were talking about. And make sure you write clearly without assuming what you mean is obvious — I may not be able to read between the lines.
  7. Give substance, not fluff. Sometimes a proposal can look good on the first read-through, with bells and whistles, impressive big words, long explanations and fancy charts. But when I compared the proposal against the evaluation criteria, it was completely nonresponsive. They had a lot of information in there, but there was not enough of what they needed to have. The project you are proposing must be substantive and sound, based on fundamental principles of an effective program. Without that, the proposal is just a bunch of hot air. The reviewer will figure that out pretty quickly.
  8. Put up or shut up. If you say you have particular skills and experience, you need to back that up with specifics. You can’t say things like “Our organization has extensive experience in providing such and such a service” without detailing what exactly you did, when and for whom. Pulling claims out of thin air in order to meet the criteria required in the RFP without providing documentation or details will not get you the points. As a reviewer, I have to provide specific reasons–good and bad–why I gave a certain number of points for each criterion, and I can’t use your unsupported claims as evidence.
  9. Partner up or down. Government agencies love seeing partnerships, especially with other community-based or faith-based organizations. It always gets you extra brownie points (or even real, actual points). So, if you can, build partnerships with other organizations that complement your own skills or have access to the audience you need to reach. If you are a large organization, look for partners to augment what you are offering. If you are a small organization, particularly if you have not had the specific experience required in the RFP, you can let a larger partner know about the RFP and offer to be a subcontractor doing the portions of the project that are your specialty.
  10. Read your proposal and then read it again (and again). I know that most proposals are rushed out the door as soon as the final period is typed so you can Fedex it in for the next day’s deadline. I do that too. But if you have time it is critical that you read over what you have written and compare it with the evaluation criteria to make sure you haven’t left anything out. One of the proposals I read had two whole sections missing except for a few sentence fragments. Clearly, the writer meant to go back and fill in that section but either forgot or just didn’t have time. I had to give them a zero for each section. Also, make sure that you don’t have any typos and use correct grammar. Although I couldn’t deduct points for those sorts of errors, they do affect the reviewer’s perception of the competence and capabilities of that organization and may be reflected in other scores.

Being on the other side of the grant review process has been a huge learning opportunity for me, and I have identified some things I will do differently the next time I write a proposal. I hope it’s been helpful for you too. Good luck!

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Social Marketing University – One Week Left for Early Registration!

by | Jul 25, 2006 | Blog, Professional Development

Early registration for Social Marketing University ends in a week!  Don’t miss the $100 discount for registering by July 31st on this two-day content-filled event.  The training is happening on September 18-19 at the UCLA Conference Center in Los Angeles, California.

You should attend if you are:

  • Someone who wants to create health or social change
  • A professional at a nonprofit/NGO, public agency or other organization working on health or social issues
  • A commercial marketer who wants to apply your skills towards changing the world for the better OR
  • A student interested in the field of social marketing.

If your organization has a team of people working on a particular issue, consider sending them together to SMU, and each additional person will receive a discount of $50 off of registration.  We will be focusing on creating a preliminary social marketing strategy for your specific issues, so this would be a great way of kickstarting your program.

To see the training agenda, fees, housing accommodations or to register, go to the Social Marketing University information page.  If you have any questions, please e-mail training@social-marketing.com or call (818) 346-2721.

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Your Handy-Dandy Guide to Social Marketing Books

by | Jul 21, 2006 | Blog, Professional Development, Social Marketing

I’ve just finished reading Katya Andresen‘s new book Robin Hood Marketing: Stealing Corporate Savvy to Sell Just Causes. She sent it to me a while ago but I’ve only been able to read it in 5-10 minute chunks as I could fit it in and finally finished it when I had jury duty this week.  Not that it was hard to get through – in fact, just the opposite, but I wanted to be able to give a thoughtful review to you, my loyal readers.

Robin Hood Marketing is an engaging, well-written introduction to social marketing concepts for nonprofits (though she does not often use the term “social marketing”).  Katya comes from the worlds of both journalism and nonprofit marketing, and this comes through as she obviously knows her audience and craft well.  The book avoids marketing jargon, and she conveys marketing concepts in an easy to understand way.

The strengths of this book lie in her clear writing and extensive use of real-life examples to illustrate the concepts she discusses.  At the end of each chapter, she also includes interviews with people like Bill Novelli (currently head of AARP and a social marketing pioneer), Sharyn Sutton (currently at AIR), Andy Goodman (who wrote Why Bad Ads Happen to Good Causes) and many more.  She also lays out a content summary at the beginning of each chapter and highlights key points in text boxes throughout.

This is not a how-to book, but it should be the first step for nonprofits who want to understand how to apply marketing concepts to their work.  It will give you a good overview of the lens through which you need to filter your messages and materials.  While she mentions research as an important step, there is not much guidance as to how to actually do it (though happily she does refer people to my book!).  Rather than dwelling on the ideal situation, in which a nonprofit would have money to spend on conducting audience research, she accepts the reality that many nonprofits have tiny budgets and have to do with whatever information they are able to get about their audiences, and she works from there.

The Robin Hood metaphor that serves as the foundation of the book, while cute, does get stretched thin in places, with references to Sherwood Forest and arrows and merry men.  And Katya ends up bringing in other heroic metaphors as well (e.g., the Three Musketeers and the Magnificent Seven).  But it was just a minor distraction from the narrative.

Katya’s own “Magnificent Seven” lays out seven principles of a successful marketing campaign:

  1. A campaign should be designed by beginning with the desired actions.
  2. A campaign must CRAM from the perspective of the target audience.  (CRAM refers to how you design a message — it must create a sense of personal Connection, offer a key benefit or Reward, promote an Action and be Memorable).
  3. A campaign must be inescapable.
  4. A campaign should stake out a unique competitive position.
  5. A campaign should be emblematic of the cause and extend the brand.
  6. A campaign must be flexible.
  7. A campaign should be tested many times.

I also found the “five laws of branding” made in the interview with marketing strategist Raphael Bemporad to be useful.  They are:

  1. The Law of the Word – own a word in the mind of your audience that differentiates your organization from all others.
  2. The Law of Focus – identify the one thing you do better than anyone else and focus your brand on that unique value proposition.
  3. The Law of Leadership – be the first to develop a unique approach or service.
  4. The Law of Authenticity – the brand should truly reflect who you are and what you do.
  5. The Law of Consistency – communicate the brand clearly and consistently over time.

Katya sent copies of the book to other bloggers as well, so you can read other reviews by Beth Kanter, Donor Power Blog, Marc Sirkin, and Diva Marketing, and you can also read an excerpt from the book.

And now the promised “Handy-Dandy Guide to Social Marketing Books,” to help you figure out which social marketing book might be right for your needs, since there are now quite a few on the market.  Bear in mind that these are my impressions, some of which were formed from reading these books quite a while ago and might not have necessarily “aged” well.  And of course, you may completely disagree with my personal assessment of a particular book, which is your right.  I do not claim that this is a comprehensive list — it’s just what I happen to have on my own bookshelf.  The links go directly to Amazon.com in case you want to buy any of them.

Robin Hood Marketing: Stealing Corporate Savvy to Sell Just Causes by Katya Andresen
Great introduction for nonprofits and others who want to understand how to apply marketing concepts to their causes.

Marketing Social Change: Changing Behavior to Promote Health, Social Development, and the Environment by Alan Andreasen
In-depth descriptions of what social marketing is, and considerations at each phase of the process.  Somewhat academic, and may be especially good for commercial marketers who are looking to apply their skills to social marketing issues.  I have not yet had a chance to read his newest book, Social Marketing in the 21st Century.

Social Marketing: Improving the Quality of Life by Philip Kotler, Ned Roberto and Nancy Lee
This is an ideal book to use as an undergraduate textbook.  Words are defined, there are issues for discussion at the end of each chapter, it is laid out in a very simple, easy to read format.  The book is also overflowing with pictures, examples and case studies.

Marketing Public Health: Strategies to Promote Social Change by Michael Siegel and Lynne Doner
This might work as a graduate school textbook.  It is somewhat academic and dry, though quite comprehensive, and the small typeface unfortunately does not help with readability.

Hands-On Social Marketing: A Step-by-Step Guide by Nedra Kline Weinreich (yours truly)
This book picks up where I think the other books leave off, providing nonprofits and public agencies  with detailed guidance on how to develop and implement a social marketing program themselves.  The book includes worksheets, resource lists and step-by-step instructions on how to do research, create a strategy and move successfully through each phase of the social marketing process.  (okay, enough self-promotion)

Making Health Communication Programs Work (pdf) by the National Cancer Institute
Known as the “Pink Bible” by those working in health communication, this book is a classic and provides an approach for planning and implementing health communication efforts (though not specifically social marketing).  Because it is a free download–though you definitely get more than you pay for–this book works for those without any marketing budget but who want to learn how to create an effective communication program.

So there you have it.  Let me know if you agree with my descriptions, disagree, have other books to add or have other thoughts.

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