Why Marketing Failures Often Originate at the Top and How to Fix Them

I hear a lot of different issues from executive leaders. One common theme is: We can’t get traction in our marketing. I vividly remember reading one executive director's succinct goal. She wrote, “This year, I’d like to feel like something in our marketing is working.” 

Many of us have been there. You might be there now. And I often attribute the consistent failure to one of two things — poor marketing leadership or lack of budget. But even after replacing the leader and reallocating the budget, too often we find ourselves in the same losing position. 

Look a little further up the ladder to your own leadership. No matter how dialed in our teams and budgets are, a few foundational items must be in place or failure will continue to happen. As the leader of your organization, you need to equip your marketing team and marketing leader with strategic direction, clear goals and shared documentation before you send them off to do the work. 

1. Have a Strategic Direction 

Any good marketing plan is built on the foundation of the organization’s strategic plan. “Growth” is not a plan. What kind of growth? To what end? Over what time frame? Along with this, we must answer this question, “What’s important now?” You can have big goals to launch many initiatives but without realistic prioritization, you’ll end up doing a lot of work with mediocre results. 

Asking a marketing or communications leader to be successful absent of crystal clear organizational goals is setting them up for failure. I like Paterson StratOp and EOS as strategic planning tools, but any process is better than no process. Nonprofit leadership is hard enough; you need everyone rowing in the same direction. When your board, team and donors are aligned on what matters and where you’re going, amazing things can happen. 

2. Establish Clear Goals 

I love Brene Brown’s term “Paint done.” In other words, tell me what this looks like when it’s successful. We so rarely have those conversations when it comes to marketing. We’re OK with vague goals and direction only to be surprised when we’re not happy with the results. 

I remember when I was a young development director full of ambition at a small nonprofit. We had this dream of launching a community-wide event for both publicity and fundraising purposes. I drew all the courage I could muster to pitch the key event sponsorship to a business that was a friend of the organization. I painted a picture of the event and its impact — all smoke and mirrors at the time, but I believed we could do it. To my shock, he believed it too and said “yes.” I ran back to celebrate with our small team. Later that day I overheard the executive director say, “We would have gotten that money from them anyway in our annual giving.” I was absolutely defeated. 

In hindsight and with my years of experience now, I realize he was right. But I also realize that a clearer strategic plan would have set us all up for success. We were looking for new donor dollars and new sponsors. My passionate efforts were misplaced without a shared game plan. 

Sit down as a team and “paint done” as you’re agreeing on clear metrics. Are we OK with exposure as a goal? Or is it really participation, volunteer sign-ups or donations that we’re seeking? Too many executives lead with an “I’ll know success when I see it” mentality. Set goals, stick to them and celebrate the wins along the way. 

3. Write a Marketing Plan  

Each year following the strategic planning process, a written marketing plan should be put in place. Too many visionary executives have the (constantly changing) plans in their heads and expect their teams just to get it. We must move plans from our visionary brain to logical, executable plans. 

If your marketing planning happens organically in weekly or monthly meetings, you are missing an opportunity to get real traction. Also, let’s be honest, you’re probably driving your team crazy. Let the detail people formalize a plan that aligns with the strategic direction and meets the marketing goals. Some critical elements to include are content and event calendars, brand guidelines and elements, and language, digital marketing budgets and campaigns. Review the plan regularly. Pivoting is OK; planning on the fly is not. 

Sure, you might not have the right leader in place and there’s definitely a chance you need to allocate additional resources. But before you focus on those steps, get the foundations in place to set everyone up for success. I agree with my client: there is nothing better than “feeling like our marketing is working.” And you may be just a few moves away from that in your organization.

The preceding post was provided by an individual unaffiliated with NonProfit PRO. The views expressed within do not directly reflect the thoughts or opinions of NonProfit PRO.