“I just know there is something I’m doing wrong. It doesn’t make sense that we should be struggling to stay afloat in terms of covering our expenses.” – CEO of Non-Profit NGO

The above is a paraphrased version of the words spoken to me by the CEO of a non-profit organisation during a conversation we had sometime ago.

Despite growing successes achieved in terms of value adding impact on attendees of his organisations series of events, it had been a struggle in terms of access to funds to keep the outfit going.

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Tayo Solagbade’s
Performance Improvement IDEAS
(PI Squared) Newsletter

Monday 21st May 2018

NB: This PI Squared newsletter will be published weekly, on Mondays, in place of the Speaking/Web Marketing IDEAS newsletter, starting from today – 15th February 2016. I’m reinventing my Monday newsletter content and theme, to accommodate my vision of serving the growing audience of serious minded individuals and organizations reaching out to me, with information, education. news and research findings designed to help them do what they do better.

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PII 118: You Need a Smart Marketing Action Plan to Attract Quality Sales Leads [Preview of a Smart Web Marketing Action Plan for a REAL LIFE Client]

“I just know there is something I’m doing wrong. It doesn’t make sense that we should be struggling to stay afloat in terms of covering our expenses.”

The above is a paraphrased version of the words spoken to me by the CEO of a non-profit organisation during a conversation we had sometime ago.

Despite growing successes achieved in terms of value adding impact on attendees of his organisations series of events, it had been a struggle in terms of access to funds to keep the outfit going.

So much so that sometimes he had to reach out for help to partners, more often than agreed.

This was not a healthy way to operate, and he knew the cause was that he was NOT generating enough income on his own, to complement what he was getting from donors.

So, our discussion centred on what he could do, to generate reliable income streams to complement donor sources.

My response was that he needed too find ways to monetize the growing follower base his events were generating for him. Many attendees of his outfits various vocational skills training events  eagerly provided their contact details, but he and his team never followed up.

The Peter Drucker quote below perfectly captures the core reason for the problem faced by the NGO i.e. there was little innovation and marketing being done by the CEO and his team…

“Because the purpose of business is to create a customer, the business enterprise has two – and only two – basic functions: marketing and innovation. Marketing and innovation produce results; all the rest are costs. Marketing is the distinguishing, unique function of the business.” – Peter Drucker

The fact that an NGO is not profit making in focus, does not mean it does not need to follow good business practice.

Donors may not always be able to meet up, so the ability to manage funds available and create avenues to generate additional income to complement what exists will be crucial to its long term survival!

Like I told the CEO, many of those who attend the events organised by his outfit, would be interested in getting some information product or other learning resource in PDF, Video or Audio format to study further, so as to build on what they learnt at the event.

Not just that, most of them are likely to show interest in future events, which he and his team could choose to charge a token fee for, and/or offer branded learning products for sale on CD/DVDs etc.

But to succeed with doing any of the above, I made it clear he needed to develop and implement a SMART MARKETING ACTION PLAN.

Among othet things, I told him that publishing clips from the successful out-of-state event he’d just returned from, on Youtube, for instance, would not work, if not done right.

You don’t just go and publish video after video in your channel. Instead, you need to:

1. Come up with a clearly defined Web Marketing Strategy.
2. Based on that strategy, you will develop a step by step Action Plan, to achieve the outcome you want.
3. Next, you implement the Action Plan, while reviewing it based on the results you observe from the market, tweaking where needed, to improve performance.

Now, the above cannot be done by just sticking with Youtube – you will need to use as many channels and platforms as possible, to achieve maximum marketing reach and impact.

Like I told him, even a non-profit organisation will need to operate in this manner, if it is to succeed in generating the kind of results it wants from marketing.

The difference would be that, unlike a profit making outfit, the offers from his non-profit organisation would be made more modest and pocket friendly – and the target audience would be invited, most times, to DONATE or SUPPORT or SPONSOR by buying one or more of the products/services put up.

Below is a screenshot from a Generic Action Plan document I sent out to a Web Marketing client sometime ago.

It shows examples of tasks that will be carried out at regular intervals – AFTER the client’s Web Marketing System has been setup.

That kind of Action Plan is what I will be preparing and implementing for the non-profit organisation in the near future, once the CEO makes payment to take up a special promo offer I made to him.

My purpose is to offer my support by providing my Web Marketing service to help him begin generating useful income to complement what he gets from donors.

Another thing I will be doing is to SHOW him how to use the Web Marketing System I develop for him to DRAMATICALLY cut down the SPENDING he does in running the outfit, especially in terms of marketing. This will reduce the rate at which funds are expended, minimizing chances of cash shortages occurring.

I’ll do this – and MORE – at a token, because I believe in the work he’s doing and I want to be a part of it.

Indeed, I am keen to support organisations and individuals doing work in the area of Vocational Skill based Education (click here to read about my 62 page paper challenging parents, teachers and policy makers to focus more on Vocational Skills Based Education).

Would you like me to support you in the same way?

Click here to send me a message letting me know what you do and how you’d like me to help you.

Click here to learn how you can join my Web Marketing for CEOs club, and get my 1 year Web Marketing Support Service