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Archive for the ‘Lessons Learned’ Category

Lesson 4 Credibility of the “the source”

Posted in Integrated Marketing, Lessons Learned, Planning, Public Affairs on April 16, 2010| 3 Comments »

I had the honor this week to moderate a panel on “Public Diplomacy in an Age of New Media” for The Washington Center for Internships and Academic Seminars.  More than 300 students from all over the country attended, and the panel was the best Washington has to offer:

Juan Zarate, former Deputy Assistant to the President and Deputy National Security Adviser for Combating Terrorism; Jared Cohen, member of Secretary of State Clinton’s Policy Planning Staff; David Nassar, Executive Director of the Alliance for Youth Movements; and Helle Dale, Senior Fellow for Pubilc Diplomacy at the Heritage Foundation.

The basic question was how to make America better understood around the world at a time when governments have little credibility as trustworthy communicators.

The challenge for our government is how best to communicate “the fundamental idea of America” and to counter extremist rhetoric when terrorists find it possible to steal the news media agenda even when they fail.  Indeed, the “underwear bomber” at Chistmas failed in his misson but still made headlines that frightened travelers all over the world!

The panel members who were or are now in government argued that empowering third parties outside of government to use new and social media is the best approach. Facebook, Twitter, and cell phones enable groups and indviduals to communicate basic values and ideas interactively.  Thus messages can flow in and out of places like Iran and North Korea, and they have more credibility when the source is not the government.

This fundamental truth about the credibility of “the messenger” has led some of us to yearn again for an organization like the US Information Agency. The USIA, which was eliminated by the Clinton administration, was an agency of government that communicated the “idea of America” around the world, pretty much people to people.  It was independent of the State Department, which was and is still seen as the communicator of the foreign policy of the administration in power. 

“Diplomacy” can be defined as “government to government” communication, and “public diplomacy” can be defined as either government to people OR people to people communication. 

I believe the best way for the US to communicate with maximum credibility around the world is to reinstate a USIA-like organization as the organizer of a more neutral people to people initiative. There are a number of compelling ideas floating around Washington that are public private partnerships, or even private foundations. 

One thing for sure: The credibiity of the source, be it an individual or an organization, either reinforces or totally cancels out the message.

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Lesson 3 Nonprofits and Associations

Posted in Lessons Learned, Planning on April 8, 2010| 1 Comment »

In recent years I have focused my attention mostly on academic institutions. So I am often asked if the lessons I learned will apply to nonprofits and other organizations.

Simply put, integrated marketing is “a way of thinking”  and it certainly will apply to any organization. But it always must be adapted.

In fact, before I focused on colleges and universities I was thinking mostly about other nonprofits.  My first book, Communication Power (1997), is really a strategic communication manuel for nonprofit executives. 

A student of mine is working now with a homeless shelter on the branding of a “social enterprise” project.  The project is a home cleaning service, and the marketing challenge is to demonstrate that these homeless workers will do a professioal job cleaning your home. She is using integrated processes to help the staff clarify a credible brand identity.

In past years I was the volunteer president of both a community theater and a human services agency. Both responded well to a more integrated marketing approach clarifying their competitive differentiation. In the case of the human service agency the challenge was also to clarify sub-brand identities for its many separate services.

As co-chair of the board and marketing chair of the Fort Worth Convention and Visitor’s Bureau we used interactive integrated processes by involving a cross section of the city’s leadership to clarify the city’s brand, Cowboys and Culture.

As chair of the membershp committee of the board of a major higher education association we applied market segementation analysis to set membership objectives and strategies.

Integrated marketing turns mission, vision and values into a differentiated brand identity. This both enhances an organization’s visibility and competitive advantage. It uses group process to get as many people as possible “on the same page,” “telling the same story, “generating a captivating buzz.” Group process is also used to identify market segments, needs and trends, and the best media platforms to converge on specific markets and build relationships.

Each organizaton is different, to be sure. Some have divisions or programs that should be treated as sub-brands, while others have a single cause.  Differing management cultures must be taken into account when designing processes and timeframes.  And some have more roadblocks to change than others.

At present, besides serving my university I am working with a think tank, a higher education association, a citizen-to-citizen internatonal nonprofit, and am also involved in a network of professionals considering new strategies for American public diplomacy. 

Make no mistake, integrated marketing combined with dynamic leadership can transform most any kind of organization.

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Lessons Learned 2 Giving them what they want?

Posted in Integrated Marketing, Internal Politics, Lessons Learned, Planning on April 2, 2010| Leave a Comment »

      Following my first posting there was a comment about faculty members objecting to marketing because they don’t think higher education should be subject to giving students what they want.  I have encountered this objection many times over on campuses, and also with some nonprofits. So I respond here as my second lesson learned.

   When I am called to help address issues related to integrating marketing on a campus the situation often is that a number of academics are raising serious concerns. And I must say as a lifelong academic myself I can empathize with faculty members who are skeptical about basing education content on what students think they need.  Indeed, an experienced faculty member will know better than students what they will need to know to be successful. So its very important to understand that  just giving students what they want is not what educational marketing all about.

      Marketing research indeed asks both students and parents about their perceived needs and expectations.  And what we learn tells us how to make a connection with them.  But that’s it.  The process that follows is much more sophisticated.  Integrated marketing communiation properly carried out exposes students to choices they never knew they would have.  And when they finally arrive on campus the faculty will open a whole new world of ideas and possibilities they never knew existed.

     Public speakers have been told for years that they need to begin a speech by demonstrating that they know what the audience wants and needs. Then the challenge is to craft the balance of the speech so as to lead the audience into new insights and awarenesses. Even the car salesman asks what you expect in a car. He then shows you one that meets those needs but also shows you features you never knew existed.

    Marketing research and analysis then merely provides the point of departure. The faculty must take it from there. This same situation applies to many other organizations. We begin finding out the needs of people and then take them into whole new worlds.

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Lessons Learned

Posted in Leadership, Lessons Learned, Planning on March 22, 2010| 3 Comments »

After spending 40 years in higher education working to help institutions become better understood, I find myself thinking back on the “lessons I learned.”  Most of them were lessons learned the hard way, sometimes wasting years laboring under misconceptions about how things really work, or stifled by my own lack of confidence to find a way to just keep pushing ahead.

So years later, it now has become a passion of mine to find talented marketers, skilled communicators, and high potential institutions, and to help them save as much time and pain as I can. While it’s not advanced rocket science, success in institutional marketing requires a nuanced combination of art and science nudged ahead with a good dose of seasoned experience and savvy.  Join me in the months ahead and I will share what I think I have learned.

Lesson #1

Much of the reluctance to embrace marketing in nonprofit institutions, NGOs, associations, government agencies and universities is based on the misconception that to do so will commercialize the enterprise and turn it into a retail sales organization. And, of course, most professionals in these institutions find this inappropriate to their purposes.

But, much to the contrary, marketing is a way of thinking that enables an organization to align its competitive advantage strengths with changing social needs and trends.  It is a management practice of considering products, programs, their price, their distribution and their communication, simultaneously. It is the assertion that it is impossible to successfully promote a product or program that does not connect to a real need in society, or is not priced appropriately, or is not delivered conveniently. Successful institutional marketing, then, is merely making a genuine connection between the right product or program and a real need in the marketplace.

Most program executives, university administrators, or faculty members who come to see marketing as a way of thinking, rather than as a way of commercializing, are able to understand how this tool can become a powerful way of making the institution better understood, and thus more successful.  My suggestions is to always begin explaining institutional marketing to institutional executives with these words: Marketing is a way of thinking…”

Each week we will identify and discuss more hard learned lessons, and respond to your reactions and ideas. Welcome to our conversation.

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