1) Understanding the Competitive Landscape

While you may believe that your organization is unique – be it your mission, your audience or your model – odds are that it isn’t entirely. With hundreds of thousands of social organizations in the world today, many are addressing similar issues and/or similar audiences. This can cause organizations to jockey for the same dollars and potentially miss out on supporters or opportunities that they need to be successful. It can also cause confusion or apathy amongst stakeholders who can’t seem to decipher the differences or decide what they want to support or engage in.

Getting the “lay of the land” competitively can be as easy as spending a few hours on the Internet, running a few Google searches to find like-minded or “like-missioned” organizations, and creating a spreadsheet or “roadmap” of who’s who.

It can also involve:

• talking with organizations (such as corporations or foundations) that fund your primary “competition,” and learning why they fund them over other similar organizations
• speaking to stakeholders of other similar organizations
• reviewing industry publications and media coverage
• analyzing funding and organizational data using sites like Charity Navigator or GuideStar
• poring over marketing materials and websites to learn how other organizations present themselves to the public.

If you don’t have the time to do this yourself, you might want to consider contracting a research firm to conduct a more thorough analysis of the market, hiring an intern to manage the project, or contacting your local university or business school to engage a team of students or MBAs that can help develop a competitive framework for you at little or no cost.

Ultimately, you want to use competitive research to double back on your own messaging and mission. Are you distinct? Can you clearly differentiate what you are doing vis-à-vis others? Can you be more precise in telling people what you offer and why it’s important?

This type of research is all about positioning and focus. If stakeholders clearly understand your mission, model and operations and see that you are doing something that

• (a) addresses a critical social need
• (b) attacks the social problem in an innovative and strategic way
• (c) uses resources wisely
• (d) has wide-reaching, measurable impact,

you have a much better chance of standing out from the crowd and securing the resources you need to fulfill your mission.

If you are not unique and the ‘market’ is crowded, the painful-yet-true odds are not good you will be around for very long -- or at the very least, you’ll find sustaining your organization may be an ongoing challenge.

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Diana L. Reid, Conscious Communications

Market research is often thought of as a business sector tactic; not typically something useful for non-profits or social ventures.

There are several reasons for this, and chief of these is usually cost (the best research isn’t cheap!). Other reasons for opting out of market research include an organization’s mission-driven focus (and their assumption that they know their constituents well enough already), an emphasis on providing services rather than products (hey, we’re not selling anything, right?), an aversion to anything “marketing,” and lack of people resources to conduct the research. It can also be chalked up to a lack of understanding of (or unwillingness to acknowledge) the competitive landscape surrounding the organization.

While some of the best research can indeed be costly, it doesn’t always have to be. In the long run, understanding your constituents more deeply, assessing the saliency of your mission and your messages, analyzing the latest data on your targeted social issue, and gaining in-depth knowledge of the competitive landscape in your sector (or region) can actually help you earn more money and use it more wisely.

Let’s be clear though; data for the sake of data is bad. However, targeted (qualitative or quantitative) data that helps you make informed decisions about your organization’s strategic direction – and analyze how best to use your limited resources – is good.

Let’s look at a few ways to use research (and how to get it) to your advantage.

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Diana L. Reid, Conscious Communications

Last points:

• Budget
Assign specific costs to each activity, tactic or campaign in your plan.

• Timeline
You may have already included this in the tactics section, but if not, be sure to map out each initiative (start and finish), so that you can assign dollars as well as other resources and prioritize effectively.

Get To It!

Creating a strategic communications plan isn’t rocket science, but can take some time, research and creativity. Integrating communications planning into your annual (or 2, 5, 10 year) strategic planning process can streamline things and ensure you are firing on all cylinders to fulfill your organization’s important social mission.

Get help if you need it – via public relations and strategic communications practitioners, training programs or books, your board of directors or staff members, or web resources (such as here at SocialEdge) – but just be sure to get it done!

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Diana L. Reid, Conscious Communications

Here are the following three sections that should be part of your strategic communications plan:

• Communications Strategies
When we talk about communications strategies we mean how will you meet your communications objectives? What general path(s) will you take – a limited press release or a full blown media blitz? Grass roots activism or national awareness advertising? Direct contact with donors or stakeholders (e.g. via events) or less personal yet wider reaching communications (e.g. newsletters)? Consider scope and scale here, and weigh your strategies against your budget, the requirements of your stakeholders and the timeliness of the issue or announcement.

• Communications Tactics
Now, let’s get down to brass tacks about what you’re actually going to do. This will be the most detailed section of your plan, and should include information on the specific communications vehicles and activities you will utilize. Be precise here and outline what you will do, when, where, who it is designed to reach (and how many) and how much it will cost. The list of communications tools below will give you a potential ‘menu’ of ideas for tactics you may wish to implement.

• Communications Tools and Vehicles
Again, arm yourself with data on how best to reach each audience as that will weigh into your decision of tools to use. Consider also your mission and your story. Does it lends itself especially well to the written word (or require charts and intricate data), or are photos, sound and film important to truly convey the most important details?

Some of the most common communications tools (we will go into more detail on each of these in future posts) include:

• Public Relations – media outreach, press releases, press kits, awards programs, press conferences, speeches, editorials, position papers
• Newsletters – email and/or print
• Your Website and/or Blog
• Advertising – print, radio, TV, web
• Digital Media – documentaries, videos, short film, podcasts, etc.
• Collateral – items such as brochures, flyers, presentations, annual reports, direct mail pieces
• Events – your own events and/or events and conferences that you sponsor or attend. These can also be in-person events or web-based events.
• Celebrity Endorsement &/or Product Placement – using well known personalities to promote your product and/or service or sign-on to your cause, or getting your organization/product/service placed within other media such as film or TV.
• Third-party Websites, Newsletters, Events, Marketing Activities – whether you partner with or receive funding from other social entrepreneurs, foundations, corporations or government groups, be sure to understand and tap into all of their communications efforts for maximum impact (and often low/no cost).

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Diana L. Reid, Conscious Communications.