Marketing Today

Sesame Street Celebrates 40th Birthday Starting with the Google Homepage

Sesame Street's40th year brings Big Bird to the Google homepage today.  But, that is just part of the big birthday celebration which really takes place on November 11th and appeals to all of us who grew up with the show.

Created by Children's Television Workshop (CTW), Sesame Streetpremiered on November 10, 1969.  It combined education with entertainment on a television show that was originally developed especially for low-income families to help their children learn and prepare for school.

The show brought us the Muppets and many other lovable characters.  It spawned movies, toys, and games.  It has kept up with the times by introducing new characters like H. Ross Parrot when H. Ross Perot came onto the presidential election scene.  And, has brought the most popular actors and singers onto the show in their prime.  The show has continued to innovate while continuing to make learning fun for kids and the adults who sit down to watch the show with them.
 

What's happening on November 10th?

On November 10th, First Lady, Michelle Obama, will be on the show interacting with some talking vegetables to teach children about good nutrition and staying active.  There will also be a new DVD entitled Sesame Street: 40 Years of Sunny Days for sale as well.  To see a preview of the 40th Anniversary show, head to the Sesame Street website.  And, run a search on Google for the latest Sesame Street news from the media and bloggers.  Happy birthday, Sesame Street!

 

Adopting A Social Media Strategy for Non-Profit Organizations

A recent article entitled "NPOs Slow to Exploit Social Marketing" prompted the board chair of The Art Connection to have me present on social networking at a recent board meeting.  The presentation was well received.  Here's what we learned that we'll begin to apply to our overall marketing strategy:

Web 1.0 v. Web 2.0 - Web 1.0 (think one way) is about consuming information where the content creator controls the content.  Web 2.0 (think two way) is about collaboration where the audience controls the content.

The Internet Has Changed Marketing Forever - prior to the Internet, to get the word out, organizations bought advertising or depended on third party "ink" from the media.  The web provides a tremendous opportunity to promote a message to a niche audience with targeted messages on a small budget.

Adoption of Social Media Is Soaring - According to a study done by the Pew Internet & American Life Project, one third (35%) of American adult Internet users have created a profile on an online social network.  And, contrary to the thinking that "Generation Y" is the net generation, a larger percentage of older generations are now online.

Blogs - are an easy, effective way to get information out into the market.  Search engines love them because they provide fresh content.  Non-profits can publish regular posts on topics like "Where does our staff come from?"  "Who makes up our board and why did they join?"  "Why do people donate to us?"  "Our mission in action."  An editorial calendar where one person or a group of people publish to the blog a minimum of once a week is an effective way to be successful with a blog.

Facebook - is a great site for building a group online and keeping the group informed with regular news, videos, events, discussion boards, and hyperlinks to online areas of interest to your audience.  With the number of Facebook members growing astronomically, you can't afford not to have a presence here.

Twitter - is microblogging that allows you to send a 140-character message made up of text updates or links to video, photos, or articles of interest to your audience.  With the adoption rate of Twitter also growing astronomically, it makes sense to begin to build an audience here.  You just need to understand the medium to be effective.

YouTube - is a place to post online videos.  It's estimated that it could take you 400 years to watch all of the videos posted here.  Non-profits can be successful with YouTube much like 1% for the Planetdid by creating a video that raised some eyebrows that they promoted via e-mail, on their website, and in the non-profit section of YouTube.

LinkedIn - is a professional networking site that allows you to create groups, manage contacts, and ask questions of your network.  With over 38 million users, it's worth taking the time to organize your audience on LinkedIn to build a following here that you regularly communicate with.

Photo Sharing -  sites like Flickr allow you to post photos and it's easy to organize by event, subject, etc.  It's easy to comment on photos, send e-mails when new photos are posted, and have blog-style discussions there.

In summary, advertising,  public relations, and direct mail are becoming less effective as marketing tools.  The Internet makes it possible to communicate directly with your audience at a fraction of the cost.  But, while the social networking tools seem "free", non-profits need to understand that there is a significant time commitment that needs to be understood before adopting a social media strategy and to keep a regular flow of content going back and forth with your audience.

How's your competition marketing in this economic environment?

Last night at 7 p.m. I got a call from Boston's Museum of Fine Arts looking for donations.  The call began "Ms.Gunst, as someone who has donated to The Museum of Fine Arts in the past, we wanted to reach out to you to see if you'd be interested in donating again...."  As I prepare for an marketing meeting this week with The Art Connection, an organization that I'm on the board of, it made me think that we've really got to work extra hard to get funding in this economic environment.  And, to steal a page from the corporate marketing play book, we've got to better understand not just what our "competition" is offering, but how they are marketing to many of the same people that we'll be targeting with our upcoming campaigns and events.

My thinking about the topic and some on-line searching lead me to a great blog written by a woman who wrote the book on non-profit marketing. Katya Andresen does a great job teaching others about how to motivate others to support your cause. 

These days, we can't just expect a white knight to come in and donate to our causes so that we can just keep on doing what we've always been doing, because that's just not going to work.  And, you have to look at what other organizations are doing to tap your base for funding that you're counting on.  To be honest, I haven't donated to the Museum of Fine Arts in over 10 years.  And, then I think I bought an annual membership so that I could get tickets to an opening party for an art exhibit that I was interested in.  Think about it.  If this organization is keeping up a mailing list of donors through the decades and having telemarketers call them at the dinner hour on a Saturday night, what's your competition doing to tap your market for donations that should be going to your organization?