From the daily archives: Friday, March 12, 2010
Any strategy starts with setting an objective. Typically there are two – short-term, which is profit, and long-term â?? market share gains. Even though in the case of non profit organizations the distinction between the two may be less clear than in the case of a for profit, the approach in analysis of the appropriate marketing strategy would be the same. Just like with for profit organizations, for non profit you will need to look and analyze its customers and the product or service the business offers to them.
Letâ??s use an example of a community college art theater.
Objective. Its main goal of the theater may be to provide maximum art exposure to the community. It has certain constraints, such as the number of performances it can produce, seating capacity, etc.
Customers. These could be families from the neighboring communities, students, faculty, performers, alumni, etc. as well as donors. The latter expect a returnâ?? a feeling of satisfaction, assurance of a good use of the money they contribute, or time and effort dedicated to supporting the theaterâ??s operations.
Just like with the for profit business, it is imperative to segment the customers appropriately. Typically, the customer segmentation is done on the basis of the following:
Students vs. nonstudents Age group Gender Affiliation w/ the college (students, former students, alumni) Geography Existing/current vs. new customers Interested in arts (familiar with it), and those not interested Products the customers are looking for â?? dance, song, opera, etc. How the purchase decision made â?? planned or impulse Willingness to pay/disposable income Educational level Benefits/needs Price sensitivity
Remember that mass advertising is almost always ineffective. The more targeted you are the, the better it is.
Marketing Strategy. Here we need to determine what message to develop. For instance, think if your new customers can bring friends? If so, adjust your message to take advantage of that possibility. Messages have to be targeted to individual segments of your customers and cater to their needs.
Value/Benefit. The key benefits the theater provides is arts education, entertainment, feeling of happiness, opportunity to socialize, an â??image of an art lover,â?? an opportunity to support the school, particularly for alumni. Just like in the case of a for profit company, we determine the value proposition of a non profit by asking ourselves a question: â??What do the customers really want?â?
Competitors. These would include other similar theaters, as well as other entertainment/art organizations, such as museums, art galleries, live events, etc.
Strategic alignment. Long-term alignment of all the constituencies within the non profit is also important. In the case of a for profit organization, in the long run owners or investors, employees and managers are almost always aligned. There may be differences in opinion about the short-term vs. long-term strategy and how the need for profitability in the short-run should be balanced against gaining market share. However, longer-term it is all about contrition to the mission of the company and creation of wealth. Misalignment on this dimension is almost certain to lead to a dysfunctional organization destined to failure.
In the case of non profit business, such alignment sometimes difficult to reach. Sometimes it is because it is not always easy to determine who is the â??real boss.â?? Whoever pays the bills could be one. However, itâ??s more somebody whose opinion, preference and interests count the most. Nonetheless, the questions that is more frequently is being asked is â??Is is okay for such organizations to continue to lose money?â? The answer is increasingly becoming â??no.â?? More and more of the constituencies within non profits are saying â??enough is enough.â? They are increasingly asking to get to a break-even point as a minimum. Those that do not are failing because competition in the non profit world is increasing.
Just like a for profit, the non profit organization must think about its objective, customers, benefits it offers, market strategy and competition. It is also increasingly becoming important to reach alignment with the key constituencies within such organizations. This can be accomplished by going through the checklist we have just discussed.
Bill and Joann Truby, are authors, consultants and speakers, who are focused on helping individuals achieve personal fulfillment and organizations increase their performance. They are the founders of Truby Achievements: http://www.trubyachievements.com
This is my assignment…
Students are to search the internet for a critical article on how SF literature and/or film has portrayed women and how women in SF are more or less free, whether they have more or less power, and whether their relationships are better or worse than in “real life.”
Can you help me find a good article?
Writing ebooks is one of the best ways to generate a massive income from home. Ebook marketing is one of the best businesses online because of its low overheads and high profit potential. It has enabled many people to quit their jobs and make a substantial income online. However, ebook writing does pose its challenges. Do you want to join the party who are profiting from the Internet? If so, here is your 4-step plan to writing ebooks fast:
1. The first step is to work on your writing know-how. You have got to be able to write short articles, for instance, before you progress to writing ebooks. If you are able to write short articles quickly, then writing ebooks, although it is a greater challenge, will be more realistic for you. I would recommend writing a few articles everyday first to get a hang of your own writing style.
2. Create your outline for your ebook. This is an easy way to organize your ebook writing process. Before you start out writing your ebook, you will want to list out all the topics you will want to write about, preferably in chronological order. You can write out your contents page first before you write your ebook – write out the chapter titles and the sub-topics in each chapter.
3. Set a writing schedule for completing your ebook. For instance, you can spend an hour writing it everyday. In no time, your work will be finished. Set a launch date before hand, so you will know how much work you will have to put in daily or weekly to complete it.
4. Proofread your ebook from beginning to end to ensure there are no spelling, factual or grammatical errors. When you are writing your ebook, though, you don’t want to pay too much attention to these, as they will slow down your writing. Do your proofreading after you finished your first draft.
Fabian Tan is a well-known Internet
Marketing expert and the author of the popular 59-page Report:
“Murder Your Job: How To Build Cash Sucking Autopilot Businesses In 30
Days Or Less!”
Head over to http://www.MurderYourJob.com
to get your FREE copy now!
Also, quickly download his FREE & quot;Explosive Traffic System” report that
shows you how to generate 10,000+ unique visitors per month at no cost! => http://www.ExplosiveTrafficSystem.com
I want to read my class an interesting novel that describes the times in the great depression but isn’t completely depressing/sad, or at least has a happy ending. I teach 5th grade.
Tagged with: about • around • Books • Depression • fiction • good • grade • great • Historical • Time
Donations are the life blood of any successful non profit organization. In fact, fundraising for non profit success is one of the most time consuming but necessary activities of a non profit today.
If a non profit group doesn’t have someone full time who can help them with their fundraising efforts, they must look to the community volunteers for help or face dissolution.
For many, fundraising for non profit success can seem like a daunting task, especially in the current economic climate. However, with just these few bits of knowledge up your sleeve, you can see success without much stress.
· Potential donors are more likely to donate if they feel you are speaking directly to them. If you don’t know anything about your potential donors, there’s a big chance your message is going to go right over their heads. But if you know them and what they like, your message will most likely be spot on.
· Potential donors are more likely to donate if you meet them where their money is. When you ask for donations at a festival or carnival, you’re more likely to receive money because your potential donors already have their wallets out. The same is true if you ask them to support you through social shopping and online affiliate networks. If they’re already shopping online, they have nothing to lose by shopping through your affiliate portal to help you earn money.
· Potential donors are more likely to help you if they don’t have to do anything. Many donors are happy to sign a check when they don’t have to volunteer or make crafts to help out. This also lends credibility back to online fundraising-they needn’t do anything different or give you any money…all they have to is shop.
Remember, fundraising for non profit success is all about the donors. It’s the money that’s all about the charity.
For more ideas check out Non-Profit Fundraising Ideas.
This article was brought to you by Blastoff Network
Job searching campaign shares a lot of similarity with sales marketing campaign; the job applicant act as the product to sell, and your resume act as the salesman to promote you to your potential employer. The one and only objective of writing a resume is not to get the job, but to get an interview. Having a solid and effective resume will greatly enhance your chance of getting to a job interview and hence to get your dream job. Resume is a self-promotional document, an advertisement about yourself to promote yourself to potential employers, showing them that you are the best to suit the job they offer among all other your competitors.
There is a lot of information on how to write job resume available in the internet which contains lots of tips in writing resume, but there are a few really important points that I would like to emphasize.
1) Know your resume purpose: Every resume serve the same purpose, which is to get a job interview. That’s the one and only purpose of a resume. You must keep in mind that the one reading your resume will be your potential employer, and for a job post on average there are 300 competitors fighting to get the job. That means employer has to read at least 300 resumes, and to “stand up” among your competitors, your resume must be simple and straight to the point. Some people treat resume as composition about themselves, which makes their resume a really long and boring. The employer has no time to read through, so try to be as simple and as straight forward in your resume. Show your potential employer what you want them to know, what is your strength and what makes you so suit for the job and then wait for your interview.
2) Choose the right keywords: Due to the overwhelming numbers of response for each job post, nowadays companies tends to use certain keyword filtering software and only will read resumes that contain certain specific keywords. If your resume doesn’t contain such related keywords to the job you apply for, your resume doesn’t even have a chance to get read, which means that you are out before the “game” actually starts. Normally the keywords will be nouns, and it will appear in the job ads where they specify what are they expecting for. Spot the keywords in their job descriptive and include it into your resume.
3) Avoid negativity: Please try to avoid any and all information that might sound negative for the employer. This is very important in both resume and when you attend interview. Please do not complain on how bad is your previous company, or any of your weakness (skill and attitude). You might think that that is only a minor weakness, but as your employer has lots of other choices (other applicants) your weakness might be your losing point.
There are lots of simple, minor but important things in writing resume that you might not know. Please find out more at my website on how to write job resume.
I am Javier Hiltz, an HR Consulting in Cambridge, Massachusetts (USA). Your resume is your first and maybe only chance to make a good impression on your potential new employer. Please do read all my lens for information on how to write a perfect resume which 100% will attract employers to read.
Are you looking to publish an ebook but just don’t know where to start? Do you feel frustrated that you can’t write your ebook even if you want to? Then this article is for you. I’m going to hand you 4 quick tips for churning out an ebook that produces a daily income for you:
1. Use a keyword research tool to quickly search out profitable in-demand topics that you can write your ebook about. The tools I personally use for this method are Wordtracker and Google’s very own Keyword Suggestion Tool. These two tools are the top in the industry right now.
2. Spend time researching the topic you are writing about. There are a few ways to go about researching your topic: you can borrow books, read online articles, visit forums or buy ebooks in that market. All these ways are great ways for learning more about your niche topic.
3. Write out an outline before you write your ebook. This gives you an idea of how your finished product will look like, and it also lends organization to your product creation process. Breaking down the whole project into little sections makes the project look a lot less overwhelming.
4. Failing all these ebook writing tactics, you can always hire a ghostwriter to write your ebook for you for a few hundred dollars! If you have finished writing your ebook, you can also get a freelance proofreader to look through your content to look for errors.
Hope you gained some valuable ideas to crank out ebooks quick!
Fabian Tan is a well-known Internet
Marketing expert and the author of the popular 59-page Report:
“Murder Your Job: How To Build Cash Sucking Autopilot Businesses In 30
Days Or Less!”
Head over to http://www.MurderYourJob.com
to get your FREE copy now!
Also, quickly download his FREE & quot;Explosive Traffic System” report that
shows you how to generate 10,000+ unique visitors per month at no cost! => http://www.ExplosiveTrafficSystem.com
The need for your non profit is probably not self-evident to funders and readers of your business plan. Unless your organization exists to serve a need that erupted very recently, it is likely that other potential solutions for the need are in existence and currently functioning with some level of success.
Competitors in the Non Profit World
For a for profit, businesses that try to serve the same market need for products or services are considered competitors. They are studied, eyed warily, and finally fought in the marketplace for the same customers. This makes sense, as customers are either spending their money on your business or on your competitors, but not both.
For a non profit, you should not look at other organizations serving the same need with the same competitive mindset necessarily. If you do think this way, and succeed only in serving those who were previously served by another non profit organization, funders who look carefully will see that you produced zero net good for society. Actually, you have probably actually produced a net loss for society, as two organizations are now spending money fighting to serve the same individuals. This creates a situation where donors are putting in $2 to serve a need that previously cost $1 to serve.
Showing the Opportunity
Non profit founders need to look carefully at the other organizations serving the same professed need and consider if their non profit can do better. If you believe you can, you need to not only explain how, but to show why the current organizations cannot be improved to do so themselves. After showing that they are “broken” in some sense and that the only answer is to start over with your organization, you have proved a reason for your non profit’s existence.
Alternately, you can show that existing organizations either do not have the capacity to serve the social need because of their limited size or scope, or that the level of need will soon rise beyond what can be handled by the current organizations. In either of these situations, you’ve shown that there is a clear opportunity for your non profit to step in and serve that overflow without being redundant.
Are you looking for more advice on starting a non-profit or developing your nonprofit business plan Call 877-BIZ-PLAN to learn how Growthink can help you build your non-profit organization.
Aliens vs. Predator,â? the epic movie crossover battle nobody wanted to see in the first place, is back for a second time. This movie is directed by Colin and Greg Strause, who determined to make a thrilling movie. If you are looking for an upside to the current writersâ?? strike, take relief in the fact that it could only delay the expected â??Alien vs. Predator 3.â?
â??Aliens vs. Predator: Requiemâ? starts as a Predatorâ??s spaceship collapses into a quaint Colorado town due to an attack by stowaway Alien face-huggers. The Aliens infect the Predator resulting in a grotesque Alien/Predator hybrid monster that terrifies the simple country folk of the small mountain town. On top of Aliens running wild throughout the town, another Predator has raveled from â??Predator-villeâ? to take revenge of the death of his comrade. Who knew the Predators lived by a stringent code of honor. This proves that the Predator character has more depth than any of the horribly acted human characters.
For a film with the word â??versusâ? in the title, there is a probability of intense action that would start in the very first scene and never let up. The first half of the movie is almost wasted in establishing clichéd characters whose names were so unique that you wonâ??t even remember even after the end of the movie. The boring subplots get interesting only in the way of the inter-alien rampage everyone paid to see. The movie has little to invoke sympathy for the characters as the audience still cheers as each of them dies by the blade of some techno-spear wielded by the Predator or by the mouthed tongue of the Aliens.
â??Aliens vs. Predator: Requiemâ? can be classified as a boring horror movie with science fiction undertones which merely appeal fans of gore. The fans were disappointed as the special effects are lackluster. The Aliens donâ??t look any more convincing than they did in the 80s with lumbering movements resembling a marionette.
If you would like more information on Science Fiction Movies and Seaquest DSV Series-2 visit Buy Online Latest Movies.
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