360 Degree Marketing for CSPs & NGBs


Compass

You know about 360 Degree Management, right? The concept that, at the same time as your manager is providing feedback on you, you are providing feedback on your manager.  There is a Dilbert cartoon that sums it up where the pointy haired manager is saying to Dilbert that anything that is said about him as a manager will in no way impact Dilbert’s own appraisal.  He will be judged solely on his work and performance in the job.  So when Dilbert tells him what a bad manager he actually is, how he bullies them, and how unsupportive, de-motivating and generally incapable he is as a manager, the pointy haired boss simply says ‘that’s funny – your performance in the job and work overall seem to be going way down!’

 

But however sceptical you may find me on the value and effectiveness of 360 degree feedback (and I’m sure some of it works for some people) I am a real believer in something I call 360 Degree Marketing™.

 

I coined this phrase because some time ago I began to realise that to be truly effective at marketing we needed to think far beyond target markets, consumers, customers and segments. 

 

Let me explain.

 

Markets are all around us.  The idea that we simply need to focus on our external customers is mistaken, because in this connected world of ours, markets go way beyond this limited view.  Think of the whole market and look around you all 360 degrees.   It might help to think of it in terms of an old fashioned ship’s compass (or a high tech one if you prefer).  When you do that you can plot markets at each point of the compass rose and this is what, for me, that compass looks like:



 

There are, then, four distinct points that we need to consider in 360 Degree

Marketing™ and they consist of:

 

  • External Markets (our traditional market focus)
  • Internal Markets (our own organisation)
  • Funders (their support and continued faith in our organisation is key)
  • Stakeholders (the many individuals and organisations that influence the well being of our organisation)

 

In a connected world they are all inter-related and networked up.  So what we say to one part of this 360 Degree market has impact and implications on many or all of the others.  Yet for most marketers their focus is almost exclusively the traditional external markets. The other points of my 360 degree compass barely register. So it may pay to review each of these in turn.

 

90 Degrees - The External Market

 

This involves the marketing that we all know something about.  The overall approach to make marketing work for you involves understanding your customers and prospective customers (their needs and wants, their aspirations and goals, and their challenges and ‘pain’) and working out what you can develop and provide in response to this at a price that they would be willing to pay.  Then it is simply about making sure that they know you provide this stuff and persuading them to take part.  I say ‘simply’ and, put in those terms, it sounds simple enough, but of course there’s a life’s work involved in learning how to do that well, getting it right, and making it happen. 

 

Either way I probably don’t need to add much to your thinking and knowledge here.  If you do want to read more about Coussins Associates’ various views on the traditional marketing mix and improving your performance then please click here to see the rest of the site. 

 

180 Degrees - The Internal Market

 

This is solely about marketing to your own organisation.  It took me a long while to get this, but internal marketing is vitally important.  In fact, in service dominated organisations it is probably more important than external marketing.  However, in my experience, it is something that most people completely neglect or do very poorly.  For some reason or another, when it comes to marketing within our own organisation we just don’t do it.  Oh sure we tell people about our campaigns, and we may even flag to colleagues what is coming up in our marketing communications schedules.  But in terms of treating them as we would a market place, and using our skills to understand their needs and concerns, make things that help and work for them and then communicate benefits and persuade them – in my experience very few marketers have any strategy for this. 

 

But the rewards for everyone involved are substantial, because if you focus some of your marketing skills on persuading your own organisation you can get:

 

  • Better motivated and enthusiastic colleagues
  • More effective programmes
  • Full support for your ideas, projects and campaigns when bidding for your share of the budget
  • Supportive and engaged senior management
  • A supportive and engaged Board
  • All the benefits of an integrated commercial ‘community’ fully aligned and working together

 

Let’s start by taking a segmented approach to this market place and look at the three key segments in a brief overview, which are:

 

  • Marketing to the Development Team
  • Marketing to Finance
  • Marketing to the Board and Senior Management

 

1. Marketing to the Development Team

 

My view is that if you can get the development team – colleagues who are out in the field working with partners or customers – to buy into the concept of your organisation brand or ethos and to truly understand the benefits and values of your programmes and services then you are a long way towards communicating your brand and the products and solutions you offer to the marketplace. 

 

So all we have to do here is to use some of our marketing smarts and expertise to sell to them.  Listen to the issues and challenges that they face.  Understand their ‘pain’ and what they want to achieve for themselves – all just as we would in any other market.  Then give them some ownership during the development process (whether that be for an initiative or service or your values) and a stake in the success of the programmes, services or brands.  Tell them about the benefits (the benefits to them not the benefits to the customer) of the initiatives, programme or services we are asking them to sell.  Persuade them of the value (to them) of the organisation or brand values.  Use all your marketing communications skills to market to them.  Think about ‘communications campaigns’ focused just on them (emailers, presentations, webinars, launch presentations, conferences, even direct mail) about all of this and execute them regularly.  You’ll find the time you spend on this work pays you back many times over. 

 

Work out what materials they could use out in the field – what would help them to explain a particular initiative – do they need a brochure to leave behind, or simply a fact sheet?  Would a PowerPoint presentation work better for them or both fact sheet and presentation? 

 

All your colleagues need to share the values of the organisation and live up to the promises you make.  A lot of this is to do with levels of customer service provided.  So if you use the cliché about having a passion for excellent customer service, then these people need to understand what this means to them in their daily work and how they will deliver it.  If you promise that you ‘always go the extra mile’ (to use yet another cliché) then these are the people that need to live up to that and know what ‘going the extra mile’ looks like.  So you not only need to tell them about the values of the organisation (which is what most organisations do), but sell them the idea of those values.  Make them believe in them.  Help them to understand what that might look like and ensure that they have understood all this and believe it too. 

 

Far too often organisations do not follow through on this which means that the interpretation and execution of your key values are left to the individuals involved, to their attitudes and to chance.  According to my research so many organisations fail to live and deliver on their promises because they fail to get those key workers, the very people responsible for delivery of these values, to understand or believe in them.

 

As with the values, so with the programmes and services you provide.  If they don’t believe in them or understand them, then don’t expect them to be able to sell or support them.  However tempting it is to assume that they understand and believe or, worse still, simply expect them to because that is what they are paid to do, try hard to resist the temptation.  It is our job as marketers to ensure that these key colleagues have all that they need to do their job effectively and we must include them in our list of key markets.

 

2. Marketing to Finance

 

You don’t need me to tell you that the finance officer/team is important.  They are the people who hold the purse strings that control your budgets.  The fuel that makes marketing work.  Yet too often marketing simply see the finance guys as the people responsible for ‘raining on our parade’.  We see them as ‘bean counters’ with no respect for, or understanding of, our work.  Yet if you take a moment to look at this the other way round you find that many of them regard us as ill disciplined spendthrifts who have no understanding of proper fiscal diligence, and they see marketing as a business expense with no or little return on investment (ROI).

 

For my part I have always welcomed input from the finance team.  Why? Well because they add considerable value if you can bring them on-side.  They help you to work out what has worked well and what you need to change.  If you make them friends rather than enemies you can work with them to help you to improve what you do and how you do it.  And once they support you then you’ll find that most of the rest of the management team will follow.

 

So how do you do that?  Well a good starting point is to have some real key performance indicators for your marketing communications activity and preferably things like target ROIs for your campaigns.  If you get used to working to target costs per enquiry and target costs per ‘sale’ for your marketing communications, that will begin to win them over and prove you are sincere about offering a decent return for the organisation’s investment in your communications campaigns.  Get them to help you with developing the business case for your new product developments rather than doing it alone.  Or, more negatively, leaving them to be a part of the review team happily dismembering your idea or development.  Learn a little more about key financial metrics and how they work if you feel you don’t know them well enough. Stuff like Internal Rates of Return (IRR) or Net Present Value (NPV).  Get their expertise working for you rather than against you. 

 

You see it does all come back to marketing again.  Finding out what their issues, concerns and needs are and then making sure we have solutions that deal with these.  Showing we understand and empathise.  You’ll find it will make all the difference.

 

3. Marketing to the Board and Senior Management

 

Have you been telling the board or your senior managers how well you have been doing for the organisation?  If not then why not?  They are only going to know about the details of your success if someone tells them.  And as a large part of marketing is about communicating then why should that someone not be you, the marketer?  Especially now you have won over the support of the development and finance teams?

 

Here too it is about thinking what works for them.  What their issues, needs and challenges are.  So the information you provide should be key data (not every little campaign of course) and in easily digestible forms.  Key numbers, examples of major campaign material, responses, participation figures, and plaudits won (ideally from partners and participants).  Keeping senior managers and key board members in the loop and up to date outside of any meeting papers you have to produce will help to keep them onside and supportive of what you are doing.

 

270 Degrees - The Funders

 

This one is the one we sometimes forget. Most funders now tell us what they want in terms of reporting and evaluation, and it can be quite daunting, so it’s not surprising if we just give them what they want and race around to meet their deadlines so they won’t hassle us any more.

 

But why not tell them what you want to tell them as well. Make sure Sport England and other funders know that when they are looking for a CSP or NGB or a Sports Development Unit or Leisure Services Trust that is leading the way in a certain area of work that they think of you. Case studies to back up data bring projects to life and you never know when your example might be timely when a DCMS Official wants to visit a certain type of activity, or when your work could help to make the case for continued funding for a particular initiative.

 

You need to tell them about your successes and to sell them the idea of seeing you as one of the key organisations.  You want them, too, to believe in your future. Making that bit of effort to include funders in your marketing plan could pay off in ways you never imagine.

 

 

360 Degrees - The Stakeholders

 

This is simply all those who have a stake in your organisation.  A useful definition is:

“Individuals or organisations that have a material, legal or political interest in or who may be affected by the activities and performance of your organisation.”

 

The following groups of people are likely to be your stakeholders:

 

  • Staff
  • Funders
  • Partners
  • The local communities in which you operate
  • Any government organisations and agencies with an interest in your field
  • Any professional or inductry body you belong to or who has an impact on your organisation

 

As we’ve already dealt with the first two elsewhere in the context of 360 Degree Marketing™, it is the remaining four which concern us here.

 

And here again it is about working out what it is that each of these groups are interested in and concerned with that should guide our marketing work in this respect. 

 

Partners are an obvious group of stakeholders and you don’t need me to tell you that you need to remind them how much they get out of working with you, and how much value they are getting out of their contribution to the Partnership.   

 

The local communities in which you operate are also a key market.  Whether that is your club or volunteer network or local voluntary organisations, you need to demonstrate the added value you can bring to them. It will be their support and goodwill you will need to ensure your future plans are a success. So it will pay you to take time to ensure that they are included in your communications plans and understand the benefits you deliver as a part of that community.  What they want to hear about is your support for them, your plans that will help them to make their organisations and lives better, and your commitment to their community which, after all, you are directly a part of.

 

Any government organisations and agencies with an interest in your field must also represent an important stakeholder audience.  Their interest can be harnessed for your own marketing of course (though take care here as politicians have a habit of hi-jacking your message to support or enhance messages of their own).  But this is more about making sure that they understand what you are doing, why you are doing it and why they need support you.  It’s about telling them why what you are doing is good for them and good for the communities that they serve.  It is about them seeing you as an informed source of information and expertise in your area.  And all of this applies no matter what the size of your organisation.   

 

Finally, you also need to market to the professional bodies, associations, and groups that have a voice in our sector.  You need to ensure that they perceive you positively and are broadly supportive of your organisation and what it is trying to do.  So you need to include them in your marketing strategy and your communications.  Keep them up to date with your developments.  Encourage them to think of you as an informed and important industry leader.  Share your thought leadership pieces with them.  Let them know about your new developments and plans.  Tell them about your new products and initiatives.  The more you have them on-side and supportive, the more they can help to position you as you want to be seen by your market, your competitors and your own organisation.

 

Finally

 

Some of you who are old enough might have been thinking that some of this sounds a bit familiar.  Well, there really is nothing new under the sun to coin a nice biblical phrase.  What seems like millennia ago, there was marketing and then there was Public Relations with a capital P and a capital R.  PR meant all of the publics that an organisation related to.  Marketing focused on customers. And anyone who worked in marketing in those days would have recognised that a large part of this 360 Degree Marketing™ concept revisits and borrows from that thinking.  Over the past years public relations has begun to be used inter-changeably for press relations and much about how an organisation relates to all of its publics has been forgotten.  That’s a shame. 

 

But there is a part of this that I like to think is new, or at least will serve as a timely reminder.  Thinking about our colleagues inside the organisation as a market place in its own right, with segments and segment needs is, I think, vitally important for the 21st century marketer.  Getting their support and buy in to our marketing and having them onside rather than hostile and negative must be a real plus.  Marketing to our suppliers can only have positive results and few, if any, organisations that I know of, have any plans in this respect at all.

 

So, if we could just work a bit harder to think about the less obvious markets, segments and customers and use our marketing smarts to market to them too, just think how much more successful we could all be.