Who's on Your Mailing List?
For all the news we've been hearing about the banking system and our economy in crisis, Capital One has one of the most memorable advertising campaigns, asking the question, "What's in your wallet?" Many of us will respond, "Not much."
Which brings us to this week's Marketing Matter. While marketing is indeed the precursor to enrollment, the other constituencies of your school must be marketed to - that is, educated. So, how about educating your potential donors.
If you've tried your hand at writing a grant, you've probably found out that much of the hard work begins after the grant has been written (which is a daunting task in itself). That work involves "shopping it around" to various foundations that may be open to your project. This is where networking becomes VERY important, as people you know on foundation boards will be the ones that will advance your proposal and advocate for its funding when the board reviews the proposals.
If you're lucky enough to get a FADICA Funding Guide resource (available from http://www.fadica.org/) you'll find many foundations that have the potential for funding your project. However, you'll also find that many of those organizations do not take requests to fund projects.
So, how do they pick what they'll fund?
Perhaps you should add these foundations to your mailing list. These would be the people that you send a positive, "spotlight on the achievements and the kids" eNewsletter to. You're not asking them for funding...you're telling them what's going on at your school. They can't approach you with a potential gift if they don't know what's going on at your school.
Lots of people purge mailing lists in order to save on postage, paper and printing. This is why it makes sense to use a service to provide an eNewsletter service, such as iContact (http://www.icontact.com) or Constant Contact (http://www.constantcontact.com). By using these services, you can add a "script" to your Web site so that visitors can automatically sign up to be placed on it. They can also manage their own subscription. The great thing is that you can track all that information...which you can't do when you mail it - especially if you mail it "Library Rate." Saving money here could actually cost you a lot more.
© Michael V. Ziemski, SchoolAdvancement, 2009 (Original Publication Date: 20090223 - Happy St. Polycarp Day!)
Back to Marketing Matters Index |
