Will a Marketing Vision Help Your Nonprofit Organization?

Peggy Dyer is the chief marketing officer of the American Red Cross (ARC). And, based on my brief time with her recently at a meeting, she is a good one! She addressed our group and covered many topics, but one that I found very inspiring was the concept of creating a marketing vision.

In her presentation, Dyer discussed the transformation that the Red Cross is going through and the challenges it has faced as the organization has progressed. Today's blog is not about its transformation and what the Red Cross is trying to accomplish; it is about a unique step Dyer took as a leader and how it has paid off.

I believe many of you have created a marketing vision before. It's just what you do, right? Somewhere it is written in a Marketing 101 guide, "CREATE MARKETING VISION," I'm sure.

But Dyer created a marketing vision and then gave it teeth and legs. The transformation that was ahead of ARC would be hard and test everyone at some point. She wanted to create a vision that the team could get behind, a reminder of what the team members were trying to accomplish and something that could be measured on a regular basis.

Their marketing vision consisted of four simple yet powerful words: consolidated, powerful, breathtaking and marketing. But what made this vision unique is that her team came together on what this vision meant. What did it mean to stay true to the vision and make progress against the vision? For ARC, it boiled down to these specific areas:

• Consolidated … brand, customer experiences and processes
• Powerful … data-driven insights, programs and marketing ROI
• Breathtaking … engagement with inspiring content and recognition
• Marketing … people, partners and mission focus

The ARC's vision is clear, understood and, perhaps more importantly, its work was aligned under the four key areas. The only other thing to do was actually measure it. Dyer and her team created a scorecard, and each week they applied a score (in their case it was a five-star scale) that represented their progress toward reaching the goals associated with the vision.