Know-How Exchange : Advertising/PR

HI Nitrate 18,

Glad to hear that the line of work we are involved in will change the world. Keep it up.

WEBSITE SUGGESTIONS...
I visited your website and thought it was pretty informative. But is does load very slowly on certain web pages and this can effective how visitors feel about your organization. Here is some food for thought. Your VISION for the organization could better express how you all perceives itself as it relates to women and children… i.e., what is your Vision for how you expect to change the lives of women and children in Yemen? The vision is donor focused as if the vision of your organization is written toward impacting donors versus women and children. The perceived ways you handle donors is important but your passion for what you all are trying to do for women and children should be more clearly communicated under the vision.

In the goals portion of your website under the category “Social Development” the word change is missing an “e” so it reads “chang_”.

WHAT IS THE PURPOSE OF YOUR PR CAMPAIGN?
I’d highly recommend that you pursue the newspaper media of Yemen and some of the other embassy and international organizations. This could bring good PR. But remember PR for PR sake is clearly operating with out a since of purpose. You need to understand the mechanics of why PR is important to your organization from many levels.

DO YOU HAVE A DEVELOPMENT DEPARTMENT?
A development department is common among non-profit organizations. Their reponsibility besides raising money for the organization is managing the PR opportunities of your organization. I would recommend that you all consider contacting a consultant who can help you understand how this could work better for your organization than it is currently working.

CONSIDER MARKETING ONLINE...
I would also consider marketing online to develop online exposure through some of the PR media organizations like PR web. Your real ability to market will in part be determined by how much you have budgeted for that specific work. Do you have money allocated for this? Do you have a marketing plan and does that existing plan include any PR plan? If not begin to develop this in order to consider how you will put a strategic campaign in order so that you have a yearly PR strategy on your calendar. Do you all have a PR department? And if so what are they currently doing? If not can you afford to hire someone for that duty. Do you have previous existing PR exposure and do you have a list of these items? If you do consider talking about how you can get mileage out of the previous PR. Use this to build upon and create greater exposure.

PLEASE RESPOND SO THAT WE CAN HELP YOU THINK THIS THROUGH...
There are so many other things you have to consider but by answering the above you will help other readers know how they may be able to show you how to manage this part of your company. Remember there are no real problems you can not solve. Our only real problem is our failure to be more creative than we’ve ever been. If you “Invent” your opportunity YOU WILL create your future. Is there anything else I can do for you?

Your Servant, Deremiah, *CPE (Customer Passion Evangelist)

From my perspective, the most important thing you need to do is define what success looks like for your marketing effort. How will you know you've succeeded?

Once you've defined that, the marketing planning process is fairly straightforward. You'll want to do a SWOT analysis, identify your primary target audience(s), and develop a sound strategic marketing plan.

Having been through this before with an international NGO, I would strongly recommend you retain an outside consultant to guide you through the process. Otherwise you will be re-inventing the wheel and probably sub-optimizing the whole effort. If you don't think you can afford outside help, then you probably can't afford to pursue your marketing objectives either.

Hope this helps.