Scared of marketing? Us too.

What do you think of when you hear the word marketing? Take a moment - really think about it. Who do you see, what do you feel? Is it ok…?

For a lot of people working in charities, social enterprises, co-ops, independent businesses and campaigns, the word marketing often brings a little shiver. Does it suggest shiny people, shiny tech, fancy, formal, polished campaigns? Does it feel a bit out of reach?

We totally hear that fear. Our roots are in social enterprise and women’s organisations - what we used to think when we heard the word marketing was ‘Expensive, not sure what it will do for us. Is that shiny London people in fancy agencies? Will we feel a bit dowdy and daft next to them? And what would it even look like anyway?’

We’ve had interviews with clients where they have made it clear, gently and in not so many words, that they are not looking for a shiny sales machine. They want to talk, day to day, in their authentic voice, to the people they know would benefit from their services. And that is what we absolutely love to do.

Wikipedia defines marketing as, ‘the process of exploring, creating, and delivering value to meet the needs of a target market in terms of goods and services’

As a marketing agency working with ‘for good’ organisations, we think of marketing as simply telling your story.

We aim to get you heard by working out with you who you are already talking to, where, and what they want to know. And we help you do more of that. We use tools and techniques to help you - for example - post on Twitter, Facebook and Instagram, regularly. Perhaps you have a blog on your website or a newsletter that you never have time to write stuff for. Perhaps you are so busy running regular events that you don’t have time to tell anyone about them - so we do that, too. You always, always, get to say yes or no before anything goes out. We simply say the stuff you already want to say, where you want to say it, but that you don’t have time to manage.

We’re not sure, if we are honest, about the shiny shiny stuff. Those of us who are working to drive change in the world are often pretty hands on and grass-roots-y, and that often ends up meaning getting to grips with the grimy grimy rather than the shiny shiny. We’re not sure any of us need to be sold products all the time, or that the old trick of ‘make people feel worried then sell them the solution’ is a good idea. Actually - no. We’re absolutely sure that’s a bad idea. We don’t do that.

We also don’t do clickbait, and we don’t tantalise to draw people in. We know, as you do, that there are people out there who need you. We respect them, and we respect their time. We’re all busy. We’re all overloaded. We’re all dealing with family, work, home, relationships, and the constant, ongoing stream of information flying at us. We agree with Matt Haig (on pretty much everything) and this tweet is a perfect example of what social media and our endless news cycle can feel like. So we don’t hard sell to the people you want to talk to. We don’t spam them, we don’t do paid ads, we don’t shoehorn you into conversations where you’re not known or welcome.

We simply tell people the stuff they want to hear from you.

If you’re a charity supporting a particular group of people, we tell those people and their families how to find you, what you do, how to get involved. If you’re a network providing opportunities to a particular group of people, we talk about those opportunities and connect with like minded organisations - we share their stuff too, because we always have in mind that the person we are ultimately doing this for is your client. If we are not valuable to them, they won’t follow you. So we aim to understand your end client or beneficiary needs, before anything else. And then we listen, build up relationships online to match the ones you already have personally and professionally, and we get you heard. Simple.

We believe that every ‘for good’ organisation deserves to have the support and benefit of good marketing.

We understand the challenges of small budgets.

We believe in the power of ‘for good’ organisations to build a better world and we’d genuinely love to help you get your message out there.

Contact us if you’d like a chat. We’re looking forward to it.