About

Problem
The organization provides an incredible service to seniors, but donations don’t reflect the value. As the Executive Director said, “We help keep seniors independent, but then their last days are spent in hospice and that’s who their children donate money to. They forget what we did before that.”

Solution
The Market Strategies Group team did an audit of the organization’s communications programs. We discovered a series of mixed and confusing messages were reaching stakeholders.

The organization ran a retail boutique that had a prominent position on a very well-traveled main thoroughfare. The boutique sold donated goods and was partially staffed by seniors. Much of the communications going out to various stakeholders featured stories and news about the boutique and boutique events. The combination of the boutique’s prominent retail position and success caused most of the community to believe that the main purpose of the organization was to run the boutique and provide seniors with a place to work. In fact, that was not the case at all. The boutique existed only to fund the services provided to seniors in their homes which allowed seniors to stay independent.

Market Strategies Group recommended segmenting the market into two primary target markets: community –based donors and families of the seniors served. Market Strategies Group developed an umbrella slogan that both audiences could relate to and a series of messages specific to each audience.

We developed a communications plan to target the adult children of seniors served, as well as the seniors themselves, constantly reminding them of the value being delivered each time the seniors utilized the organization’s services. Both the seniors and their adult children would receive a quarterly bank-like statement in the form of a thank you note indicating the value the organization has provided the seniors during the past time period and showing a cumulative statement of services rendered.

Results
Targeted stakeholders receive specific communications that reflect the value the organization provides specifically to each target audience versus using a variety of more generic messages communicated to all stakeholders. By focusing the messages to each target audience and basing the message on the value that a specific target audience receives from the organization, the organization is now setting the foundation for the reasons why these stakeholders should be willing to contribute to the future success of the organization. In addition, communications happen earlier, more often and are more consistent resulting in reinforcing the targeted messages.