Plan for the down time

Why not make an action plan now of the five things you are going to tackle with your brand and marketing this summer?

These often discussed tasks keep getting pushed to the bottom of your to-do list. Set aside time now with specific dates for each task and spend a day planning each of them.

Treat yourself to a nice lunch and have 'a date' with your ‘to dos’ and turn them into 'dones'.

Our recommendations - although somewhat broad and of course non-specific to your cause and charity - would be the following:

1. Take a day - review each audience type
   You should have personas for each type of person and user journeys as to how they interact and when you can prompt them to support you. Do you need to look in more detail about each of your segment. Six advantages of segmentation: Focus of the company / increase in competitiveness / market expansion / customer retention / have better communication / increases profitability (marketing91.com).
    
2. Is your digital estate reflective of how people have or would like to interact with you?
   Do a social audit and write a social media strategy. 80% of social media users prefer to connect with brands through Facebook (Business2community).
    
3. How is my money spent?
   This is the biggest question current and potential supporters, from our experience, want to know the answer to. Is your charity explaining clearly how each pound is spent to them? What are the impacts and link this to numbers and quantities that are realistic and meaningful i.e. ‘The same as the UK population” and  "the time it takes to make a piece of toast" work because they are easily understood and have a relevant context. Why not write-up meaningful case studies that demonstrate your work?
    
4. What is today's brand story?
   Stooped in myths and no-doubt your organisation has a long history. People like to read about real people doing real projects, so bring alive the breath-and-depth of your organisation’s history i.e. "Delivering for the environment for the last 60 years" with the latest projects "here's our snow leopard live tracking with Hans and his team..."
    
5. Use film. Make your story come alive in 30 seconds
   Do have a three minute version (and a ten minute one too for potential partner meetings). About 46% of people say they’d be more likely to seek out information about a product or service after seeing it in an online video and it is the 6th most popular marketing content today (blog-eloqua.com)

In the days and weeks ahead, use the quiet summer period to make a difference.

Read more from Giles Robertson, Chairman of The Marketing Society Charity Group and member of the Sustainability Growth Group. You can also follow him on Twitter @gogreenbanana