How a Strong Brand Can Help Your Nonprofit’s Messaging Take Flight/Root
Have you ever remembered a tagline or a jingle only to have forgotten where it came from?
If so, you’re not alone. In our oversaturated marketing landscape, strong creative can still cut through, but without an equally strong brand behind it, these messages often fail to translate into brand equity or any positive return on investment (ROI).
Imagine you wanted to hire someone but every time you met that person they looked and spoke differently. Even if you liked their general perspective and the things they said, it would be difficult to form any meaningful conclusions about them.
If you were interviewing many different people, you may not even realize it was the same person!
Strong messaging is important, but far too many organizations want to skip to what they’re saying (messaging) without giving serious thought to who is speaking (your brand). This approach may have been sufficient at one time, but now more than ever, having a strong brand is crucial if you want your communications to have an impact on audiences.
The Rule of 7
In the 1930s, the movie industry was just beginning to take off. In order to plan their advertising, studio executives needed a rough idea of how many times a potential moviegoer needed to see a movie poster before they would be inclined to go see it.
After researching the matter, they found the average moviegoer needed to see a poster seven times before they would go see it. It didn’t take long for the idea to catch on in other areas of marketing, until it finally became known as the Rule of 7—or, how many repetitions it takes for audiences to retain a given message.
More than a message
Since the 1930s, the Rule of 7 has been used primarily as a messaging concept, inspiring focused strategies designed to execute a number of “key messages” consistently over time.
Having a consistent message is an important way to promote understanding among audiences. But understanding will only take you so far without trust.
Cutting through the noise
In the 1930s, when the Rule of 7 was developed, television and radio advertising were limited—marketing had not yet entered the digital age and competition was comparatively low.
Nowadays, the average person is overwhelmed with choices, encountering more than 10,000 marketing messages per day. Not much research has been done to test whether the Rule of 7 still applies (or whether it might now be the rule of 10, 20, or more).
Either way, it stands to reason that to attract the right people, brands need more than a consistent message. They need an identity that invites trust and participation.
A strong brand ensures:
A consistent presentation of your organization that aligns with its core values and objectives.
Internal alignments among staff, participants, and stakeholders.
It’s your identity that puts the things you say (your messaging) into a meaningful context. Your brand is a promise—it is the foundation for trust between you and your audience.
Trust is priceless
When your audience trusts you, it eliminates cognitive dissonance and confusion, making them more responsive to your communications and calls to action (CTAs).
It also gives them something to identify with. Their support means something. They’re not just supporting your work, they’re supporting you.
The benefits of branding, like the benefits of marketing, can be difficult to attribute—that’s because they compound over time (for more information on how to calculate a rebrand’s ROI, check out this article)—but without a strong brand, calculating your marketing’s ROI becomes even more difficult.
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