• How to Start and Grow a Think Tank
  • Prologue
  • Planning
  • Legal Documents
  • Staff
  • Board
  • Sample Board Job Descriptions
  • Infrastructure
  • Fundraising
  • Events
  • Networking and Outreach
  • PR and Marketing
    • Field Guide for Effective Communication
    • The 90:10 Rule: Why Marketing Matters & Some Great Books to Help your Organization Marketing Effectively
    • Communicating Success: The Value of a Strategic Communications Plan
    • The Personal Touch
    • Must-Read Books of the Free-Market Movement
    • Branding & Messaging Essentials for Think Tanks
  • General Management
  • Resources
• Grassroots Leadership Guide to K-12 Education Reform
• Taking Donors Seriously
• Fundraising Fundamentals

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Branding & Messaging Essentials for Think Tanks

Jane Markell, JEM Marketing Associates

The key to effective marketing of any organization, product or service is the ability to communicate in a clear, concise and memorable way; who you are, what you do and why that might be important or interesting.  Once you've got that down, it's then a matter of identifying and attracting the people you want reach.  This sounds pretty simple and straightforward, and in truth it can be.  The difficulty arises in putting together the right combination of images and words to really convey what you're about to people who don't know you exist. 

This in a nutshell is what branding, messaging, and marketing are all about, and why organizations that do this effectively are successful in building awareness and interest for their organization, their work and their mission. 

Understanding Marketing Buzzwords

What's Branding?  The easiest way to think about branding is to think of it as if you were describing a person.  The brand isn't just a name or a logo -- it's an attitude and a feeling. Think about big brands such as Starbucks or Pepsi or in the think tank world, Cato or Heritage.  It's not just the name you remember it's the color, size, image, tone, style, voice.  Maybe thinking of a particular brand name reminds you of a big important business person, or perhaps it's a kid on a skateboard. 

What's important in building your brand is to identify and describe the attributes of your organization and to think of all the ways in which you want people to remember you.  Then make sure that the image and messaging you have created for your brand match the attributes you wish to establish.  Building that brand is then a matter of consistent, deliberate communication to reinforce the same look, feel and messaging.

So what about Messaging? - Messaging refers to that description of your organization that tells outsiders as well as people who think they know you, what you're all about.  Effective use of messaging is an extremely powerful communications tool and also is effective in mentally aligning people and training them so they can communicate to others who you are in the exact same way you do.

Tips for creating effective messaging & branding

• Create a set of short descriptions of your company.  It's ideal to have one that's no more than 20 words and says essentially who you are and what you do.  Having a slightly longer 35 or 50 word description is useful as well especially when you're working with donors or the media. 
  
• Make sure that everyone in your organization is using the same descriptions and brand identity.  Stress with everyone from the receptionist to the board that to build a strong brand everyone needs to be "singing the same song" and using the same images and logo treatments.
  
• Get feedback from people outside your organization and outside your field.  If you want to be successful at getting your message across to 100% of your target audience, then at least 95% of people outside of your company and even outside of your field should be able to understand basically who you are from your short descriptions.  And if your descriptions aren't doing the job, don't be afraid to fine tune them.
  
• Remember, if you don't have clear messaging, it'll be much harder to attract and interest the people you want to reach.  If you manage to get them interested in what you do but your brand isn't easy to grasp and memorable, they'll go find what they want elsewhere.

Jane Markell is President of JEM Marketing Associates. She and her network of marketing professionals work with for profit and non profit organizations such as The Pacific Research Institute to develop innovative and effective communications programs and tools.