While a marketing strategy has long been thought of as communicating effectively to spur action, it’s much more than that. Marketing is fundamental to a pro-life organization’s mission, vision, operations, and communication.
Most foundational marketing courses discuss the marketing mix or the 4 P’s of marketing strategy, and they include product, price, place, and promotion. While slightly tweaked to apply to nonprofits, each of these plays a role in an effective marketing strategy.
It’s critical to note, every pro-life organization will have a unique strategy. What works best will depend on your organization’s value proposition, and how you can best use the 4 P’s to maximize your success.
Determining Your Value Proposition
What value does your pro-life organization bring to the world?
If you run a pregnancy center, you directly save lives by serving mothers facing unplanned pregnancies, and even providing medical services.
If you are a political organization, you may have a completely different value proposition and protect the right to life in the United States by advocating for pro-life legislation.
Knowing your value will trickle down into your marketing strategy. It will also help you determine your competitive advantage. What is unique about your organization? Why should donors partner with you instead of another pro-life nonprofit?
Answering these questions is the start of an effective marketing strategy. You must know your organization’s value and what makes it special.
The 4 P’s of Pro-Life Marketing
As noted earlier, the 4 P’s include product, price, place, and promotion. Each of these will be framed in a way that fits into the nonprofit strategy.
Product (How You’re Helping the Cause)
Every pro-life organization has a cause and offers solutions to help.
One solution could be offering resources to women considering abortion to make parenting possible for them. Another solution could be providing a fatherhood program to help solve the fatherlessness problem in your local community.
Outline the solutions you provide to your cause. These must be compelling and truly effective. The better your solutions are, the more results you’ll achieve, and the easier it will be to market.
What is your success rate in providing solutions? Gather this information as well.
As an example, NIFLA states that 80% of abortion-minded mothers who see their baby on an ultrasound screen choose life. This backs up the success of their product/solution of their Limited Ultrasound Training.
Marketing isn’t simply communication, but also ensuring you have the best solutions. Make sure your “product” is strong and has the data to back it up.
Price (Donations You Request)
In its traditional usage, “price” means the amount you charge for a product or service. In the case of nonprofit marketing, the price equates to the donations you request.
Think about your price strategy this way. How much do you need to raise to continue operating? How much can you easily ask donors to contribute? Will the donations you ask for enable the donor to truly make a difference?
This step might require you to review your annual donations, your previous asks, donor lists, and ongoing expenses. What asks have worked in the past?
Think of this through the lens of your typical donor demographic, or even create separate asks based on segmented donor demographics. A retiree could donate stocks and larger donations, while a millennial could more easily afford a smaller monthly donation.
Place (Methods for Reaching Donors or Clients)
Place refers to how you reach donors or pregnancy center clients. You could use email, social media, search engine optimization, direct mail, print advertising, online advertising, and the list goes on.
The most important question to ask yourself when thinking through this aspect of the strategy is “Who is my target audience and where do they spend their time?”
If you’re reaching donors, you will want to consider their demographics and your area if you are local. Maybe your loyal, older donors are most likely to see an ad in a printed church bulletin. Maybe your primary pregnancy center clients spend time on a certain social media platform.
Every pro-life organization has a unique set of target demographics and must decide which ones to invest marketing dollars and energy into. Pregnancy centers often have donors and clients, which means two separate marketing strategies for each group.
Within donors, there can be multiple demographics. You must decide which group has the potential to donate the most, while also investing in rising generations to ensure your center continues to receive funding for decades to come.
Promotion
Here’s where the typical view of marketing comes in. While it’s only one of four aspects of your overall marketing strategy to consider, it comes with the most details.
In this step, you must consider your answers to product, price, and place, and decide your messaging. You will also create a marketing plan and allocate budgets for each marketing tactic. The options are endless, but as in all steps, considering your target audience is key.
The most paramount aspect of the promotion is your message. This message will differ based on the target, but it has to include the product step. What solution do you have (product)? What are you asking the audience to do (price)?
Try to put together a few compelling messages. This is when you could decide to have a focus group or run the messaging by a potential donor or client. See which one will work best.
Next, decide how you will broadcast the message considering your “place” step.
After you put your promotion strategy into practice, evaluate the results on an ongoing basis. What’s working? What’s not? Be flexible, teachable, and ready to adapt to the data.
What’s the Best Marketing Strategy for Pro-Life Organizations?
The best marketing strategy is the one that achieves the best results.
It requires a unique value proposition and competitive advantage, a real solution to the cause, an effective message, and the use of the marketing mix. It also needs constant tracking, measurement, and refinement.
By following marketing strategy best practices, you can create a unique strategy that helps your pro-life organization thrive.
If you want to consult with our pro-life marketing strategists, please contact us. We’re ready and able to help you craft your best marketing strategy yet.