Not-so-deep thoughts on marketing

I’m finally watching the first season of Mad Men, and it’s got me thinking a lot about marketing. OK, it’s a combination of the show and the fact that my job involves marketing. Granted, I’m working for a small nonprofit organization that’s saving the world one kid at a time, and not some soulless advertising firm on Madison Avenue. Still, I’ve noticed some basic principles are at play in both worlds, and I wanted to point them out here.

In my limited experience in the marketing industry, I’ve noticed that good marketing, in its simplest terms, boils down to this: make the buyer (or donor, investor, whoever) feel like their life will be better if they spend their money on whatever it is you’re selling. If you do that, you’ll attract people. Everything else you do as a marketer can be built on that foundation.

I’m sure this philosophy will come as no shock to anyone who has taken a Marketing 101 class or worked as a salesperson anywhere. But for me, and maybe for others in the do-gooder industry, it’s not the first concept that comes to mind when we’re looking for donors. Many of us believe that people will give simply because they see a need and want to be nice, or because Jesus told them to. Sure, there are some folks out there who have genuinely altruistic motives for giving. But in a world where millions of nonprofits are competing for a limited supply of money, we have to appeal to a broader audience.

When I started working in the nonprofit communications/marketing business two years ago, I didn’t know any of this. But in the time since then, I’ve seen this basic principle taught and proved correct over and over again. I’ll talk more about that next time.

A Few Things I Learned in Hawaii

I’m wrapping up a 12-day stay in Hawaii, on the island of Kauai. I’m privileged enough to say this because my girlfriend’s parents were generous enough to take me, her, her brother, his wife, and their son on this amazing mid-winter getaway. (And my parents were kind enough to get me a plane ticket as a Christmas gift.) While it’s been a relaxing trip and a chance to escape the tedium of the work week back home, I haven’t shut my brain off entirely. Here below are a few things I’ve learned--and some I’ve relearned or been reminded of--during this trip.

1. The tropics are awesome, especially when it’s freezing back home.
2. But sometimes the weather in Hawaii sucks too.
3. Shave ice > sno cones
4. Puka Dog < Puka Dog hype
5. Ziplining is a helluva lotta fun.
6. This place is hard to leave.

Sunset vista from our deck. (Elisa Michelson photo)

7. If you work at a surf shop, you can almost pull off a bright blonde mustache. Almost.
8. Pop cans here have a weird shape.
9. Tahitian dancing > Hawaiian dancing. (Sorry)
10. No matter how much you cheer, how many times you pee or hold it in, how you arrange the furniture, what sort of pre-game rituals you do, and where you turn the label of your beer bottle, you as a fan on the couch cannot affect the outcome of your NFL team’s playoff games.
11. There’s always next season.

Getting ready to unearth the pig at a luau.

12. The chicken crossed the road because Hurricane Iniki destroyed her coop and set her and thousands of her relatives running wild all over this island.
13. All the parking spaces on Kauai are unusually narrow.
14. Hawaii has a “Forbidden Island” next to Kauai, called Niihau.
15. I need to figure out how to get to “The Forbidden Island”
16. I need to come back and visit some of the other Hawaiian islands too.
17. Hawaii generally kicks booty.

Look! A peacock!