Crafting a Brand Positioning Strategy for Your Charity
Brand positioning is one of the best ways to influence how people see your charity organisation. The question is, how do you create a strong charity brand positioning strategy that leaves an impression on potential donors, volunteers, partners, charity ambassadors, staff, and key stakeholders? Here's how.
The power of brand positioning
When we're thinking of a product, we tend to associate that product with a specific brand, often without giving it a second thought.
Take the word Coke for example. You're likely to use this word, even if you're asking for Tesco's own brand, but Coke is synonymous with Coca-Cola.
Tesco is another example. You might say "I'm popping to Tesco", rather than "I'm popping to the shops".
That's the power of brand positioning. It means that you're taking up space in someone's mind when they're thinking of something specific.
In the charity sector, the RSPCA represents a great example of brand positioning.
The line "I'll ring the RSPCA" is synonymous with animal rescue, even though there are hundreds of animal welfare charities people could call.
When done correctly, a brand positioning strategy sets the standard for how people perceive your charity organisation.
Combined with other key branding assets, like your logo, website, and social media presence, you can shape the way audiences see your organisation.
Creating your brand positioning strategy
It all starts with a brand positioning statement. This is a short and impactful declaration that summarises what makes your charity unique and the desired perception you want people to have in their minds about your brand.
This is your guide for building your brand to help maintain consistency across all channels.
Here's what you need to think about when crafting your brand positioning statement:
#1 - Your audience: You need to map out how your brand plans to reach donors, volunteers, partners, employees, trustees and other key stakeholders.
#2 - Your key differentiator: With over 168,000 charities registered with the UK Charity Commission, competition to attract donors, volunteers, partners, ambassadors, trustees, and staff is fierce. What is it about your charity that makes you a stand out choice? This needs to be clearly communicated in your positioning statement.
#3 - Your value proposition: Highlight the tangible benefits and the emotional connection your charity brand can offer to the people you want to support and the people who donate to your cause and volunteer for your mission.
Once you have a solid brand positioning statement, you can start to shape your strategy. Here are six tips to make this happen:
#1 - Evaluate your current brand positioning
To shape a brand positioning strategy for the future, you need to know where your charity brand currently stands.
To do this, you need to look closely at your existing donors, volunteers, and partners to get a better understanding of who they are. How do they interact with your charity and what do they think about your current brand image?
If your existing donors, volunteers, partners, and other key stakeholders think your brand positioning isn't where it ought to be, it's a good time to review your brand voice, charity goals, and your mission statement.
#2 - What are other nonprofits doing?
You want to pinpoint exactly what other charities in your field are doing and research them. Assess their brand strategy by looking at what their donors, volunteers, and partners say about them.
Learn from their branding tactics, and pay attention to how they communicate on social media platforms and their website.
Another healthy strategy for how you compare to other charities is to do a SWOT analysis. This will highlight where your charity brand is strong and where it could be improved.
#3 - Analyse your position compared to other charities
Once you've painted a picture of what similar charities to yours are offering, take what you have learned and use it as part of your brand positioning statement - or improve your existing one.
This will help you to figure out where your charity brand fits in and how to shape your strategy moving forward.
#4 - Identify exactly what makes your charity unique
Other charities similar to you might not be meeting a specific need. This represents an opportunity for you to position your charity to meet that need.
As your brand positioning strategy improves, you will be able to integrate additional strategies to meet other unmet needs.
#5 - Execute your new brand positioning
For any charity brand positioning strategy to be effective it needs strong implementation. To do this, all your ways of communicating with stakeholders need to reflect your brand's position statement.
You might start by sharing your positioning statement with employees, volunteers, stakeholders, and even donors.
Long-term, this might lead to a re-evaluation of your messaging, tone, and voice that you use on other branded materials such as marketing literature or social media channels.
If it doesn't align with your new brand positioning, it's time to change it.
#6 - Evaluate your statement and measure success
The final step is to evaluate your statement following implementation and to measure success. Here are four areas of your charity branding to review to see if your status has improved:
Ask your audience: Conduct surveys to find out how effective your strategy is. Ask your donors, volunteers, partners, and stakeholders if they have noticed any changes or differences in your branding, or if their thoughts and feelings towards your organisation have changed (either way) over time.
Visibility: Does your audience better identify with your brand than they used to? Listen to what your donors, volunteers, partners, and stakeholders are saying and gauge whether they find your charity brand more relevant.
Uniqueness: When your new brand positioning is revealed to the world, one of its aims is to differentiate your organisation from other charities. Over time, you should analyse if you have accomplished this goal.
Measure your campaigns: Since your brand positioning should be influencing your marketing campaigns, you should measure the performance of your campaigns. Are you seeing more donations, an increase in volunteers, more partners coming on board? If not, something in your brand positioning isn't quite resonating with your audience.
How a charity branding agency can help
Collaborating with a branding agency gives you access to a wealth of expertise and fresh perspectives to help you craft a brand positioning strategy that truly reflects who you are as a charity organisation.
Through in-depth research and analysis, a specialist charity branding consultant can uncover your organisation's unique strengths and opportunities, laying the groundwork for an effective positioning strategy.
And this matters because a strong positioning strategy opens doors to more donations. For example, a study by BetterNow shows that fundraising initiatives hosted on charity branded websites receive up to 12% more donations than fundraisers hosted on third party platforms.
Plus, those same websites generate 71% more contact permissions. That's the power of branding - it builds credibility and trust.
Perfect your positioning strategy with Sodium & Co.
We're not your typical branding agency, we're a charity sector specific agency that gives you virtual support at your fingertips.
We understand the Third Sector space more than most branding agencies, which is why we're the ideal collaborators to give you the long-term brand management support you need.
Everything you need from a branding company for your charity can be found under our roof. We are a collective of hybrid branding and marketing specialists that build brands with staying power.
We are the creative force to champion your cause.
Let's talk brand consultancy. Book your FREE, 30-minute call with Navi Aulkh, for a detailed discussion about your organisation, branding requirements, our prices and packaging - and how to get the most out of working together.