Smart marketing for nonprofits and tribal communities. Located in the heart of beautiful Pacific Northwest, Numa Marketing is a purposely small firm serving the strategic marketing needs of nonprofit organizations and tribal communities throughout the country.

To us, smart marketing means making every dollar count because your stakeholders, voters and donors want to know you’ve invested wisely. It means a results-driven, strategic approach that maximizes every dollar and leverages volunteer and free resources wherever possible. And, it is exemplified by well-designed publications that garner measurable results and a minimal carbon footprint.

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Re-Branding Blues, continued:

Step 1: Put all concerns on the table
Ask for a 15-20 minute session at the next board meeting to facilitate putting all concerns about a new identity on the table — if you’re working with a consultant for your identity, this is a great step for them to facilitate for you because they can stay objective.

Give the board 5 minutes to toss out all concerns — lay ground rules that no concern will be evaluated until the groups has completed the brainstorm. Summarize each concern succinctly on a white board so the entire room can see.

Next, address each concern carefully, providing strategies and solutions where needed, or simply disarming others that are not consistent with your research findings (such as, “people are really invested in our current identity,” may not be consistent with your research that 70% of your target customers who were surveyed didn’t recognize your logo or marketing materials.)

Over the years, I’ve heard these concerns expressed by board members fairly consistently. Be ready to address concerns along this nature:

• What if the new logo and identity doesn’t connect with our target audiences any better than our current identity?
• Can’t we just keep our logo and revamp the rest of the identity?
• Won’t we lose initially lose brand awareness with a new identity?
• What about all of our current marketing materials, forms, contracts … reprinting is going to be very expensive!
• What if our constituents think this is a frivolous allocation of resources?

Step 2: Review relevant case studies
If you’re working with a consultant to redesign your identity (such as Numa Marketing), ask them to relay 3-4 case studies of their clients or of other organizations in your industry that have successfully rebranded their organization. Case studies can be very disarming for board members because they provide that tangible, real-world proof of the likely outcome of this process.

If you are not working with a consultant, contact 3-4 organizations that have rebranded. Ask to interview their communications or marketing director to understand their process, steps they took to ensure board, customer, and staff buy-in, challenges they experienced, and results they’ve enjoyed. Develop a case study from each interview to share with your board.

Step 3: Relay your identity process —
Board buy-in is key
While this step may seem obvious, we can often skip relaying our specific processes to board members out of concern that this is just too much information.

Simplify the steps of your process to convey exactly where the board (and board marketing committee) will be involved in the process. Relay as well where you will engage feedback from current and potential customers, donors (if relevant), constituents and staff.

Step 4: Involve customers, donors and constituents
A valued colleague of mine once said something simple yet right on point regarding branding and identity. He’d met with a client and asked her “what do your customers think about your organization?” She answered, “well, we know we offer outstanding service, and the quality of our programs is unsurpassed.”

“I’m sorry, I think you may have misunderstood me,” he answered. “I didn't ask what you think of your organization; what do your customers think?”

If your identity is doing its job, it should be effectively relaying your distinctive competence. At the same time, an identity is only one cog in the wheel of service delivery — so checking in with your customer’s experience of your brand is also critical.

Market positioning — particularly positioning that involves customer focus groups in the research stage — is an exceptional tool to fully connect to the needs and experiences of your target customers and how you rank against the competition. Be sure to leverage this type of research with your designer (or consultant) in revamping your identity.

It’s also important to engage customer, donor and constituent focus groups with your new design. Whether web-based or in-person, focus groups provide valuable and objective information that is sure to have a substantial impact on your success.

Step 5: Engage staff
It’s also critical to engage staff in the identity design feedback process, as their buy-in is an important element to successful implementation. Your Market Positioning should have involved obtaining staff feedback on the current state of your identity and brand, as well as staff perspective on what you do best.

Use a similar process of engaging staff as you use for engaging customers and donors, such as a focus group. Larger organizations in particular can have great success by creating a rebranding committee represented by all levels of employment and customer contact. Find ways to fully engage the committee in the entire identity design process.

Step 6: Plan your roll-out carefully
A good roll-out plan will also help appease board anxiety. Your plan should take into consideration all costs involved with implementing a new logo and identity elements — can you take a year to phase the identity in so items can be redesigned and reprinted as they run out, rather than tossing them in the recycling bin? It should also consider how to engage fun yet affordable methods to get staff, customers and donors excited about the new identity.

Your roll-out plan is also a great opportunity to consider environmental and bottom-line impact of your print materials. Since all items will eventually need to be reprinted, we encourage you to work with Numa Marketing to put an Eco-Publications Audit into your roll-out plan.

Our audits provide a cost-benefit analysis of your current printing methods against environmentally sustainable options, and arm you with specific, actionable recommendations to reduce financial and environmental costs.

It's your board's job to be your fiscal watchdogs. Rebranding, or a new graphic identity is a significant investment, and should be met with scrutiny and questioning from the board. At the same time, board concern doesn't have to mean a halted process. Use the ideas above to transform board concern into a productive opportunity to reconfirm their support.

For more information about our market positioning and eco-publication audit services,
please contact Tiffany Meyer at 360-891-4929 or email