An essential step in creating an effective digital media strategy is to identify and completely understand your market. It’s critical to know who your funders and supporters are, what motivates them, how they use the Internet, and how they consume digital

information.

Here are the steps and elements required to accomplish this vital piece of your communications strategy.

Identify Funder Personas- The success of your digital media is matching your message with your target market. It’s a basic principle of marketing. The three legs of the marketing “stool” must be in place:

Right Market > Right Message > Right Media

 If one of the legs of the stool is missing or broken, your marketing cannot stand.

The Process and Steps- How to Identify and Understand Funder and Supporter Personas

Identify what type of Funders you want to target – Develop a clear understanding of the problems, challenges faced, desires, and motivations of your funders and supporters. You need to put yourself in their world.

As an example, for nonprofits, funding opportunities fall into three broad categories:

Foundations

Corporate Social Responsibility

Individual Donors- Charitable Gifts, Monthly Pledge Donations, One Time Donations

 Create Written Funder Persona Profiles

Demographic – Age, Sex, Family Status, Occupation, Income Level, Where do they live? Etc.

Psychographic – Values, Beliefs, Anxieties, Desires, Fears, etc.

Socialgraphic – What influences them? Who do they listen to? Who do they trust?

How they use/interact with digital media – How do they access the Internet- desktop, tablet, smartphone? Where do they access the Internet? Are they active on social media- which platforms? What blogs do they read, or do the blog themselves?

John Haydon’s workbook can help you identify and flesh out your Funder/Supporter Personas.

Clearly understanding who you’re attempting to attract as funders and supporters of your cause is an essential element in building an effective communications and digital media strategy. It’s well worth the time and effort spent, and in some cases, it is wise to hire an outside specialist to help guide you through the research and actually field test your key marketing messages with your funder and supporter personas.

If you would like more information about how field testing personas works and to understand the benefit it delivers in creating spot-on marketing messages, let’s get on the phone and talk.