Mission-driven organizations are built around their stakeholders’ needs. These are the people that are invested, engaged and directing the course of your organization. This might include your customers, clients, supporters, funders or staff. If you aren’t paying attention to the behavior and desires of your stakeholders, your mission is doomed. In order to succeed, you’ll want to learn everything you can about what makes them tick, what they do on the weekends, where their passion lies and what moves them to action.
The time you put into learning about your stakeholders will be well worth it when it comes time to craft marketing strategies and plan content. To help you get to know your community better we’ve got a list of six cheap and easy ways to learn about your stakeholders.
- Host a stakeholder lunch: Invite some of your key stakeholders to a free lunch at your office and spend time getting to know them. This can be as formal or informal as you choose. If you want to keep things more casual, spend time mingling, catching up, but make it a point to ask a few key questions about their habits. If the lunch is more formal, you may want to put together a presentation on where your organization is headed this next year, thank everyone for their involvement and set aside time for quick interviews. These quick interviews will be comprised of key questions regarding your stakeholders habits, preferences and other information you wish to collect.
- Attend a relevant conference: If you want to find out about a group’s behaviors and habits, then we recommend going to the places they gather. For example, if your key stakeholders are paralegals, look into paralegal conferences in your area that you could easily attend. While you are there, take time to simply observe their behaviors and habits, take note of what the conference revolves around or any specific breakout sessions, and most importantly, talk to people. Do interviews with key people if you encounter individuals who are willing in order to gather more specific information on your stakeholders.
- Do an office visit: Ask some of your key stakeholders if you could stop by one morning with some coffee and bagels for their office. Mention that you would like to take some time with a few people to ask questions and get to know more about them. More than likely, they would be thrilled to have you — everyone loves free coffee! This is a comfortable and relaxed way to gather key information.
- Attend a networking event: Similar to attending a relevant conference, look into networking events that you may be able to attend with your key stakeholders. If you are in the same place as your key stakeholders, you have an opportunity to observe their interactions with their peers and learn about the things that interest and excite them. Prepare a few questions beforehand that you can bring up naturally in conversation to gain insight.
- Read stakeholders’ blogs. Anyone can be a blogger these days, which is a great resource when looking to learn about your stakeholders. Look into some prominent blogs in your stakeholder groups and start to follow them. Blogs can provide so much information surrounding what is relevant and important to a specific group. Check in on these at least twice a month to gain some insight into what your stakeholders are currently interested in.
We believe that these five experiences with your stakeholders will take your mission-driven marketing to the next level.
How else do you learn about your stakeholders? Share your thoughts and experiences below! And if you are still working on defining who your key stakeholders are, download our template for creating targeted buyer personas.
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