Purple Cows, Sneezers, Review Sites

Hey all, I’m back to blog about how my nonprofit, Southwest Youth and Family Services, can take advantage of the ideas presented in The Purple Cow and the concept of Facebook “likes” being an integral part of business models.

My challenge is that I feel these articles are designed for businesses, not for a social-services non-profit.  I feel as though trying to create “purple cows” from their basic family services is outside of their scope of community-based service.  However, I realize that they’re not marketing to those in the community in need – they’re trying to grab the attention of potential donors.  Here are a few takeaway snippets from the Purple Cow summary, in particular, that stood out to me:

If consumers don’t have time to listen to and understand your marketing pitch, your product or service is invisible to them.

There are a lot of great non-profits out there that do very grassroots style services here in the community.  A potential donor has so many opportunities to donate to local services, not to mention the huge amount of charities that do work abroad.  Being able to articulate what makes SWYFS unique is going to be a key strategy.  I realize this fits into more of a marketing positioning statement, but if you take a peek at their “about” page, you’ll see that they could use some work.

Companies Win when they value the attention of their prospects and don’t treat it as a disposable resource to be used and abandoned.

It is useless to advertise to anyone – except interested Sneezers with Influence.

I think directly connecting potential donations (and beefing up their volunteer opportunities) is a great idea.  Also, there have to be innovative volunteer or fundraiser galas that SWYFS can come up with to create these “Purple Cows” of interesting fundraising opportunities. Whether it’s a Somali cultural food festival for donors, or a unique service project that connects donors to the community in West Seattle, these can all be potential “hooks” that will capture the attention of donors (and hopefully their wallets).  Targeting those that are well-connected in community service organizations such as BEAN or SeattleWorks would help find great potential “Sneezers” who would be excited to share with other potential volunteers about the great projects and services that SWYFS provides.

I know I’m not probably wrapping my head entirely around these concepts of Purple Cows – it seems interrelated to Viral Marketing, positioning statements, and Andy’s mantra of “Be Interesting.”  I’m looking forward to see all of your feedback and ideas!