 As-Salam-Alaikum-Khubati-Nuh-Hassanat. Wasim As-San welcomes you to lecture number 18 of Marketing for Non-profits, MKT 628 at the Virtual University of Pakistan. The component of learning is the messaging platform and it is going to be a continuation of the previous one because there are still four more elements in relation to the messaging platform that I need to talk about. The one is the boilerplate, the other one is the elevator pitch, the third one is the lexicon of terminology, and the fourth one is the style guide. Let us start with the boilerplate. Well, sounds kind of funny because the boilerplate should not really have anything to do with the principles of marketing management. But the fact is that this terminology is used in so many other disciplines more so in law, banking, insurance, and property dealing just to name a few. You might have noticed a collection of a lot of paragraphs in very small font as terms and conditions on the backside of a contract. Whenever you sign some contract with a bank or insurance company, or even with an internet provider, there is a whole lot of terms and conditions, the printing on the backside, which none of us cares to read, by the way. But the fact is that it is those terms and conditions that basically provide a sound platform for the contract to work. And the functionality of the whole contract is contingent upon those terms and conditions. So the term boilerplate is borrowed from those disciplines and it is applied into the area of management and the marketing management. But of course here we are not concerned about the legalities. We are basically concerned about those things which are used as standards. Taking a look at those terms and conditions as an image, I'm not saying line by line, you read everything that's given there, but if you take to see an image in your mind of those terms and conditions, they look standardized. They look kind of a format which cannot be changed. And they look like something which appear over and over again whenever a contract is signed or whenever a communication is directed toward anyone. So the essence that I'm going to talk about here is that of the repetition of certain messages or certain copy of communication that is going to be used over and over again. It is a format which should not be changed. Now this is not to say that this is a legal document and therefore no change can be brought about. The fact is whenever need be we can bring about a change. But then again the essence of good communications are rather consistent communications which have been derived out of a strategic process is that we do not do tampering with the essence of those communications time and again. There has to be sanity to the communication process and the positioning and the personality which basically we are trying to portray through our communications remain consistent. Those should not be left to the whims and fancies of people working for the organization or those people at various levels of stakeholders who may have a tendency to say well I don't like the logo or I don't like the name not giving any cogent reason why they say so, why they make those statements. So therefore a boilerplate is something which wraps up the different key messages into a hole which provides an overall broad picture of the organization meaning what the organization is all about. Now what is it that really can go into the boilerplate copy? Well you already have learned that and that is the key messages if you put together all the key messages into different paragraphs you get the boilerplate copy. It all depends on your marketing savvy and the management insight as to what are the points that are highlighted and what are the ones that should be overlooked in case of preparing a good effective boilerplate copy. It is an expansion of the mission statement and also of the positioning statement because we like to say so many things as part of the mission but we are constrained because we have to keep our mission statement rather precise and concise. By the same token we talk about the positioning statement which of course is very internal but we talk about positioning in just about a couple of lines like experts say if we cannot really talk about positioning in just about a couple of lines we're not clear about the position and therefore the positioning statement generally is like in the one one-and-a-half lines two lines like that and it doesn't mean that we keep our communications as precise or as concise as our mission statement or the positioning statement. There's a lot more that we wish to talk and that is something that we talk in support of the mission or in support of the positioning and that is why we talk about all those factors which we think our audiences should know. We are trying to reach our audiences because we want to convince them that they should take a certain action which is good for the society which is which gives them certain benefits because before it does something good to the society overall and therefore we have to talk about all those factors that are of interest to different audiences as part of the boilerplate copy. From boilerplate we now get on to the elevator pitch. Well this is something which is exactly opposite of the boilerplate copy because this is something again precise and concise but this is not as precise as the mission or as precise as the positioning statement. Yet it is something which explains the positioning and the personality of the organization in light of the organizational level of brand raising when we are talking with somebody. As the terminology can may suggest that we call it elevator pitch because if we happen to be in an elevator and somebody asks us what do you do and what does your organization do? We have to explain all that before we get off to the right floor and therefore that we have just a few moments within which we have to explain who we are and what we do and we have to be very effective in terms of explaining what the organization is all about. What is its positioning and what is its personality? I think it's quite a daunting task and a challenge. The fact of the matter is that many managers are at a loss to explain the elevator pitch. While nobody asks them what is your elevator pitch, while somebody asks you a plain question as a layman or as a layperson, what is your organization all about and you give this elevator pitch. Elevator pitch is a condensation of the mission statement, the positioning statement and the overall personality of the organization. So when you condense all these things into something which has to be explained in just about a few moments, as many moments as they may take you to be in the elevator, it becomes quite challenging. So what do you do? In order to meet this particular challenge, organizations write elevator pitch. So this also becomes kind of a statement which has to be expressed as part of your communications and the being a very challenging and difficult task, this pitch is prepared and then expressed in very succinct words because you do not really want to be embarrassed when somebody asks you the question which I was talking about. Because if you're not prepared, you might think to yourself, what is it that I should be talking about and what is it that I should not be talking about? There is so much the organization does. How do I respond to this question? This is a strange kind of a question. Well, the answer lies in keeping the answer ready. And it is kind of a ready made thing, a ready made format, which you have to explain to the one who asked you this question. And experts say that this statement has to be communicated verbally verbatim, meaning the way word by word it is written. You have to say that by not giving the impression that you're reading out something. You know, it has to be a part of your natural communication style that you insert this statement as part of the two way communication. When you are having a physical encounter with somebody who is interested in knowing what is your organization and what does it do. And therefore, we've got to be the very specific about preparing the statement, which is an important part of the communications that we need to put in place in order to reflect the positioning as well as the personality of the organization. So this, in other words, expresses these two traits of the organization positioning and personality in connection with the organizational level of the brand raising process. And which you will very conveniently recall is all about your vision, the mission, the values, the key messages and so on and so forth. Everything wrapped into one succinct statement which you have to remember and say it verbatim. That's it. The next element is the lexicon of terminology. A very, very important instrument and an element of the communications of the organization and for the organization because we need to have this document in order to be very consistent in terms of our communications and consistency here refers to the jargons that we tend to use as professionals. We are not supposed to be talking about all those jargons which lay people do not understand and follow. We have to take those out in order to keep our messages very clear. No vagueness and no ambiguity. Complete clarity. That is the objective of our communications and therefore we have to have those jargons out of them. How do we do that? Well, we prepare an internal document which explains all the terminologies that we think are very professional and belong to the area of our expertise and it's not something which is within easy comprehension of the audiences we are trying to reach. So, you make a list of all those jargons and then use alternative words for them and you also write them against those jargons and those become your standards. For example, you may not like to use the word handicapped. If you happen to be working for a non-profit that is operating in the area of prosthetics, I think I did talk about this particular example. You may not refer to your audiences rather your clients as the people who are handicapped or disabled. You may call them disadvantaged because here you are trying to help them have a positive side of their self-image. If you talk about those terms which are either not understandable or are understandable but have negative connotations and give the negative image of somebody's self, you should avoid those. I would like to take you back to one more example of drug addicts that I referred to in one of the components. Let's not call them addicts. We have to use some of the words which sounds a little decent than calling them addicts. You will recall that the influencers over those addicts could be the family members because basically it is because of the troubled family life that they have taken refuge into drug taking and therefore we have to go talk with the family members in order to bring about a change in their behavior by first bringing about a change in their own behavior so that these people who cannot withstand the rigors of a troubled family life can bring them back to the fold of normal family life and therefore we have got to use words which are rather decent. We may call these addicts deviants because they are the ones who are deviating from a normal course of life and therefore calling them deviants may not hurt those family members where we are communicating. They are an important audience that we need to reach. So these are the sensitivities which we have to take into consideration in addition to the technical jargons that are not understandable in the context of our communications. We have to make communications very simple understandable and that is the essence of the entirety of communications because whether we talk in relation to the mission or with our values or positioning anything that we talk about has got to be simple and understandable because that has the power to engage people because the people associate themselves with things which are rather easy and not difficult. Do not give them the impression that you're trying to impress them. With this we now get on to the last element of the identity level and this is known as the style guide and I think the terminology is self-explanatory because it tells us it is a collection of different documents reflecting all the elements that I have talked so far. The meaning all the elements that belong to the organizational level and all the elements that belong to the identity level although the style guide itself also a part of the identity level but this is something which takes into its fold all that we have learned so far and all that has to go into the style guide has to go in a very professional standardized manner because we don't really want to deviate from a standardized communication process which has to be consistent over and over again. I will just give you one example from the last element which is the lexicon. If we talk about disadvantaged people as disabled people or handicapped people and keep going into changing the terminology instead of keeping it standardized as the disadvantaged I think we're making a huge mistake. They're not really consistent in terms of our communications and that is the essence of the style guide because everybody has to draw on this particular guide when different communications are put together. It is not just to see big communication campaigns in terms of our advertising or all printed material in terms of articles or annual reports or any kind of professional materials or rather promotional materials like brochures and flyers. It could be daily communications in the form of letterheads because we have to talk the same language because we cannot deviate from these standards and standards are contained in the style guide document by document and there is no exception to the rule that nothing can be changed unless the people responsible for changing the style guide are approached. Now the question is who are the people who put the whole guide together? Well it is the same people who helped us develop the visual identity of the organization and also helped us with the identity level and the fact remains that we also get outside help of consultants when it comes to putting together our different statements as part of the organizational level. We may need help from consultants in terms of preparing our mission statement, putting together the values statement and also the boilerplate copy. It has to be very professional and people who are specialized in this particular task should be the ones to approach because they will tell us what is verbose and what is to the point, what is succinct and therefore all those people have to be a collection of a committee that looks after this sacred style guide because nobody should have the authority to just change things because they like things in a certain way or they don't like certain things without any cogent reasons. Any change that has to be brought about in the style guide has to be brought about by that committee and that committee again has to go back to members of management and the board of directors and all those people who have been part of the whole strategic process and if you take an incisive look into the whole phenomenon, you will realize how many people will have to be contacted because it is a question of again ensuring that things remain consistent, that things reflect in a consistent way the positioning and personality of the organization with no distortions in the message. This is about the importance of the style guide. Now, the next question is what is it that really goes into the style guide? I have informally talked about so many different elements of the two levels that we have learned so far going into the style guide but let me enumerate those one by one. It starts with the vision statement and the mission statement and the values statement. All these statements have to be the part of the style guide and as a matter of fact the guide should start with these statements and then we get on to things like positioning statement and the personality statement. We also have as part of the guide the complete boilerplate copy and elevator pitch and of course the lexicon and then we have another visual thing which is very significant the part of the identity level meaning the name of the organization, the logo, the colors along with the palettes, the primary palette, the secondary palette and then to seek it with instructions as to how those logos are going to be or not going to be used to buy anyone within the organization in so many different contexts. For example, when we are putting together a campaign this is how we go about it and if we are writing a daily communication this is how we follow the guidelines and by the same token when we are updating the content of the website we again have to be consistent notwithstanding the difficulties and challenges that that the medium offers. For example, the difficulty involved in maintaining the consistency of the font and size when it comes to downloading different communications, going to act different computers meaning different users that will have different fonts, whichever font is the default of that particular computer there we are kind of constrained to maintain that consistency but you will recall that we have to be as close to the generic kind of fonts and sizes which are used universally and you know what I'm talking about. So the guide must tell us where a change is to be brought about and before we talk about the change let us stick ourselves to the consistency side of communications. The guide tells us in absolute to the black and white what is to be used and what is not to be used and how something is to be used and how something is not to be used and then we have things like the photographs and images and other graphics you know that we learned as part of the mood boards. We may also have the final mood board as part of the style guide maybe the last document which is the basis of the identity. Although we talked about mood board after developing an understanding of the important elements of visuals but the fact is that all the elements of the visual identity are put together on the basis of a certain style and theme and that style and theme are dependent on the mood board. So a mood board could also be the part of this style guide and together whenever we think external environment it has brought about a change and it's going to have bearing on whatever we do internally. We have to sit together to put our heads down and talk about the corresponding change it may have on our style on the tone of the message meaning any change that we think is going to be caused to the personality of the organization and then we bring about changes in the same manner I talked earlier meaning in a formal structured organized manner not leaving anything to the whims and fancies or to the authority and power of those who are sitting upstairs in the organization I'll be bold enough to say that the marketing people should safeguard this particular treasure very secretly and they should guard it very jealously because this is something which is going to give us consistency all over our communication campaigns. Our professional effort does not stop at the development of the style guide that is the one big step that we have attained with the help of the organizational level and the identity level but the fact is if we are out to institutionalize a very standardized kind of a system then we've got to be able to follow that and we've got to follow that and latter and spread it by not allowing any lateral kind of moves and we ensure that by training people because we train people at different levels of the organization the fact is that we train the people from the middle management from the low management and we also go upwards because the people from top management so much so that the members of the board should also be drawn into the process of orientating them because let's not call training them orientating them about what the style guide is all about and how we have made a very professional hard effort to put the style and tone to express the positioning and the personality of the organization together and what are the parameters within which we are supposed to be operating while we put together our communications it is not a very difficult exercise it only takes the effort to organize it and the people who are part of the front office or the people who are present at the point of entry the meaning receptionists and so on and so forth should also be trained in terms of what the mission of the organization is and what are the values and the not the boilerplate but rather the elevator pitch of the organization because when they come into interaction with the different audiences they've got to be able to express themselves in terms of the mission of the company and the elevator pitch these two statements are the ones which have to be remembered by all those who have the chance of coming into contact with our audiences and there is no exception to it anyone who is going to communicate must remember all these things he or she must know our values our sets of beliefs because they get translated into the way we work and the way we work has got to be expressed in a consistent manner word by word in the same language as it is expressed as part of the style guide here again i would say that the people who conduct training again are the ones who develop the style guide they are the ones who in the first place help the organization come up with the two levels of the brand raising and therefore they should be the people to impart training to workers and managers within the organization in order for everybody to be in the same page and on the same line so much for the identity the level of the brand raising and the next level which i indicated to you is the experiential level but let me make it very clear right here that i'm not going to talk about this level right away because we need to develop some level of basic understanding of a few other factors that are important to appreciate before we get on to the experiential level so wait until that time we have completed our understanding of those thanks this component is impediments to effective messaging so it automatically conveys that there are certain difficulties that organizations face the while they're trying to put together communications although the process of brand raising is just about the most ideal way of developing the brand and then coming up with appropriate communications to support the brand but it does not really happen that way all the time there are non-profit organizations that do not really get to follow that particular route and they are going to operate rather on ad hoc basis but why do they do so well the answer lies in kicking off a program and getting so much involved and absorbed into the mechanics of program execution that they tend to forget in the first place that they have to put communications before they have gotten onto the program and the second reason could be that they are somewhere along the line constrained to come up with the kind of communications or to come up with the kind of strategic process that I just talked about because it obviously takes a lot of human resource and a certain level of expertise to come up with all those logical conclusions by linking different elements of the whole process together in a strategic manner and therefore the organizations tend to skip this particular process of communication which is arrived at the level of positioning and personality after following the whole thing that I just said and they skip this particular factor or step and get on to program execution kind of fundraising and advocacy for their cause because they think these are more important jobs at hand and the communication for the time being can take the backseat the fact of the matter is that communication should take the front seat or the driver's seat because the communication is the one which helps these three areas of non-profits because we know very well that these are the three major areas for which any non-profit organization exists and those are fundraising because we have to approach individuals, corporations, the foundations, the different agencies meaning governmental, international and so on and so forth because we have to execute programs by engaging the way different audiences and these are the audiences that lend us support in terms of program execution and then we need to have an opportunity with the way that we can advocate the cause in a manner that those who are engaged get more and more motivated and involved into the program these areas are to be supported by communication and unless they are supported by communication they cannot be as effective as any non-profit would like to see them and therefore here you know there's a contradiction organizations could mostly be putting these factors before the communication process well this is what you call a short term viewpoint now the question again here is why is it that they follow this particular route knowing that communication process is significant to the organization they may also have or rather in most of the cases they do have an understanding of the strategic process but then the shy way from the details and the sophistication involved at so many different levels because like I said they want to get down to the execution all of a sudden which is not the right approach let me say here the factors which cause this kind of a behavior the meaning being ad hoc you know jumping from situation to situation responding to different stimuli that are going to come up in relation to these three areas that I talked about the fundraising program execution and advocacy they do all that because they have to face challenges which are much harder than the ones people face on the commercial side so this is a fact of life that the marketing people with the working for non-profits that I have to work in an environment an atmosphere that are much more harder and challenging what makes the whole thing that challenging and that much harder well they have to deal with so many different levels of leadership you know that they have to deal with they're the top management they have to convince the board of directors they have to talk with the different important stakeholders who are very important to our existence and our sustenance because they are responsible for so much of advocacy they're responsible for bringing in activists and volunteers and they are very important links between the organization and funding here you see we're not talking or dealing with a situation in which the revenue stream is a function of selling a product which is difficult but not all that difficult as generating funds in a complicated way as non-profits follow because you have to go to audiences and talk with them in certain peculiar manner that I've talked about just over the last in a couple of lectures and then you succeed in getting certain portions of what you want conversely if you are in a position to do good branding of your product and you can develop a good sales platform then you develop the revenue stream and you can fully concentrate on communications but here conversely in non-profits the case is very different they have to deal with different levels of leadership like I said they have to go through a very complicated way of generating funds and they have to put together the different programs in connection with so many different and diverse audiences so these are the factors that keep marketing people in non-profits from following the strategic process which sounds very logical and which is the one one should follow but they skip that process and get on with their daily routines in terms of program execution and this is something which in the long run is not feasible now this is not to say that a short term approach is the wrong approach and any organizations that follow a short term approach are bound to fail it is not that the many organizations are going to start with a very noble innovation but they do not start with a strategic process they do get down to program execution on the very first day and they make their programs successful they accomplish their mission their names whatever is the background of choosing the name could the meaning could just a simple plain straightforward name could with no tagline with the but results and delivery over the past years and experiential cash so to say they are successful so where's the problem well the problem is this thing cannot go on like that forever they reach a point in the life of the organization where they are growing and they're growing fast and that is the point when they start realizing that whatever has happened so far has been a function of what experts call accidental branding so accidental branding is the one which accumulates challenges it is more challenging it adds to your challenges so why face unnecessary and undue challenges that is the thesis of the whole exercise that we should not be getting into situations which are harder hard is hard enough and therefore we should confine ourselves to something which is more logical and which in essence is strategic when they realize the stage of accidental branding which has been successful but they have started now realizing the need to go strategic the questions that flash into their mind are the following they start talking about things like well there seems to be something wrong with the logo because it's not really colorful we developed this logo with the help of people who were not really very good professionals so we've got to undertake an effort you know which can revise the logo and make it more attractive and make it more expressive of our character and our personality there is something wrong with the name because the name is not powerful enough because we've got to change the name and when they start thinking of a change of name they also start thinking of repositioning if repositioning is desired and then the answer lies in in the following the whole process which they should have undertaken in the very first place well it's never too late if they follow the process in order to convert an accidental brand into a strategic brand then they must answer these questions and they must ponder over the implications of these questions you know they say our message is not really going across because what is wrong with it despite the fact that we have been able to generate a sizable amount of the funding but fact also remains that we have not been able to generate as much as we could have so where have things gone wrong that's where you've got to rejuvenate your brand and you've got to look into all these things that are required on your part to go strategic the answers to these questions let's take such organizations into the realm of what you and I can call long-term view and the long-term planning for that matter because this is where they start realizing the need to have a flowing continuity of all the elements of the organizational level as well as the identity level in order to arrive at the right visual identity for the organization the answer to questions like something wrong with the logo and there is something wrong with the name and so on and so forth could the well be addressed the ones that they start taking the long view the organizations that take a long view are the ones which you really follow things like following a well-planned the calendar of activities like you put up together as part of a project management program explaining all the marketing activities with expenses desired to execute those activities also with responsibilities as to who's going to do what and also the talking about the time frames because when different activities are going to be completed and then also the showing as part of the the same exercise with the variances so that the ones that you have started implementing this particular plan with the variances in terms of what you had you had planned and put together as your objectives and goals and what is it that you have achieved and where the variances are these are the kind of things which organizations that take the long term view undertake and when they do all that they also take care of the fact that their organizational level and identity level are derived out of a continuous the process that ensures a very close link between the process and the brand this is the link which makes or rather which turns the the short term branding into a long term perspective and when you start taking this kind of a perspective you also become very choosy about the process of the communications the fact is that the good organizations even if they are very resourceful and have the luxury of getting into very expensive and comprehensive kind of campaigns shy away from getting into areas where they think they may make a mistake or where they may flounder for example they may not like to get into social networking until the time they think they have the right kind of human resource that is going to manage the two-way traffic of the blogosphere or for that matter people who really can be quick at choosing the right network the most appropriate for the program of the organization and also the people who really can detect where the opportunities are and where the threats are the people who are not only good at traditional marketing but also are good at extracting where from the web they can pick and extract the right stories which may become part of key messages in turn finding their way into the boilerplate copy given all this perspective organizations that are not taking a long view they've got to be able to adopt all those steps or measures which can transform their short term thinking into a long term one the what is that thinking and what are those steps and factors because i'll be talking in a different component but let me give you an overview of those steps in continuity of the perspective of those organizations which do take a long term view well in the first place the organizations not taking a long term view because they should be good at taking a very realistic stock of their own resources but the ones they know where they really stand in terms of financials and also the human resources and what really are their capabilities they are in a position to come up with something which can trigger the strategic process the second thing they have to be very sensitive to is right communication right communication is a function of reachability to the right audience with a message that really connects with the audience in other words we've got to use a language and keep it so understandable that our audiences react to that in a positive way the meaning that they take certain action and and then get involved with the cause communication has got to be directed toward our audiences so that they start advocating our cause as our partners they become stakeholders yet another area in which the organizations could must look into despite their shortcomings in terms of the finances, the human resources, the staff members and the budgeting and so on and so forth they must develop a certain level of management expertise which should lay the foundation for good operational planning and budgeting. When you develop operational plans you automatically also get into developing systems and procedures and it is a systematic approach which really means to the stakeholders and the whole idea here is to convince all those people who matter for the organization in terms of its funding and other supports which you know very well our requisite supports in order for the organization to sustain itself in the first place and then further grow. Once you have convinced the stakeholders that you should be in a position to do a better job in terms of raising funds and executing your programs with a higher level of resources not only financial but also the human resources because i will be talking about how to leverage the human resource because while you do not have the human resource of your own in the next component but again the crux of the whole matter is that as part of the non-profit you should be good at generating support in so many different forms from all those audiences that really matter to you and the audiences that really matter to you in the first place are the donors and funders and then to see all those people who advocate your cause and to support you toward execution of the programs as long as you are in a position to muster that kind of support because you should be in a position to put together a strategic process and then follow it to arrive at a strategic positioning and personality for your organization we're going to more on this in the next component thank you very much