If you’re trying to market a cause or anything for that matter, you’re probably looking for that one silver bullet or key to make your organisation explode in supporters and fundraising .You buy the books, the online courses, the CDs and the DVDs that will tell you the steps to unlocking this massive marketing success. You subscribe to sites like Indispensable Marketing to study the steps. You attend seminars and marketing bootcamps. You talk to some experts at Cause & Effective. You look at very successful organisations in your sector and try to reverse engineer them.

After all of this poking, you may be tempted to believe there are no steps to massive marketing success. But the steps are real.Actually, there are three  that work together for massive marketing success. To be honest, these  steps separate the winners from the losers, and the cash cows from the starving cows. Implement them effectively and you’ll start to separate your organisation from the pack, increase supporters and revenue, and achieve tremendous marketing success.Slowly at first, though, then you’ll pick up momentum and things will start to move amazingly quickly. No hype, no tricks, no gimmicks. These three steps are . . .

Every year, hopeful entrepreneurs, business owners and organisations buy millions of dollars’ worth of self-help “how to market” or “how to grow your business” products. Almost 95% of the people who buy these products and services will spend thousands of dollars, then turn around and DO nothing.The problem with doing nothing is that Massive Marketing Success is about action. Action leads to attention and support. Most organisations value the dream more than they do the result. They want more followers, and more revenue. They might even want it desperately. But they don’t take action.The best way to learn marketing…is to do marketing. Go take action!

Massive Marketing Success Step #2: Have a marketing blueprint. 

OK we now have action, but unfortunately this of itself is not enough. If you do a lot of random marketing tasks, you tend to get a lot of random results. And added to that marketing can be a painfully slow process that moves in sudden bursts, instead of in a predictable fashion.

You need to put together a simple and sensible marketing blueprint. Create a marketing plan. It will force you to check each project in detail and confront the tough issues—what does your audience look like, what do they need, and what can you do for them? As Harry Beck said,

“Planning teaches you and your colleagues about your business . . . writing a plan educates you in a way that nothing else can.”

If you want massive marketing success and to raise a million dollars in your organisation, start with a marketing project to make $X. Figure that out, then scale it. It sounds simple and even silly, but it works.

Massive Marketing Success Step #3: Work on “YOU”

This is the one that’s going to take #1 and #2 to a higher level of success. Success steps #1 and #2 can help your organisation to survive. Add #3 to those and you’ll start to make it thrive.

As a marketer —yes, everyone is a marketer, from business owners, C-level executives, to independent professionals—your mindset must be marketing is everything you do. From creating useful and relevant content online and off, to community benefiting policies, interesting presentations, how you put together tenders, how you perform, how you build relationships, answer the phone, design your invoices and who you employ and engage as volunteers, ambassadors, evangelists etc.. Remember every organisation is in the relationship building business. Your story, blog posts, blurbs, coupons, promotional products, free reports, free checklist, free speeches, trade show booths and email newsletters all contribute to the holy grail of marketing: to establish a relationship.

If you’re just going to copy another organisations marketing which is the usual stuff in a lame me-too way, you’re not going to find too many committed supporters. You’re better off spending your time differentiating your organisation even slightly from the hundreds and thousands of others competing for individual, community, Government and donor attention and support. Too often, organisations attempt to distinguish their cause in ways that have little or no influence on the reasons this audience would care to notice.

Question: What are you going to do?

About Patrick – Patrick McFadden is Cause & Effective’s marketing advisor and the author of the Indispensable Marketing Blog. You can also follow him on Twitter. If you would like to guest post on B-Cause, check out our guidelines here.