Non-profit and For-Profit Organizations

Non-profit and for-profit organizations share similarities and also have their differences. For-profit organisations stray far from non-profit organisations in their motives; for-profits are driven to boost revenue where non-profits hold more selfless motives and won’t suffer financial difficulties or loss. This difference flows into their marketing process and outcome, as non-profit organisations typically market to encourage people to give, where for-profit organisations have the aim of persuading costumers to spend money. 

Leading to non-profit organisations beginning to employ corporate techniques used by for-profit organisations as they meet market pressures that typical of for-profits, such as the contusions contest for funding and the requirement of money to successfully achieve their mission. These techniques have been deemed essential to non-profit organisations, especially ‘the marketing concept’ that fosters an understanding of the consumer. Rather than incorporating the marketing concept and the marketing procedure with the consumer and inquiring into what the market demand and need are, non-profits have an ‘organisation-centred’ mindset and the possibility that they have a false belief that the services they provide are necessary for the market.

You could argue that it's important for non-profit organisations to embrace a market-driven outlook and utilise successful marketing strategies and tools; it is also been argued that market adaptation may not serve to be an appropriate concept for non-profits as their mission is pre-defined. Nevertheless, there is a vast amount of alternative marketing strategies acceptable to non-profit organisations that don’t require them to contradict or alter their intended missions. 

These strategies consist of Product Positioning, Market Segmentation, Advertising and Output Location; the implementation of these approaches are straight forward for non-profit organisations to put into action. The logical starting point would identify what customers are interested in advocating the non-profit’s mission, secondly establishing a brand image that is appealing to that demographic, thirdly developing communication content that is intriguing to that demographic and finally communicating to the demographic through various platforms that they frequently utilise. Therefore regardless of the reality that non-profits are different in comparison to for-profits, the inclusion of corporate marketing techniques there has been a remarkable and have proved effective at attaining their missions.

As the time has past non-profit organisations have begun to incorporate marketing into their programming, with the intentions that of possibly aiding them to achieve their missions and as non-profits are often confronted by various complicated decisions in comparison to for-profit organisations whose existence is purely dependent on cleaver implementation of marketing management devices. It has also been brought to attention that adopting a marketing adaptation that ensures that the marketing starts and end with the consumer.

Akchin 22 years after Kotler strived to specify the condition of marketing within non-profit organisations. He carried out a case study in Maryland USA with the Maryland Association of Non-profit Organisations, they disclosed some shocking information on the subject of marketing in non-profits. This case study draws attention to the tendency of non-profit organisations to execute marketing functions as opposed to adopting a more extensive marketing strategy. 

The association questioned organisations on various aspects, such as their size, type and their opinion on whether public relations, fund-raising or marketing deemed more effective. Each organisation was then requested to rank their duties, which resulted in 10% of organisations ranking their top choice as marketing and 53% of organisations ranked their top choice as fund-raising. Akchin communicated his belief that exposure to an educational background would have a role in the acceptance of marketing in non-profits. It turned out that 37% of the organisations in the case study had received professional communication and business coaching, with the others being from various educational backgrounds or had some form of knowledge of marketing.

There has been a development to particular recommendations for tactical marketing concerning non-profit organisations, some of these have been based around the perception of marketing when it comes to non-profits inevitable utilises core marketing principles and procedures in challenging situations. In Andereasen and Kotler’s work, they call attention to the importance of adopting a ‘customer-centred’ mindset, spending the time to understand exactly what the customer wants and expects. Thus shifting the focus onto the consumer as opposed to the idea of an ‘organisation-centred’ perspective, where an organisation positions themselves at the centre of everything instead of the consumer.

Over time the marketing strategies that have been utilised by non-profit organisations have grown and developed with organisations now having access to marketing on various platforms i.e. social media. Non-profits have shifted their marketing content from traditional forms like newspaper advertisements, flyers, word of mouth etc. to social network platforms like Twitter, Instagram and Facebook. More and more non-profit organisations are adapting their marketing strategies to work with this newfound marketing platform. 

In 2017 marketing in the non-profit landscape organisations begun to build their marketing plan around a combination of structured ambition and sincere stories enabled them to produce content that truly matters to the lives of others, with the added element of being inspirational and educational. It may seem that releasing marketing content onto social media platforms would be effective that's not always the case for non-profits as various challenges pan out, such as there may be a need for organisations to hire a someone to manage and maintain the social media accounts. The hiring of an additional person has its own set of challenges the most significant one being that the language used by that new staff member may not entirely match the organisation’s voice.

Marketing in non-profit organisations has come a long way with non-profits as of 2019 having their own set of marketing trends. Leeann Alameda states that 3 marketing trends that should be incorporated into non-profit organisations marketing plans. The 3 trends are Building a Story Culture, “stories remind your audience about what makes you unique and why your cause is the best choice for their donations and support.”; Personalised Email Communications, “Customized content and optimizing their experiences with you foster a deeper connection and, therefore, greater loyalty and support.”; and Videos as a Priority in Marketing Content, “People remember videos better than they remember written content. Videos are more likely to go viral.”.

Non-profit organisations have all the essential marketing tools at their fingertips and the knowledge to implicant them, but they don’t find marketing to be very effective as for-profit organisations do. Although so far non-profits haven’t seen success with marketing this is down to the following strategies that have deemed effective for for-profit organisations. However, the development and brooding of marketing strategies have seen produced tailored marketing trends and tools that cater to the needs and ambitions of non-profits. I truly believe that the inclusion of social media marketing and trends could potentially deem to be very positive and effective for non-profit organisations; as they can tailor their marketing posts specifically to their organisation's missions.