Nonprofit organizations must tailor messaging to audience

Nonprofit organizations know the challenges of having to appeal to many, highly varied audiences. Sara Heald, development director at Air Alliance Houston, talks about how they tailor messages on social media based on the audiences they can best reach on each channel.

Robin: Hello, and welcome to this addition of Brandonomics, an inside look at top brands and their marketing strategies. I’m Robin Tooms, VP of Strategy at Savage Brands. And my guest again is Sara Heald, Development Director at Air Alliance Houston. So Sara, welcome back to Brandonomics!

Sara: Thanks for having me, Robin.

Robin: Well, great. So let’s talk about Air Alliance Houston again, which of course is an organization here. And like many organizations, you have the challenge of talking with so many different stakeholders. You have the people in the community and all the sponsors and donors and policymakers. So from a branding standpoint that’s a really big challenge. I want to know how you’re addressing that.

Sara: Well, we made the mistake for many years of only having one message for all these groups, and recently we spent a lot of time strategizing on how to connect with all these groups. Different audiences deserve different messaging and now we have all that done.

Robin: Yeah. So give me an example of how I might see this in action.

Sara: Sure. We’re really proud of our social media platforms, which include Twitter, Instagram, Pinterest and Facebook. And the way that we’re managing those is that we found that we kind of interact with different audiences on each one, and we tailor the messaging to make it appropriate for that audience. We found that on Twitter, we connect very well with policymakers, regulatory agencies and science-based members of our community. Whereas on Facebook, we interact with a lot of the moms. On our Instagram account, we of course connect with a lot of Houston’s youth. And our Pinterest account offers opportunities to connect with people that might be looking to come at air quality from maybe a more playful perspective. Maybe how air quality affects their gardening or home improvement or inside indoor air quality.

Robin: So the way that you’re describing each of these as channels, you know the audience, so you tailor the messaging for each based on this overarching messaging strategy you’ve put in place?

Sara: Yes. That’s right.

Robin: Okay, well great. Thank you for walking us through that.

Sara: Thank you.

Robin: This has been another edition of Brandonomics, an inside look at top brands and their marketing strategies.

 

Air Alliance Houston is a nonprofit organization that believes the quality of our air directly affects our quality of life. Through research, education and advocacy, the organization empowers Houstonians to take charge of their health and environment. It is committed to delivering clean air for a healthier future in Houston. https://airalliancehouston.org/