Littleford & Associates has over 100 school and nonprofit clients world wide in the marketing realm.
Mission and marketing are intimately related. Effective marketing to the community at large begins with internal marketing: ensuring consonance of mission, goals and the words that constituents served and customers use to describe them. The mission can also be revealed in practice through the actions and words of the administration and staff. These become the benchmarks by which all will judge the integrity and success of the organization.
Littleford & Associates has conducted workshops in conjunction with strategic planning or on marketing alone which have included a motivating exercise on mission statement brainstorming, clarification and development. Board members and administrators find this to be an enjoyable activity that kick starts long-range planning and marketing efforts.
Lack of mission clarity and a poor internal marketing foundation often lead to money wasted on misdirected external marketing. Admissions and retention analysis and surveys of current and prospective constituents are critical for guiding effective marketing.
Establishing and promoting unique “centers of excellence” (flagship programs) are vital to marketing schools and other nonprofits. Just as a president’s long “coat tails” ensure the election of members of his own party, “centers of excellence” are the coat tails that draw new families to schools or new patrons and donors to other organizations.
Today, external marketing techniques for schools and non profits are becoming increasingly more sophisticated. There are new effective “image” tools, while at the same time proven open houses, coffees and public outreach functions, as well as word of mouth, continue to produce excellent results. Littleford & Associates guides non profits on how to design and staff them appropriately to gain maximum impact.
