At Javelina, our approach to purpose-driven branding and marketing centers around a single core belief: effective changemakers understand their why, their goals, and who they’re trying to reach – and tell impactful stories driven by all three.
Creating change takes a lot of sustained, hard work, over a long period of time. Progress won’t happen overnight, and it usually doesn’t happen in a straight line. But after over 12 years of working with those on the front lines of change, we’ve learned that what truly makes an impact really boils down to these 4 ingredients:
1. Understanding your why.
The very first step to creating change is getting clear on what it’s all for, so you can shout that message loudly throughout your branding and marketing. In order for audiences to be motivated to support or engage with your work, they need to understand why it matters. To quote Simon Sinek, “People don’t buy what you do, they buy why you do it.”
For instance, if you were to say, “We’re making public transportation more accessible,” a lot of people might not understand why that’s important, and therefore won’t care. Without the why, your message doesn’t doesn’t have as much of an impact.
But if you say, “We’re making public transportation more accessible so that every person, no matter their income level, can get to their work, school, doctors appointments, or wherever they need to go,” your message will automatically resonate with more people. When changemakers lead with their why and let it drive their storytelling, they make a far deeper impact.
2. Defining your goals.
In order to find success, you need to know what success is. What is that you are actually trying to achieve? Setting specific, realistic, measurable goals will help you understand what it is you need to do to execute your vision, and help you create a clear roadmap for how you’ll get there.
Pretend you are a healthcare clinic, and you set the goal to “improve healthcare outcomes for the whole community.” That doesn’t really give you or your marketing department a clear direction to follow, and the tactics you take to get there could be all over the place – and, you would never know if you were actually making progress toward that goal.
However, if you set a goal to “increase the number of appointments made by low income patients by 10%,” you would know that your marketing strategy should be focused on tactics that target low income community members and motivate them to make an appointment at your clinic. By reaching that goal, you would know that you were making progress toward your ultimate vision of more equitable health outcomes for the whole community.
If you’d like to know more about the importance of goal setting – and how to do it – you can watch the most recent Social Shift Short episode of our How to Change the World podcast, where our CEO and host Catherine Alonzo takes a deep dive into what she’s learned about defining success.
3. Knowing your audiences.
In the previous example of the healthcare clinic, part of the reason that “increase the number of appointments made by low income patients” is a more helpful goal than “improve healthcare outcomes for the whole community,” is that the former has a clearly defined target audience. To create change, it’s vital that you not only know what you’re trying to achieve, but who you need to reach in order to achieve it.
A common mistake that changemakers – and brands of all kinds – make is that they try to reach everyone. But by doing so, your messages will be generic, your marketing tactics will lack focus, and you will end up reaching no one. But, if you know the specific group of people you need to reach most, you can conduct research to learn what marketing tactics and messaging will resonate most with that audience.
That way, your marketing will have a sharper focus, and a much deeper impact.
4. Telling stories driven by all of the above.
With a clear understanding of why you do the work you do, what you are trying to achieve, and who you are trying to reach, you now have a solid foundation for storytelling that truly makes an impact. You can tell stories that lead with your why – making it clear why the work you’re doing matters. And, you can tailor those stories to both what will resonate with your target audiences most and what you are aiming to achieve. So, however you tell your story, whether it’s through social media or blog posts, speaking engagements or billboards, every message you send will inspire your audiences to take action, leading to the change you are seeking to make in the world.
To return to the healthcare clinic example, if your goal is to increase the number of appointments made by low-income individuals, then you know you should incorporate a call to action to make an appointment throughout your messages. Because people with low incomes are your target audience, you know that emphasizing your low- to no-cost services will resonate with them. By doing so – and stressing why healthcare matters – your stories are sure to move your audiences to action, and ultimately make a real impact in your community.
If you need some help tailoring your storytelling based on your audiences, goals, and why, we’re here for you! To bolster your branding and marketing with advice from an experienced professional, schedule a free consultation today.