Strategy & Messaging
What’s your next move?
There’s a lot of uncertainty out there when it comes to recruiting. For those of you who are just starting out, the pitch you deliver and audience you target can define your program for years to come; how do you choose? On the other hand, once you’re more established, sometimes the old ways of doing things just stop working and you can’t figure out why.
Strategy and research can eliminate much of the uncertainty from your decision-making. I’m talking about a systematic review of your organization to answer the two big questions: 1) What is the best recruiting move you can make right now? 2) Is your message connecting with people?
Instead of wasting time doubting and second-guessing, let’s work together so you can make informed, confident choices and build the future you want.
My process
Preliminary Meeting
This is a free consultation about the state of your recruiting and any specific challenges you’re currently facing. If I determine that you’re ready for a long-term plan, I’ll send you a sign-up form and make it official.
2. Discovery
In the discovery session, I dig deep to get a sense of your identity and goals as an organization. How does your staff understand your mission? How do you pitch yourselves? Whom do you see as your ideal recruit and why?
3. Data Collection
Next, I’ll take the temperature outside. I’ll review any metrics you have available and conduct my own polls, surveys, and interviews with past and present participants to solve the mystery of what draws some prospects in — and where you’re losing others.
4. Submitting the Report
I’ll write up a report, and together we’ll go over my detailed recommendations for your ideal messaging and communications strategy. If you’re interested in moving forward, we can start implementing next steps (either together or bringing in other vendors as needed).
What’s in the report?
✓ Goals: Are you trying to reach a new audience with a rebrand? What about trying to create a clear contrast with the competition? Working from a clear vision and sense of your priorities, I can draft a plan to match.
✓ Diagnosis: There’s a whole series of steps involved in recruitment, from initial interest to commitment. I’ll review your process to see which areas are already working and which can use a boost, whether that means big-picture changes or small but important tweaks. Know what’s going on under the hood, and you know where to focus your energy and resources next.
✓ Messaging: What aspects of your program resonate most strongly with prospects? Are there different messages that work best with different demographics? I’ll boil this down to an elevator pitch that you can keep at the forefront at all times, then prepare you to adapt this idea to your whole range of collateral and communications at all stages of the recruitment process.
✓ Recommendations: What steps do I believe will help you meet your goals? The possibilities are vast. Based on what I’ve learned about your program, I might recommend anything from reaching out to prospects through a different channel to taking a new approach in your standard pitch; we can explore brochures, website upgrades, email marketing… whatever I believe is best for your situation. I’ll explain how the various options work, what they can do for you, and about how much you can expect to spend making them a reality.
Starting at $4,500
Timeline: 3 to 6 weeks
“We realized our pitch wasn’t landing. After Josh reviewed our material and listened to our needs, he was able to sharpen our message. The process he took us through and the collateral we created together helped us nail down what makes our yeshiva unique, and prospects seem to be getting it. We’ve seen an increase in the number of “good-fit” candidates.”
-Benny Pflanzer, Educational Director, Eretz HaTzvi
Ready to meet?
To keep our first meeting focused and productive, tell me a little more about your project.
FAQs
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I’m happy to take a look. If you’ve already taken a big chunk out of the workload, naturally, I’ll lower the cost to match.
Fair warning, though: This isn’t a likely scenario. What I’m offering you with this service are my own professional eye and instincts. I prefer to see the whole process through from start to finish to ensure that I don’t miss anything and that I can be confident in my recommendations. Chances are, I’ll decline to take this shortcut if I feel that it would do you a disservice.
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Here’s what I do: I figure out what your strengths are — what makes your organization appeal to participants, what kinds of marketing have been successful for you — and I use that as a springboard. Instead of pushing you into a new and risky approach, I help you pinpoint a foundation that has already proved itself reliable, then advise you on where to go from there.
These recommendations are all based on the goal of helping you build productive, thriving relationships with a wide array of participants.
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While I started out in the film world, I’ve spent the last decade orienting those skills towards the marketing needs of the nonprofit sector. I’ve developed my methodology specifically for this purpose, working with a variety of organizations.
Helping you achieve this success is what gives my work meaning. When clients tell me about the difference I’ve made for them, that’s another injection of energy and motivation for me. There’s nothing like connecting nonprofit organizations with new prospects in an entirely new way.
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Actually, you can.
In fact, I’d encourage you to do so: Once a year, conduct your own review to make sure you’re up to date with the internal and external shifts every nonprofit experiences and that your messaging and marketing are still on task.
But even if you’re already on top of it, it can be useful to get an outside perspective now and again. Honestly, I struggle to do this work for myself, even having developed an exact methodology for handling it!
By the way, I’ve written a handful of posts about how to do this yourself on my blog; I’ve also written a whole book about it. I encourage you to check them both out, even if you do want an external vendor doing the heavy lifting.
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I get you. And I wouldn’t want you to do anything you don’t feel comfortable with.
There are certainly steps we can take to mitigate your concerns. I’m happy to sign an NDA before taking on any such project (and if you don’t have one, I can provide one). In addition, I can share my prep notes for the calls as well as recordings of each call after the fact (though, bear in mind, I may get more candid answers if they know you won’t be listening). If these steps don’t leave you feeling reassured, we can brainstorm other options or just scale back the research process. You’re the boss.
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Here’s what you can expect from the report:
An observation of the specific marketing challenge(s) facing you, supported with polls, interview quotes, or general thoughts.
An explanation of what I believe this is costing you, so you can judge its importance for yourself.
A recommendation for responding to this challenge, including the average price tag, pros and cons of different solutions.
For example, if I say your website needs an overhaul, I’ll explain what I see the business goal of your website to be and where it is currently falling short of achieving this goal. Then, I’d outline what areas I’d change, how I’d go about doing so, and what this would look like in practice.
Not included in the report would be a page-by-page plan for a new website or any new copy. (I can help you with those things as well, but they’d be beyond the scope of pure strategy and into the realm of actual website optimization.)
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Well, for one thing, I keep you in the loop at every stage to make sure you feel good about the work we’re doing. I believe that this is a big part of why I’ve pretty much never gotten negative feedback from clients on the tens of reports I’ve issued.
In fact, the one exception was due to a miscommunication; in that case, I ultimately gave the client a refund. Ever since then, I’ve taken extra pains to make sure that expectations are as clear as possible up front.
Your happiness with the project and the success of your organization are my priorities, and I’ll do what I can to make them a reality.