259. A Marketing Plan for the "Off Season" + the Power of Finding Your Brand Voice - Jordana Merkin

Jordana Merkin, Voice for Good, We Are for Good Podcast

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Overview

Meet J o rdana. This nonprofit marketer is helping you create a marketing plan for the "off-season" between campaigns or events AND sweetening the deal by outlining steps to craft your organization's story. Tune in for messaging guidelines and building a brand voice from one of our favorite mission-based marketers🎧

💡Learn:

Building a marketing plan for the "off season"
Creating a messaging guide allowing your org to speak with one voice🗣
How to tell your organization's story well across mediums
Marketing lessons learned from 10+ years working in-house at nonprofit orgs

Today’s Guest

Jordana Merkin, Founder of Voice for Good

“The extent to which you can be specific in your stories and the extent to which you can be specific in your brand voice will make the rest of the planning easier and that much more cohesive and smoother to roll out in terms of crafting a marketing plan to have the offseason.”

— Jordana Merkin, Founder of Voice for Good

Episode Transcript

Download Full Episode Transcript Here

Episode highlights

Jordana’s story and journey to where she is today (4:00)
Where to start when you're trying to create messaging for organizations (6:00)
Brand voice and the importance of the way you choose your words (22:00)
Key steps to building a marketing plan for the off season (28:00)
Jordana’s lessons learned throughout her nonprofit marketing career (34:00)
A powerful moment of philanthropy in Jordana’s life (36:00)
Jordana’s One Good Thing: Keep learning. (40:00)

powerful quotes

“That storytelling piece and that writing piece is just always has had my heart and to be able to do it on a day to day basis in the nonprofit space has always just been such a blessing.” -Jordana

“What I do as an exercise is the 3 whys. It’s based on an exercise to get to the emotional core of the issue.” -Jordana

“To get to the emotional core of an issue you should ask “why is this important?” 3 times.” -Jordana

“If you ask why a mission is important three times, you really peel back the layers, not just about what you do, but eventually you really get to the emotional piece.” -Jordana

“What are the types of things you are going to talk about? You need to provide value.” -Jordana

“The messaging guide will get all your people on the same page, and you can share it with anyone that joins your organization in the future.” -Jordana

“Tone setting voice across the organization helps us speak with one voice.” -Jordana

“I love to dig into the founders story, or digging into human stories at the organization. People give to people.” -Jordana

“No matter how big or not big your organization is, you can’t do all of this at once.” -Jordana

“If you have this guide, from the outset to say, like, here are all the things about us. And here's how to tell our story. And here are the words we use. And here's the tone we use, then you can really set off from the right direction from the outset.” -Jordana

“That's also why I like to dig into the founder story. And if that's not an option, honestly, even if it is digging into certain humans at the organization, because people give to people and I think that's an important, that's an important piece of content. That's an important piece of the story.” -Jordana

“The extent to which you can be specific in your stories and the extent to which you can be specific in your brand voice will make the rest of the planning easier and that much more cohesive and smoother to roll out in terms of crafting a marketing plan to have the offseason.” -Jordana

“You can't do all the things at once.” -Jordana

“So often marketing is reactive.” -Jordana

Connect with jordana and voice for good

Website / LinkedIn / Instagram

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