Christopher Hartley - marketing director, U Local Limited
Product innovation should begin with market requirements: One of the major issues for social enterprises is that product innovation/creation never starts at the market, but always with an idea that then has to be taken to marketplace and sold. Social enterprises should drive business via the market, as large successful organisations do.
Know the competition: Competition that is addressing your target market might be not only coming from within the sector, but also from traditional companies. Be aware of this.
Marketing practices shouldn't differ from that of traditional enterprises: Social enterprises may be built on a different core, for example social benefit, but they still hold the mark of an enterprise and their essential marketing activities should be the same as traditional companies.
Adrian Ashton - freelance social enterprise consultant
Be aware of your multiple markets: For a traditional (private) business, defining its target market is relatively easy - whose needs are you meeting? For a social enterprises, it is not as simple. The group of people who will benefit and those who will be paying for the services are frequently not the same, and may even not be that compatible. The reconciliation between these multiple markets, and their social and financial needs, is an important issue that creates internal tensions inside the enterprise that will need to be addressed.
You must uphold your core values: When identifying yourself as as a social enterprise, people in the wider environment, and within your own organisation and community, will ascribe certain expectations of ethical values and behaviours to the enterprise. If the organisation fails to conform to or uphold these, it will loose credibility and fail.
Learn from private business: There are valuable tools and methodologies developed and used by traditional enterprises over the years that could be effectively used by social enterprises. The belief that private business is bad shouldn't be always applied.
Have a clear strategy if you enlist the help of an expert: When contracting an expert, have as clear a brief as possible and ask for a broad outline of what the potential provider will do/offer and their fee before starting to haggle. Take references from other enterprises that they have been in contact with as well as support networks - they should be a valuable resource to help you decide how much to pay for the work.
Be clear about what you offer: This is a crucial aspect for the organisation market research and very important for the competitor analysis. Often organisations fail to recognise who their competitors are because they fail to clearly define what it is they're actually offering.
Shona McElroy - business development manager, Fresh Focus Marketing
Set up a system to identify new market opportunities: Most social enterprises don't have systems in place to identify new opportunities but rather rely on chance encounters if they are looking to find new markets. Social enterprises should actively look for information that indicates new opportunities and respond by investigating and building propositions in response.
Sarah Brown - interim marketing and communications director, The Social Investment Business
Focus your efforts: Not everyone is your target market. To succeed it is critical to identify and quantify the characteristic of your target market, including ways of communicating with it.
Ensure your vision drives your marketing: Markets are changing and social enterprises need to respond to it. However, opportunities should only be followed if they fit within the vision of the organisation. If social enterprises don't stay focused on their vision but end up chasing money everywhere then all the practicalities of marketing can be forgotten.
Marketing should run through the whole of the business: Many social entrepreneurs think that marketing is just a promotional, advertising, or even sales, process. This is not the case. Marketing is a core business practice that should run through the whole organisation. Marketing activities should include identifying the products and services that are offered, how they are priced, how they are sold and how they are promoted.
Have a clear social media marketing strategy: Social media should be a central part of your marketing strategy but sometimes people get seduced by new methods because they seem more exciting. Remember Facebook or Twitter are just different forms of bits of paper as is this discussion forum. Social media takes time, resources and real clarity about what is wanted to be achieved. Staff need very clear guidelines about how to use it to support their jobs and the overall organisation marketing strategy.
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