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Another Way to Generate Marketing and Fundraising Ideas

This post offers a little brainstorming exercise you can apply to any marketing or fundraising challenge - getting sponsorships, raising awareness, advertising classes, getting more cash donations, et cetera.

Step 1: Write down your challenge.
Step 2: Think about your challenge for a few minutes and write down your thoughts.
Step 3: Force yourself to wander off in a new direction, cognitively-speaking.

To start thinking differently, you need a new focal point for your thinking. Don't count on something to just come up. Use the current day of the month to select a marketing trick from this list (examples in parentheses, where needed):

Vending machine
Buy one get one free sales
Sidewalk sales
Coupons
Infomercials
Pop-up advertising
Aerial advertising (banner towed behind a plane)
Free samples
Holiday sales
Free extras (buy this laptop, get two years' anit-virus protection for free)
Celebrity endorsements
Product placements
Viral videos
Mobile apps
Marketing partnerships
Sponsorships
Gifts (pens with a company logo and URL)
Newspaper ads
Banner ads
Magazine ads
Contests
"Emergency" Sales (Overstock, scratch-and-dent)
Telemarketing
Subscriptions
Volume Discounts
Early Bird Specials
Cash Back
Guarantees
Warranties
Niche marketing
Network marketing

Once you have picked something from the list, think about how it could be used in marketing your nonprofit. Take about five minutes and write down everything that comes to mind related to whatever you picked. Then look at each item on the list and see if it sparks any ideas.

For practice, write down five things that come to mind as you contemplate volume discounts. Write down any characteristic, habit, stereotype or association that comes to mind.

Now, look at each of those five things one at a time. Do you get any ideas about how to better use your organization's Web site to raise some money?

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