• Go Do Good Announces Strategic Partnership with Kids Beating Cancer to Help Build a Stronger Foundation for Growth and Greater Impact

    Go Do Good Announces Strategic Partnership with Kids Beating Cancer to Help Build a Stronger Foundation for Growth and Greater Impact

    Tampa, FL — Go Do Good, a purpose-driven branding, marketing, and digital agency, is proud to announce a new strategic partnership with Kids Beating Cancer, a nationally recognized nonprofit dedicated to providing access to life-saving treatments, advancing pediatric cancer research, and supporting children and families throughout their cancer journey.

    At Go Do Good, we believe organizations changing lives deserve a marketing strategy that creates clarity, builds trust, and inspires action. That’s why we’re honored to partner with Kids Beating Cancer as they continue expanding their impact and serving children and families facing one of life’s greatest challenges.

    For more than 30 years, Kids Beating Cancer has been committed to removing barriers that stand between children and the care they need. Through groundbreaking research, access to innovative transplant and cellular therapies, family support programs, and a steadfast commitment to hope, the organization has helped thousands of families navigate the unimaginable while working to improve outcomes for children diagnosed with cancer and other life-threatening diseases.

    “Kids Beating Cancer is doing incredible work to create hope for children and families during some of the most difficult moments of their lives,” said Michelle Sulzer, Founder and Chief Creative Officer of Go Do Good. “We’re honored to partner with their team and help build the strategic marketing foundation that will support their mission today and create opportunities for even greater impact in the future.”

    Building the Foundation for What’s Next

    Every successful marketing effort begins with a clear understanding of where an organization stands today, who it serves, and how it communicates its value. That’s where this partnership begins.

    Working alongside the Kids Beating Cancer team, Go Do Good will conduct a comprehensive brand and marketing audit to evaluate the organization’s current marketing efforts, identify opportunities for growth, and uncover areas for greater alignment. From there, we’ll develop audience personas that provide deeper insight into the people who support, engage with, and champion the mission. Those insights will shape a messaging framework that brings greater clarity and consistency to communications across every touchpoint, ultimately informing a strategic marketing and action plan that provides a clear roadmap for the future.

    By establishing this strategic foundation, Kids Beating Cancer will be equipped with the insights, direction, and framework needed to make future marketing decisions with confidence. As the organization continues to grow, this work will help ensure every marketing initiative is aligned with its mission, resonates with the audiences it serves, and supports even greater impact in the years ahead.

    Strategy That Builds Momentum

    At Go Do Good, we believe the strongest marketing starts with strategy. Understanding an organization’s mission, its audiences, and the opportunities ahead creates the clarity needed to make smarter decisions, build stronger connections, and maximize every marketing investment.

    That’s why we approach every partnership with a strategic mindset first. By helping purpose-driven organizations better understand who they are, who they serve, and how they communicate their value, we create a foundation that supports meaningful, sustainable growth.

    For Kids Beating Cancer, this work represents an investment in the future. The strategic insights developed throughout this engagement will help guide future communications, fundraising efforts, community partnerships, and marketing initiatives, ensuring every effort is rooted in a clear understanding of the organization’s mission and the people it serves.

    A Partnership Built on Purpose

    This partnership represents more than a new client relationship. It’s an opportunity to support an organization whose mission brings hope, healing, and life-saving care to children and families when they need it most.

    We’re honored to partner with Kids Beating Cancer as they continue making an extraordinary difference in the lives of children facing cancer, and we’re excited to help provide the strategic direction that will support the organization’s continued growth for years to come.

    Because when organizations doing extraordinary work have the clarity to communicate their purpose and the strategy to move it forward, they are better equipped to inspire support, strengthen relationships, and create an even greater impact.

    Daniela Coromina

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  • The Annual Report Nobody Reads and What to Do Instead

    The Annual Report Nobody Reads and What to Do Instead

    Every year, thousands of nonprofit organizations, and mission-driven organizations invest significant time, energy, and organizational resources into producing an annual report. A dedicated staff member or team spends weeks gathering program statistics, compiling financial summaries, writing narrative content, coordinating with leadership for approvals, and working with a designer to produce a polished PDF document. The report is published to the website, shared in a single email blast, and posted on social media with a link.

    Then, quietly, almost nothing happens. Download rates are low. Engagement is minimal. The donors who receive the email open it, maybe glance at the cover, and move on with their day. The annual report that represents weeks of organizational effort produces a fraction of the engagement that a well-crafted social media post would have generated in fifteen minutes.

    This is not a hypothetical scenario. It is the lived experience of the vast majority of nonprofits and mission-driven organizations that produce traditional annual reports. And it raises a question worth sitting with: if the goal of the annual report is to communicate impact, build donor trust, and strengthen the case for continued support, why do so many of them fail to do any of those things?

    The answer, as usual, is not the content. Most nonprofits have genuinely remarkable impact to share. The answer is the format, the distribution, and the fundamental misalignment between how organizations present their annual impact and how their audience actually consumes information in the current media environment.

    “Most nonprofits, and mission have genuinely remarkable impact to share. The problem is the format, the distribution, and the fundamental misalignment between how impact gets presented and how audiences actually consume content today.”

    Why Traditional Nonprofit Annual Reports Fail to Drive Engagement

    The traditional annual report was designed for a different era. When donors received physical mail, when organizational credibility was communicated through the weight and production quality of a printed document, when a twelve-page PDF felt like an act of generosity rather than an act of optimism, the annual report made sense as a primary impact communication vehicle.

    That era is over. Today, the average attention span of an online reader is measured in seconds, not minutes. The content competing for your donor’s attention is produced by professional media organizations, algorithmically curated social platforms, and marketing teams with nine-figure budgets. A PDF that requires a download, a scroll through dense program statistics, and the cognitive effort of connecting financial data to real human outcomes is simply not competing in that environment.

    This does not mean your organization should stop communicating its annual impact. It means you should stop communicating it in a format that was designed for a different audience in a different era using a different distribution model. The data your annual report contains is genuinely valuable. The stories behind that data are genuinely powerful. What needs to change is how you break that content open and deliver it to your audience in formats they will actually engage with.

    Break Your Annual Impact Into a Content Campaign Instead of a Single Document

    The most effective nonprofit impact communication strategy in the current media environment is not a single document. It is a campaign. Instead of consolidating your year’s worth of impact into one PDF that your audience will not read, break it apart into a sequence of content pieces, each one focused on a single story, a single statistic, or a single insight, and distribute those pieces across multiple channels over weeks or even months.

    Here is what this looks like in practice. The financial summary that would have been buried on page eight of your annual report becomes a standalone infographic posted to social media and embedded in your newsletter with a simple visual explanation of where the money goes and what it produces. The program statistics that would have appeared in a dense table become a series of individual social posts, each one featuring a single striking number with a human story attached to it. The donor spotlight that would have been a paragraph in the printed report becomes a short video testimonial shared across email, Instagram, and LinkedIn. The executive director letter that would have opened the PDF becomes a standalone LinkedIn article or a blog post on your website.

    This approach produces multiple pieces of high-quality content from a single investment in impact documentation, extends your impact communication across the full calendar rather than concentrating it in a single week, gives your audience multiple opportunities to engage with your story across the channels they actually use, and creates compounding SEO value for your website over time as each blog post, landing page, and resource adds to your domain authority.

    The Nonprofit Impact Page: Your Annual Report’s More Effective Replacement

    One of the most powerful alternatives to the traditional PDF annual report is a dedicated impact page on your organization’s website. An impact page is a visually rich, mobile-optimized web page that presents your organization’s annual outcomes in a format designed for online reading and sharing rather than for print.

    An effective nonprofit impact page includes a hero section with your organization’s most powerful impact statistic and a short, emotionally compelling headline that frames the year’s work. Below that, individual sections cover your key program areas, each one leading with a specific human story before presenting the supporting data. Financial transparency is presented visually, using clear charts or infographics rather than dense tables. Testimonials from donors, program participants, and community partners are woven throughout. And every section includes a clear call to action that invites the visitor to donate, volunteer, share, or engage in whatever way is most relevant to your current organizational priorities.

    The impact page also serves as an SEO asset in a way that a PDF download never can. Every word on the page is indexed by Google, which means that potential donors, volunteers, and program participants searching for organizations like yours can find your impact content through organic search. Over time, a well-optimized impact page with regularly updated content becomes one of your most valuable digital marketing assets, driving consistent inbound traffic from audiences who are already looking for what you do.

    How to Use Video to Make Nonprofit Impact Content Irresistible

    If there is one content format that consistently outperforms every other in terms of engagement, emotional resonance, and shareability, it is video. And the annual impact reporting season is one of the best opportunities your organization has to create video content that communicates your mission in a way that words and statistics simply cannot.

    You do not need a professional production crew or a significant budget to create impact video content that works. The most effective nonprofit impact videos are often the ones that feel the most authentic, a program participant sharing their story in their own words, a staff member walking through what a typical day looks like in the field, a community partner explaining what the collaboration has made possible. Shot on a quality smartphone with good natural lighting and clean audio, this kind of content can be more emotionally compelling than a polished production that feels corporate and distant.

    Short-form video content, optimized for platforms like Instagram Reels, TikTok, and LinkedIn, is particularly powerful for impact communication because it meets your audience where they already are rather than asking them to seek you out. A sixty-second video featuring a program participant describing how your organization changed their trajectory will reach more potential donors than a twelve-page PDF ever will, at a fraction of the production cost and with exponentially more emotional impact.

    Repurpose your video content across platforms strategically. The long-form version lives on your YouTube channel and is embedded in your email newsletter. The short-form clip goes to Instagram Reels, TikTok, and LinkedIn. A still image pulled from the video becomes a social post. A transcript becomes a blog post. One powerful piece of video content, handled with intention, can produce weeks of high-quality impact communication.

    Email as a Nonprofit Impact Storytelling Channel

    Your email list is one of the most valuable assets your organization has, and the annual impact season is one of the best times to use it with genuine strategic intention. Instead of sending a single email with a link to your annual report PDF, build an email sequence that delivers your impact story across four to six messages sent over the course of four to eight weeks.

    The first email in the sequence leads with your most powerful individual story from the year, no statistics, no financial summaries, just a human story told with specificity and emotional honesty. The second email introduces your biggest impact statistic but contextualizes it in terms of what it means for real people rather than what it means for the organization’s performance metrics. The third email addresses financial transparency directly, with a clear, visual explanation of how donor contributions were invested and what outcomes they produced. The fourth email features a donor or community partner testimonial that speaks to the experience of being part of your organization’s community. The fifth email makes the ask, connecting every piece of the story delivered in the previous messages to a specific, compelling reason to give or engage right now.

    This sequenced approach produces dramatically higher engagement than a single annual report email because each message is focused, digestible, and emotionally resonant on its own terms. Donors who open even two or three messages in the sequence will have a richer, more emotionally compelling experience of your organization’s impact than they would from even the most beautifully designed PDF document.

    The Annual Report Is Not Dead. The Annual Report PDF Is.

    To be clear, annual impact reporting is not optional for a mission-driven organization. Transparency about your outcomes and your finances is a cornerstone of the donor trust that makes your organization’s growth possible. What is optional is the format. And the PDF format, as the primary vehicle for that transparency, is one whose time has passed.

    The organizations that are winning the donor engagement battle in the current environment are not the ones producing the most elaborate printed documents. They are the ones that have figured out how to take the same richness of impact information and deliver it in the formats, channels, and cadences that match how their audience actually spends their attention.

    Your impact deserves to be seen. The question is not whether to communicate it. The question is how to communicate it in a way that your audience will actually engage with, remember, and act on. Rebuild your annual impact strategy around that question, and you will find that the story you have been trying to tell has been powerful all along. It just needed a better stage.

    Michelle Sulzer

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  • Why Your Brand Is the Quietest Thing Holding Back Your Loudest Mission

    Why Your Brand Is the Quietest Thing Holding Back Your Loudest Mission

    Here is a scenario that plays out inside mission-driven organizations every single day. The program team is doing extraordinary work. The leadership team is deeply committed. The staff believe in what they are building and pour themselves into it. And somehow, the public still does not quite understand what the organization does, who it serves, or why it matters.

    The temptation is to blame awareness. If more people just knew about us, the thinking goes, everything would change. So the organization runs a social media push. Maybe a press release. Maybe a fundraising event. And the results are underwhelming, not because the work is not good, but because the brand communicating that work is unclear, inconsistent, or just plain forgettable.

    This is not a marketing budget problem. It is a brand strategy problem. And it is one of the most common and most consequential challenges we encounter in the nonprofit and ed tech space.

    Your brand is not your logo. It is not your color palette or your tagline. Your brand is the complete experience someone has every single time they encounter your organization, whether that is on your website, in your email newsletter, in a conversation with one of your staff members, or in a social media post that pops up in their feed. Your brand is the sum of all those impressions, and if those impressions are inconsistent, unclear, or disconnected from what your mission actually is, you are working against yourself every single time someone tries to understand why your organization exists.

    “Your brand is the complete experience someone has every time they encounter your organization. If those impressions are inconsistent or unclear, you are working against yourself every time someone tries to understand why you exist.”

    Most Mission-Driven Organizations Have a Brand Identity Gap

    A brand identity gap is the distance between how your organization sees itself and how the outside world actually experiences it. This gap is almost universal in the nonprofit and ed tech space, and it is almost always larger than leadership realizes.

    The organizations most likely to have a significant brand identity gap are the ones that have grown organically over time, building programs, expanding services, and adding staff without ever stepping back to ask whether their external presence still reflects where they are and where they are going. The website has not been updated in three years. The visual identity was designed by a volunteer a decade ago. The messaging on the home page does not match the messaging in the fundraising email. And no one can quite agree on the one sentence that explains what the organization does, which means every team member explains it differently depending on who is asking.

    If this sounds familiar, the good news is that closing a brand identity gap does not require a complete rebrand or a six-figure agency engagement. It requires clarity. And clarity is something every organization can develop with the right process, the right questions, and the right commitment from leadership to make the outcome of that process the organizational standard going forward.

    Start With Your Brand Positioning Statement, Not Your Logo

    A brand positioning statement is a one to two sentence articulation of who your organization serves, what it does for them, why it does it differently or better than other options, and what outcome that creates. It sounds simple. It is not. Getting a room full of leadership team members to agree on every word of that statement is one of the most valuable and most demanding exercises a mission-driven organization can undertake.

    The process of developing a brand positioning statement forces a conversation about organizational identity that most nonprofits and ed tech companies have never had explicitly. Who is our primary audience? What do they need? What do they currently believe about organizations like ours? What do we want them to feel and do after encountering our brand? What makes us the right organization to solve this problem rather than someone else?

    Once you have a positioning statement that leadership has agreed on, every other element of your brand follows from it. Your messaging hierarchy, meaning your primary message and your supporting messages, flows from the positioning. Your visual identity should reinforce the emotional tone and professional positioning that the statement establishes. Your content strategy should consistently reflect the audience, the outcomes, and the differentiation that the statement defines.

    The positioning statement also becomes an internal filter. When a team member is not sure whether a piece of content is on-brand, they can check it against the statement. When a design direction is being debated in a meeting, the statement provides a basis for evaluation that is less subjective than personal preference. When a new program or initiative needs to be communicated externally, the statement ensures that the communication connects to the broader organizational identity rather than existing in isolation.

    Brand Consistency Is a Marketing Multiplier

    Brand consistency is one of the most powerful and most underestimated marketing multipliers available to any organization. When your audience encounters your brand across multiple channels and the experience is consistent, something valuable happens neurologically. Recognition builds. Trust deepens. The organization feels established, credible, and competent, even if it is relatively small or relatively new.

    The opposite is also true. When your brand is inconsistent across channels, the cumulative effect is erosion of trust. A potential donor who visits your website, then finds your Instagram page, then receives an email from your organization, and encounters a different visual style, a different tone of voice, and a different message in each place, does not come away feeling confused about your design choices. They come away feeling uncertain about your organization. And uncertainty is the enemy of the ask.

    Brand consistency starts with a brand guide. This does not have to be an elaborate document. At its most useful, a brand guide for a nonprofit or ed tech organization is a practical reference tool that anyone producing content for your organization can use to make decisions without guessing. It should cover your primary logo and how to use it correctly, your secondary logo or wordmark if you have one, your approved color palette with exact hex codes, your typography choices for headings and body text, your tone of voice guidelines with examples, and your messaging hierarchy with the approved language for your primary value proposition and supporting points.

    Once your brand guide exists, make it accessible to everyone who creates content for your organization. Put it in a shared drive. Reference it in your onboarding process for new staff and volunteers. Make it the standard against which all marketing deliverables are evaluated. The guide is only valuable if it is actually used, and it will only be used if leadership reinforces its importance consistently.

    How Can Use Storytelling to Strengthen Brand Identity

    Brand identity is not just a visual and verbal system. It is also a narrative. The stories your organization tells about its work are one of the most powerful tools you have for creating a brand that people feel connected to rather than simply aware of.

    Impact storytelling, when done with consistency and intention, does something that no visual rebrand can do on its own. It makes your brand feel human. It creates emotional resonance. It gives potential donors, program participants, volunteers, and partners a concrete, specific picture of what your organization does in the world and why it matters, not in the abstract language of mission statements, but in the lived experience of real people whose lives have been changed.

    The most effective mission-driven brands have a signature storytelling style. They tell their stories in a consistent format, from a consistent perspective, with consistent emotional tone. A potential donor who reads five different impact stories from your organization should come away with a clear and coherent sense of who you serve and what change you create, even if each story involves different people, different programs, and different circumstances.

    Build a story collection process into your organizational rhythm. Train your program staff to recognize and capture story opportunities in their daily work. Create a system for gathering testimonials, photographs, and video footage that your marketing team can access and use. Make impact storytelling a regular part of your content calendar rather than something that happens only around fundraising campaigns or annual reports.

    Your Website Is Your Brand in Action

    If your brand guide is your theory of brand, your website is your practice of it. The website is almost always the first place a potential donor, partner, or program participant goes to form a real opinion about your organization. And it needs to do three things simultaneously: communicate who you are, demonstrate that you are credible, and make it easy for the visitor to take the next step.

    Audit your website through the lens of your brand positioning statement. Does the homepage immediately communicate who you serve and what outcomes you create? Does the tone of the copy reflect the brand voice you have defined? Does the visual design reinforce the professional positioning you want to project? Is the navigation logical enough that a first-time visitor can find what they need without frustration? Is the primary call to action specific and emotionally compelling?

    One of the most common website mistakes in the nonprofit and ed tech space is leading with organizational history and program descriptions rather than audience-centered impact. Visitors to your website do not want to read about your organization. They want to understand how your organization is relevant to them, whether as a donor, a program participant, a volunteer, or a community partner. Rewrite your website copy with the visitor at the center of every sentence, and watch what happens to your engagement metrics.

    SEO and brand are not separate conversations. The language you use on your website to communicate your brand, your mission, and your impact should be grounded in the actual words your audience uses when they search for organizations like yours. Use Google Search Console and Google Trends to understand the search behavior of your target audience and make sure your website content reflects that language while remaining consistent with your brand voice.

    The Compound Return on Brand Investment

    One of the reasons mission-driven organizations underinvest in brand is that the return on brand investment is harder to attribute directly to a single campaign or a single metric than the return on a paid ad or an email campaign. Brand works over time and across channels, building the cumulative perception that makes every other marketing activity more effective.

    A strong brand makes your fundraising more effective because donors feel more confident investing in an organization that looks and sounds like it knows what it is doing. A strong brand makes your recruitment more effective because marketing talent is drawn to organizations whose public identity reflects the quality and purpose of their internal culture. A strong brand makes your partnership development more effective because potential partners use your external presence as a signal of organizational credibility and strategic alignment.

    The compound return on brand investment is real, and the organizations that figure this out early gain an advantage that is very difficult for others to replicate quickly. Building a brand is not a one-time project. It is a long-term strategic practice, and every investment you make in it pays back not once but every time someone encounters your organization and finds a reason to trust you.

    Your mission is too important to be carried by a brand that does not do it justice. Invest in the clarity, consistency, and story that your work deserves. The audience you need to reach is out there. Give them a reason to stop, pay attention, and believe.

    What is the biggest brand challenge your organization is wrestling with right now? Tell us in the comments. We read all of them and love helping mission-driven leaders think through the next step.

    Michelle Sulzer

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  • 10 Ways to Build a Powerful Nonprofit Brand That Attracts Donors, Volunteers, and Community Trust

    10 Ways to Build a Powerful Nonprofit Brand That Attracts Donors, Volunteers, and Community Trust

    Your brand is not your logo. It is not your color palette. It is not even your tagline, as important as those things are. Your brand is the total experience of what it feels like to interact with your organization, and for nonprofits and mission-driven organizations, a strong brand is one of the most powerful tools you have for driving real-world impact. When people trust your brand, they donate. They volunteer. They refer their friends and colleagues. They advocate for your mission in rooms you will never be in. Building a brand that earns that kind of trust takes intention and strategy. Here are ten ways to get there.

    1. Start With Clarity on Your Mission and Vision

    You cannot build a strong brand on a fuzzy foundation. Before you think about design, messaging, or marketing channels, make sure your entire team can articulate your mission and vision in clear, compelling language. Your mission is what you do. Your vision is the world you are working to create. When these two things are sharp and specific, everything else gets easier. Your content has direction. Your fundraising has a narrative. Your community has something to rally around. If your mission statement sounds like it could belong to any organization, it is time to refine it.

    2. Define Your Brand Voice and Stick to It

    Every piece of content your organization publishes, from a social media caption to a grant application to an email newsletter, should sound like it came from the same place. That is what a defined brand voice does. It creates consistency that builds trust over time. Spend time identifying the adjectives that describe how your organization communicates. Are you inspiring and optimistic? Are you bold and urgent? Are you warm and community-centered? Once you define your voice, document it in a simple brand guide that your entire team can reference. Consistency in communication is a form of credibility.

    3. Invest in Professional Visual Identity

    We know budgets are tight, but the visual identity of your organization, your logo, typography, color system, and photography style, is not the place to cut corners. Donors and community members make unconscious judgments about the credibility and trustworthiness of your organization based on how it looks. A professional, cohesive visual identity signals that your organization is serious, competent, and worth investing in. This does not mean you need to spend tens of thousands of dollars on branding. It means you need to make intentional, strategic choices about how your organization presents itself visually and then apply those choices consistently.

    4. Humanize Your Organization Through Storytelling

    The most memorable nonprofit brands are built on stories, not statistics. People give to people, not to programs. Make it a core part of your brand strategy to regularly surface and share the human stories at the heart of your work. Who are the people your organization serves? Who are the team members and volunteers making it possible? What does transformation look like in the real lives of real people because of what your organization does? These stories should appear across every channel you operate, your website, your social media, your email newsletters, your printed materials, and your event programming.

    5. Be Consistent Across Every Touchpoint

    Brand consistency is not just about using the right logo on every document. It is about delivering a consistent experience every time someone interacts with your organization, whether they are visiting your website, attending an event, reading your annual report, or speaking with a staff member on the phone. Audit every touchpoint your audience has with your organization and ask whether each one reflects your brand values and visual identity. Inconsistency erodes trust. Consistency builds it. This is one of the highest-leverage activities a marketing leader in a nonprofit organization can invest time in.

    6. Build Credibility Through Thought Leadership

    One of the most powerful ways to build a nonprofit brand is to position your organization as a trusted expert in your space. This means creating and distributing content that demonstrates your knowledge, shares your perspective on important issues in your field, and adds genuine value to the conversations your audience cares about. A well-researched blog post, a practical webinar, a candid podcast conversation, a thoughtfully written op-ed, these all build the kind of authority that attracts donors, partners, and media attention. Thought leadership is a long game, but it is one of the highest-return brand investments a nonprofit can make.

    7. Leverage Your Community as Brand Ambassadors

    Some of the most powerful brand building your organization can do will not be done by your staff. It will be done by your donors, your volunteers, your alumni, and your program participants who share their experience with their own networks. Create intentional opportunities for your community to become brand ambassadors. This might look like a referral program, a branded hashtag campaign, a volunteer spotlight series, or simply making it easy for people to share your content with one click. Word of mouth has always been the most trusted form of marketing, and for nonprofits, it is often the most cost-effective as well.

    8. Optimize Your Digital Presence for First Impressions

    For the vast majority of people who encounter your organization for the first time, that encounter will happen online. Your website is often the most important brand asset you have. It needs to load quickly, look professional on mobile devices, tell your story compellingly within the first few seconds, and make it effortless for someone to donate, volunteer, or get involved. After your website, look at your social media profiles. Are they complete? Are they consistent with your visual identity? Do they communicate your mission clearly? Your digital presence is your brand’s front door. Make sure it opens wide.

    9. Respond to Your Community With Care and Speed

    In the age of social media, how your organization responds to questions, comments, feedback, and even criticism is a very public expression of your brand. Organizations that respond quickly, professionally, and with genuine care build reputations that money cannot buy. Organizations that ignore comments, respond defensively to criticism, or go silent during controversies damage trust that is very hard to rebuild. Train your team on community management best practices and make sure there is always a clear owner responsible for monitoring and responding to your digital channels in a timely way.

    10. Measure Brand Perception and Evolve

    Brand building is not a one-time project. It is an ongoing commitment. Make it a regular practice to measure how your brand is actually perceived by the people who matter most to your mission. This can happen through donor surveys, volunteer feedback sessions, website analytics, social media sentiment monitoring, and periodic focus groups. When you gather this feedback, take it seriously. Brands that endure are brands that are willing to evolve based on what they learn. The organizations that are most trusted in their communities are the ones that listen, adapt, and continuously earn that trust over time.

    Your brand is one of the most important assets your nonprofit organization has, and it deserves the same strategic attention that you give to your programs and your fundraising. These ten principles will help you build a brand that attracts the right people, earns deep trust, and amplifies the impact of every marketing dollar you invest. The Go Do Good team works with mission-driven organizations to build brands that do exactly that.

    Michelle Sulzer

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  • The Ultimate Guide to Choosing the Right Website Partner: 12 Questions Every Non-Profit Leader Must Ask Before Signing a Contract

    The Ultimate Guide to Choosing the Right Website Partner: 12 Questions Every Non-Profit Leader Must Ask Before Signing a Contract

    You have decided to invest in modernizing your website. Now comes one of the most important decisions you will make in this entire process: choosing the right partner to execute your vision. The wrong partner can waste your budget, miss deadlines, deliver a beautiful website that does not convert, or create technical problems that plague your organization for years. The right partner becomes a strategic advisor who understands your mission, anticipates your needs, and delivers a website that drives measurable growth in donations, volunteers, and overall impact.

    1. What Specific Experience Do You Have with Non-Profit Organizations Like Ours?

    This should be your first question because it reveals whether the partner understands the unique challenges of non-profit marketing and fundraising. Listen for specific examples of non-profit clients they have served. Pay attention to whether they can speak your language: donor acquisition cost, lifetime donor value, planned giving, and grant compliance. Ask to see case studies from comparable organizations. Red flags include generic responses about working with all types of clients or a portfolio dominated by e-commerce or corporate work with just one or two non-profit examples.

    2. How Do You Approach Mobile-First Design and Why Does It Matter?

    Mobile-first design means building the website primarily for mobile devices and then enhancing it for desktop, rather than the reverse. Listen for specific technical approaches. Do they mention responsive design frameworks? Do they discuss mobile performance optimization, touch-friendly interface elements, and mobile-specific user testing? Ask to see mobile versions of their previous work on your actual phone, not just in a browser simulator. Test the donation process. Red flags include defensive responses about mobile being “just part of responsive design” or portfolio sites that clearly work better on desktop than mobile.

    3. What Is Your Strategy for SEO and How Will You Ensure Our Website Gets Found?

    Listen for discussion of technical SEO fundamentals including site architecture and URL structure, page speed optimization, mobile-friendliness, schema markup implementation, and XML sitemap creation. Ask about their approach to content SEO. Request specific examples of SEO improvements they have delivered for other clients, with concrete data. Red flags include dismissing SEO as unimportant, claiming they can guarantee specific rankings, or avoiding concrete discussion of how they have improved search performance for previous clients.

    4. How Do You Ensure Accessibility Compliance and Why Should We Care?

    Your partner should demonstrate deep knowledge of WCAG standards and explain how they build accessibility into every aspect of website development. Ask about their testing process. Automated tools catch only about 30% of accessibility issues, so partners who rely solely on automated testing are missing the majority of problems. Red flags include treating accessibility as optional or demonstrating a lack of knowledge about WCAG standards.

    5. What Analytics and Tracking Capabilities Will You Implement?

    Listen for discussion of event tracking for specific actions including donation completions, volunteer applications, email sign-ups, resource downloads, and video plays. Ask about their experience with Google Analytics 4 and Google Tag Manager. Request examples of analytics dashboards they have created for other clients. Red flags include vague responses about tracking everything or lack of familiarity with GA4 or Tag Manager.

    6. What Ongoing Support and Maintenance Plans Do You Offer?

    At minimum, maintenance plans should cover software updates, security monitoring and patches, backup management and recovery options, uptime monitoring, and basic technical support. Understand response times and support availability. If your donation form breaks on Giving Tuesday, can you reach someone immediately? Red flags include no formal maintenance offerings or vague promises without clear terms.

    7. Which Content Management System Do You Recommend and Why?

    The right answer considers your team’s technical comfort, your budget for ongoing maintenance, your need for specific functionality, and your plans for future growth. Understand what training they will provide on using the content management system. Your team should be able to handle routine content updates without paying developers for every small change. Red flags include recommending proprietary systems that lock you into their services indefinitely.

    8. How Do You Handle Timeline and Project Management?

    Ask about their typical timeline for a project of your scope and what factors influence that timeline. Listen for discussion of project management tools and communication processes. Ask about their approach to changes and scope creep. Request references from previous clients specifically about timeline adherence and project management. Red flags include vague timelines without specific milestones or an inability to explain their project management process.

    9. Can You Show Me Your Portfolio and Explain the Results You Have Achieved?

    Request specific examples of websites they have built for organizations similar to yours in size, sector, or goals. Review these sites thoroughly. Test the donation process. Navigate the site on mobile. Ask about results achieved for portfolio clients. Did donation conversion rates improve? Did organic traffic increase? Request permission to contact portfolio clients for references. Red flags include portfolios that all look similar, suggesting template-based approaches, or an inability to discuss results achieved for previous clients.

    10. How Do You Integrate with Our Existing Tools Like CRM, Email Platforms, and Payment Processors?

    Ask about their experience integrating with the specific tools you use. If you use Salesforce, Blackbaud, or DonorPerfect for donor management, have they successfully integrated websites with these systems before? Listen for discussion of APIs, webhooks, and integration platforms like Zapier. Red flags include a lack of experience with your specific tools, dismissing integration needs as unimportant, or promising integrations they clearly do not understand.

    11. What Security Measures Do You Implement and How Do You Handle Compliance?

    Ask about their approach to security including SSL certificate implementation, PCI compliance for payment processing, secure hosting environments, regular security updates and patches, and backup and recovery procedures. Best practice is using hosted payment forms from providers like Stripe or PayPal where credit card data never touches your server, eliminating most PCI compliance requirements. Red flags include dismissive attitudes toward security concerns or a lack of knowledge about PCI compliance requirements.

    12. What Does Success Look Like and How Will We Measure It Together?

    Listen for discussion of specific, measurable success metrics. These might include donation conversion rate improvements, increased email list growth, higher average gift size, improved volunteer applications, or increased organic search traffic. Ask how they will measure these metrics and report on progress. Understand their approach to post-launch optimization. Few websites are perfect at launch. Success comes from continuous testing, learning, and improvement based on real user data. Red flags include an inability to discuss success metrics beyond launch or treating the project as complete when the site goes live.

    Use these twelve questions to evaluate potential partners thoroughly. Do not rush the decision. Interview multiple candidates. Check references. Review portfolios critically. Ask hard questions and pay attention to how partners respond. The best partnerships are built on mutual respect, clear communication, and a shared commitment to measurable results.

    Article 14

    The Connection Between Your Brand and Your Grant Success Rate

    Here is something most non-profits never hear from their grant consultants: your brand is either helping you win grants or it is costing you grants. That is not an opinion. That is a pattern we have seen play out across dozens of organizations doing genuinely meaningful work. They have the mission, the data, the community support, and the track record. But they walk into a grant review process with a brand that communicates something entirely different. And they lose. This article is about closing that gap.

    Why Funders Pay Attention to Brand Before They Ever Read Your Proposal

    Grant reviewers are human beings. Before they read a single word of your narrative, they have already formed an impression of your organization. That impression comes from your website, your social media presence, your visual identity, and the overall coherence of how your organization presents itself to the world. If those touchpoints feel disorganized, outdated, or inconsistent, reviewers carry that perception directly into how they evaluate your proposal. Brand credibility acts as a trust signal. Funders are investing real dollars into organizations they believe can execute. A professional, consistent, and mission-aligned brand says your organization knows who it is, what it stands for, and how to communicate it clearly. That reads as operational capacity.

    Consistency Is the Foundation of Credibility

    One of the fastest ways to lose funder confidence is inconsistency. When your grant narrative says one thing and your public-facing materials say another, it creates friction. Reviewers start asking questions. Does this organization have a clear identity? Do their programs align with their stated mission? Is their messaging controlled and intentional? Your brand messaging, your visual identity, your program language, and your grant narrative all need to be speaking the same language. The mission statement on your grant application should feel like a natural extension of the language on your homepage. When a funder can move from your website to your proposal and feel like they are in the same world, that consistency builds trust at a level that strong writing alone cannot achieve.

    Your Digital Presence Is Now Part of the Review Process

    Assume every funder is Googling your organization. Because they are. Your website, your LinkedIn page, your Facebook presence, your press coverage, your Google reviews, and your donor testimonials are all part of an informal due diligence process that happens before, during, and after grant review. Every digital touchpoint either adds to or subtracts from funder confidence. This does not mean your organization needs to spend a fortune on digital infrastructure. It means you need to be strategic. A well-organized, clearly branded, and consistently maintained digital presence communicates organizational health.

    The Language of Your Brand Is Also the Language of Your Grant

    The language you use in your brand, your mission statement, your program descriptions, and your impact statements should be the same language you use in your grants. When organizations treat brand development and grant writing as two separate workstreams, they end up with messaging that feels disconnected. Investing in clear, strategic brand language early in the year creates a vocabulary that your whole team can draw from. Grant writers, program staff, communications teams, and executive leadership all start operating from the same messaging framework. That alignment is visible in the quality and coherence of your proposals. And it wins grants.

    Demonstrated Community Trust Is a Grant Advantage

    Funders want proof that the community you serve actually trusts and engages with your organization. Your brand is the primary vehicle for demonstrating that trust publicly. When you have testimonials on your website, stories shared on social media, community members featured in your content, and partners publicly associated with your name, you are building a body of evidence that goes beyond what any proposal can claim. Feature the voices of the people your organization serves. Publish the outcomes of your programs in plain, compelling language that anyone can understand. When a funder cross-references your proposal with your online presence and finds a community that is visibly engaged and supportive, that is a powerful signal.

    Brand Investment Is Grant Strategy

    The organizations consistently winning competitive grants are not just submitting better proposals. They are showing up with stronger brands. They have clearer messaging, more professional digital presences, better storytelling, and more visible community credibility. Those things do not happen by accident. They happen because those organizations made a decision to invest in how they present themselves to the world. If your organization is leaving grant money on the table, it is worth asking whether your brand is part of the problem and whether a targeted investment in brand clarity could meaningfully shift your outcomes.

    Michelle Sulzer

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  • Marketing in 2026 How EdTech Brands Build Trust Adoption and Long Term Impact

    Marketing in 2026 How EdTech Brands Build Trust Adoption and Long Term Impact

    In 2026 education technology companies are no longer evaluated solely on features or innovation. Decision makers including schools, universities, training providers and education focused organizations are choosing platforms that demonstrate real learning outcomes, strong adoption and long term value. As competition within the EdTech market continues to grow, marketing strategies must evolve to focus on trust credibility and impact.

    Effective EdTech marketing in 2026 centers on outcome driven messaging. Buyers want to understand how an EdTech platform improves student engagement, supports educators, enhances accessibility and delivers measurable learning results. Product led marketing alone is no longer enough. High performing EdTech brands clearly communicate learning outcomes, evidence based results and real world use cases aligned with institutional goals.

    Trust has become one of the most important drivers of growth for EdTech companies. Institutions are making long term investments that affect learners, educators, data infrastructure and compliance requirements. EdTech marketing must clearly address data privacy, student safety accessibility standards and regulatory compliance. Transparent communication around pricing onboarding timelines and platform capabilities reduces friction in the sales process and builds confidence with education buyers.

    Personalization remains a key differentiator in education technology marketing but in 2026 it must be positioned responsibly. EdTech companies need to explain how adaptive learning tools support diverse learning styles while maintaining ethical data usage and educator oversight. Messaging should highlight how personalization enhances learning outcomes without compromising privacy or control.

    Community led growth is playing an increasingly important role in EdTech marketing strategies. Educators and administrators trust peer recommendations more than promotional advertising. Successful EdTech brands leverage educator testimonials, case studies, professional learning communities webinars and practitioner led content to demonstrate credibility and adoption at scale. When educators become advocates, marketing becomes more authentic and sustainable.

    Content marketing continues to be one of the most powerful channels for EdTech growth. Blogs white papers, research reports, videos and guides should educate and empower education buyers rather than simply push conversion. High performing EdTech content focuses on instructional design best practices, digital learning trends, change management strategies and the future of education technology. This approach positions brands as trusted partners rather than software vendors.

    For EdTech companies marketing in 2026 is no longer about shouting louder in a crowded market. It is about clarity, trust and alignment with the real needs of educators, institutions and learners. Brands that lead with transparency value driven messaging and measurable impact will build stronger relationships and long term growth.

    If you are an EdTech company looking to strengthen your marketing strategy, increase adoption and position your brand for long term growth we can help. Our team specializes in EdTech marketing strategy content development lead generation and brand positioning designed to support education focused organizations.

    francis@godogoodtogether.com

  • Go Do Good Shines at the Tampa Bay Addy Awards

    Go Do Good Shines at the Tampa Bay Addy Awards

    For the second year in a row, Go Do Good has been recognized at the Tampa Bay American Advertising Awards (ADDYs)—this time for our work on the I AM RCMA campaign. This honor goes beyond an award; it serves as a powerful reminder of how storytelling can drive meaningful, lasting change. The I AM RCMA campaign elevated voices, connected communities, and highlighted the incredible strength behind RCMA’s students, families, and staff.

    2025 Tampa Bay Silver ADDY

    The Honor of a Silver ADDY

    The American Advertising Federation’s ADDY is awarded to work that reflects exceptional creativity and a commitment to socially impactful advertising. Each year, a panel of industry experts evaluates campaigns based on creativity, brand storytelling, audience engagement, and their positive contribution to the community. Earning the Silver Award is a recognition of both innovation and responsibility—defining traits of Go Do Good’s approach to mission-focused marketing. 

    A Campaign Rooted in Connection and Empowerment

    RCMA, a Florida-based nonprofit dedicated to supporting underserved rural communities, needed a campaign that would not only strengthen its brand awareness but also foster deeper engagement among staff, students, and families. The I AM RCMA campaign delivered on both fronts, creating a powerful platform for individuals to see themselves as part of the organization’s mission.

    By centering the campaign around the messages “I am RCMA,” “You are RCMA,” and “We are RCMA,” our team sparked a movement of belonging and pride. Visually, we integrated celebratory graphics and interactive storytelling elements that allowed participants to share their own experiences, strengthening RCMA’s identity from the inside out.

    This inclusive, community-driven approach resonated deeply, reinforcing RCMA’s mission-driven culture and solidifying its role as a trusted resource for education and support.

    A Legacy of Purpose-Led Creativity

    This ADDY recognition is an honor and a testament to the meaningful change our work creates. From raising brand engagement to giving a voice to the people at the heart of RCMA’s mission, this campaign is proof that thoughtful, strategic storytelling can move the needle for organizations that make a difference.

    This isn’t our first time being recognized for purpose-led creativity—last year, we received the 2024 Mosaic ADDY Award and Silver Award for our work championing diversity and inclusion. As we continue to collaborate with impact-driven organizations, we remain committed to creating work that doesn’t just look good—it does good.

    Let’s Create Something Meaningful Together

    If you’re looking for strategic, purpose-driven marketing that amplifies your mission and drives engagement, we’d love to connect. Let’s talk about how Go Do Good can bring your next big idea to life. 

    Book a Consultation

    Michelle Sulzer

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  • 12 Proven Methods to Attract and Retain A High-Performing Marketing Team in Non-Profit Organizations

    12 Proven Methods to Attract and Retain A High-Performing Marketing Team in Non-Profit Organizations

    Hiring in non-profit marketing can be such a challenge. It is difficult to compete with private sector opportunities and to manage the finances and priorities of a non-profit organization. We know what a professional marketing team does for a non-profit organization and we have seen the impact that it can have. That is why we are constantly considering ways that non-profit organizations can attract and retain a high-performance marketing team. These 12 methods will allow your organization to build out your marketing team and attain your goals quickly.

    1. Promote Mission-Driven Work

    First, we begin with a big one! There is an intrinsic reward when you are a part of meaningful change. Your organization should be highlighting success stories and the direct impact that the marketing team has had on the organization’s mission. Professionals are often driven by purpose and this is a method to align career opportunities with similar values. This provides professionals with a sense of fulfillment that tends to transcend traditional job satisfaction. 

    2. Offer Flexible Working Conditions

    In this digital age, candidates want flexibility. Adaptable work arrangements tend to broadly enhance the appeal of a job position. Remote and hybrid work are great places to start. If the organization needs an in-person role, provide flexible working hours and rotating schedules to staff members who may want it. You want to demonstrate a trust-based approach rather than strict office hours. This helps your organization to appeal to those looking for a flexible work environment. 

    3. Provide Professional Development Opportunities

    Your organization should be committed to the continuous education, learning, and growth of your team members. This can be done by offering access to conferences, online courses, and training sessions. These activities empower your team and promote internal skill development. Another benefit is that your staff and potential hires will know that your non-profit organization is committed to the professional advancement of their teams and invests in their professional futures. 

    4. Foster a Collaborative Culture

    Non-profit organizations need to be sure to nurture an environment where collaboration and creativity are encouraged! There should be constant open communication, idea sharing, and cross-departmental projects. This type of culture improves team culture and dynamics, fosters innovation, and makes the work environment of your non-profit organization attractive for those seeking careers where teamwork and collective success are valued. 

    5. Implement a Recognition and Rewards Program

    Ensure that your organization is promoting the achievements of individuals and teams within the organization. This could be on social media, your organization’s intranet, or through an internal or external email blast. Small tokens of appreciation and consistency go a long way amongst a non-profit organization’s marketing team. People appreciate when hard work is recognized and this often results in reinforced positive behavior and team motivation which each contribute to a culture of excellence. 

    6. Offer Competitive Benefits

    This can be a challenge for non-profits that are trying to remain fiscally responsible but grow. Non-profit organizations often face budget constraints but it is clear that offering compelling benefits such as health, retirement, and well-being packages is a clear differentiation amongst job candidates when considering career roles. Insurance providers may be willing to offer better insurance plans when they are partnered with your organization. The partners may also have access to Flexible Spending Accounts (FSAs) which are another benefit for your employees. FSAs allow employees to set aside pre-tax dollars for dependent care and medical expenses. Potential hires will also want strong 401k opportunities. Research what 401(k) plan would be best for your organization and its budget along with the needs of your employees. A great path forward is to partner with a financial services provider that has experience with non-profit organizations. 

    7. Encourage Volunteer Opportunities

    Volunteerism is a great way to boost morale and connection to the mission of your nonprofit organization. This is also a great way for potential hires to engage with the organization and its mission. When potential new hires are immersed in the organization and the impact that it has they are motivated to seek opportunities with similar impact. Volunteer day initiatives are a hands-on level of involvement and deepen the connection to the organization’s cause. This approach is also effective at enhancing job satisfaction, providing a break from the day-to-day, and fostering a stronger commitment to the organization.

    8. Create a Path for Career Progression

    Staff want to know that there is a path to more career opportunities when they come into a new organization. Your current staff also wants to be secure in the opportunities that your organization can offer them in the future. Your organization should outline potential career paths that support these goals of your staff and potential hires. Make sure that your organization has an open forum for discussing career aspirations during performance reviews. This information can also be coupled with mentorship programs that help employees navigate their careers. 

    9. Enhance Team Bonding and Morale

    Always ensure that you are supporting team cohesion and a positive work environment. Activities that build these things such as retreats, team lunches, and creative workshops help to make your team closer, work more effectively together, and create a workplace environment that attracts others. Mutual support and a strong sense of community significantly impact job satisfaction and the performance of your teams. 

    10. Embrace Diversity and Inclusion

    Having a diverse work environment is important because it fosters an environment of different perspectives, knowledge, and ideas. Your organization can offer ongoing diversity and inclusion training for staff members to address unconscious biases. These trainings are proven to create a sense of inclusive communication and educate your staff on the importance of diversity for organizational goals to be attained. Nonprofits often bring in experts to run seminars and workshops while others opt for interactive online modules to facilitate. 

    11. Offer Sabbaticals and Extended Leave Options

    Something newer would be sabbatical and extended leave options. These benefits are unique and provide employees with personal development and regeneration opportunities. These benefits programs also demonstrate the long-term commitment of the organization to employee well-being. These benefits can also be used for staff to embrace professional development opportunities which will provide a reciprocal benefit to the organization. It is clear that although unique, this type of benefit creates attractive opportunities for new candidates and employees. 

    12. Incorporate Employee Feedback into Decision Making

    Listening to your audience is so important. Both internally and externally your organization needs to have an open ear for feedback from stakeholders. Create channels for this regular feedback so that the organization’s employees have a hand in shaping strategy and policy. This empowers your staff and shows potential hires that their voice will be heard in the organization. When your organization goes down this path, the organization’s workforce will feel heard and valued. This is crucial if you want to foster loyalty and a sense of ownership amongst staff. 

    Michelle Sulzer

  • Digital Marketing Strategies for Nonprofits on a Budget

    Digital Marketing Strategies for Nonprofits on a Budget

    Nonprofits can find unique and creative ways to promote their good works to the public, no matter their budget.

    Digital marketing comes in all shapes and sizes and at all price points. Some aspects of digital marketing, like Google’s Pay-Per-Click ad feature, are as effective and helpful as one is willing to spend money on them. However, some digital marketing techniques can produce incredible results with little financial cost.

    Nonprofit Digital Marketing

    Nonprofit digital marketing is essential for nonprofits to stand out, inform the community of their good works, and earn support through donations and volunteer hours. But as the internet becomes increasingly competitive, nonprofits must get creative in securing visibility.

    The Importance of Online Visibility

    Achieving online visibility can seem challenging at first. Google reported 1.13 billion online websites, with as many as 50 billion individual website pages.

    Google also recorded about 1.48 million 501(c)(3) nonprofits in the United States. The competition for the coveted attention of online audiences is high, and garnering online visibility has never been more important for nonprofits. No online visibility means no attention from an audience, which in turn means no support, donations, or volunteer sign-ups.

    Five Budget-Friendly Strategies for Branding a Nonprofit

    The internet is now the primary location where nonprofits showcase their work. That can take many forms, from a well-designed website to an interactive app, email newsletter, digital ad campaign, and social media posts. Some digital marketing tools can be expensive, but budget-friendly strategies for promoting a nonprofit exist, including tools and strategies like:

    • Asking for reviews and testimonials. Social proof is everything in the online world, and it costs nothing to ask someone who has worked for, volunteered with, or been helped by a nonprofit to leave a review or write a testimonial.
    • Opting for email campaigns over print mailers. Email templates are endlessly customizable, and for a small monthly subscription to an email hosting service, one can send emails to thousands of subscribers for a fraction of the cost of using print mail.
    • Posting often, but being intentional about it. It costs nothing to create social media profiles, and it’s free to post. Nonprofits should build an online presence via frequent social media posts, but they should be intentional about it and only create unique, original, and interesting content.
    • Encouraging online engagement. Every time a nonprofit posts on social media, they should encourage engagement by asking followers to like, comment, and share.
    • Writing a blog and posting it on social media and in emails. Websites with frequently added blog posts rank higher on Google and become more interesting and relevant to the nonprofit’s audience. One should write a weekly blog post and include it in the newsletter. Mentioning the blog in social media posts is also a good idea.

    Sulzer Inc. Creates Cost-Effective Digital Tactics in Nonprofit Marketing

    Nonprofits focus most of their available funds on their mission and purpose, so it’s not uncommon for such organizations to hit budget constraints when it comes time to market and brand the organization’s activities and good works. Thankfully, Sulzer Inc. can offer cost-effective digital tactics for nonprofits.
    Sulzer’s mission is to help nonprofits by tapping into the passion and drive that fuels them while simultaneously leveraging time-tested, strategic experience to publicize the supreme goodness of nonprofits for all to see. Nonprofits who work with Sulzer observe significant brand elevation, a rush of new supporters, regular donation increases, record audience growth, and higher engagement. Contact Sulzer Inc today to get started.

    francis@godogoodtogether.com

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  • Why branding is at the heart of your business

    Why branding is at the heart of your business

    When brand(ing) comes up in a meeting, it often means different things to different people, and many executives, entrepreneurs and staff speak of brand(ing) as a startup exercise. They may be thinking branding is complete once the logo, color pallet, fonts, tag lines, icon, etc. are determined. The reality is there is some confusion surrounding the meaning of brand(ing) and how it should be executed and operationalized within organizations big and small.

    In order for a successful brand to happen, there needs to be a well thought out idea developed through strategic brainstorming to formulate the best brand that distinguishes your business and sets you apart from your competitors.

    Sulzer Inc believes brand(ing) is a concept not fully understood, and very often under appreciated. At Sulzer Inc, we are experts at helping businesses find their brand. Our agency has helped guide a wide range of organizations, from passionate startups and not-for-profits, to fortune 1000 brands define and unlock the power of their brand. We’ve helped refresh and reposition mature brands and built new brands from scratch. We are most often hired by the entrepreneur, marketing director, CMO or executive team. On occasion we assist venture firms or private equity groups in driving the business to help explore and define the brand’s relevance and reason for being. After working with so many different teams to develop and refresh brands, Sulzer has come to the realization that brands are living and breathing things. They are complex, and like great people, great brands have a soul, personality and behaviors that differentiate them from others. They leave impressions and invite folks to engage. Great brands are interesting and clearly articulate why people need them.

    Brand(ing) has many parts.

    Why do so many entrepreneurs and leadership teams who talk about brand(ing) not understand its full potential as a business asset? Many see it as a single thing instead of its entirety. Many mistakenly see brand(ing) as the logo, fonts, ad campaigns or what the packaging graphics look like. They fail to recognize the power that a fully articulated brand strategy holds when deployed across all areas of the organization.

    Take a minute to think about an event or a performance that stands out to you, that made an impression on you. You thought about that event for days afterwards. Now think about why it was so memorable? Why are some people so fascinating, so memorable? The impression we create when we meet other people is formed by the way we act, the way we talk, look and dress and the value we deliver. In the same way we form impressions about people, we form impressions about brands. Brand(ing) is the impression we have of a product or a service and is based on all our experiences and interactions with it. Everything a brand does matters.

    Brand(ing) is a living thing.

    Like humans, brands are alive and have personality and character. Think of a brand like a person living with a real purpose, adding value to people’s lives and operating with a set of guiding beliefs. Brands first need to be clear on why they exist and what they are trying to accomplish. Once you have a brand’s purpose, then you can work on messaging that is relevant and memorable. Just like a person who operates with integrity, a brand should have a clearly defined set of principles and values that guide how it operates. The principles form the foundation of the brand. Those combined with a clear mission and a clear strategy, give the brand a working foundation and strategy that supports and drives the organizational agenda and mission.

    Brand(ing) differentiates.

    Just like memorable people, brands that stand out from the crowd do so because they draw interest and are memorable and different. Interesting brands are relevant, engaging, informative and often, brave. They take a stand for or against something and have the confidence to stand up for what they represent. People remember compelling brands and know what to expect from them.

    Your brand is one of the most important assets you possess to drive and differentiate your business. If your brand is not clearly defined, understood and articulated by the entire organization, it will never realize its full potential to impact your organization. It’s important to ensure that there is understanding and clarity around what brand(ing) means in business terms and what it can do to drive innovation. Your brand is one of the most powerful drivers for engagement and performance across all areas of your business.

    Brand(ing) does not belong to marketing.

    Every CEO must be the leading brand ambassador and ensure every department head understands how to bring the brand to life. Many executives believe branding is the responsibility of the marketing director and his or her department. But just as culture isn’t the sole responsibility of HR, brand(ing) is not the sole responsibility of marketing. While the execution of many dimensions of brand(ing) typically reside with the marketing department, the entire executive team has the responsibility to ensure they understand and promote the brand every chance they get. Every department in the organization has a role to play in following through and executing on the “brand promise.” Having an effective brand can give you a competitive edge in a competitive marketplace.

    francis@godogoodtogether.com

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