Book Review: Robin Hood Marketing by Katya Andresen

Have you read Robin Hood Marketing: Stealing Corporate Savy to Sell Just Causes by Katya Andresen? You should.

Andresen wrote a book to really kick-start your forward-thinking, new approach to cause marketing. She so clearly points out that our passion for our causes doesn’t always translate to the average citizen taking (or not taking) action. Then she proceeds to instruct how to make this transition.

I’ve been as guilty as the next non-profit marketer of preaching to the choir. We have our newsletters, our website, our boilerplate of basic information, and it’s all very convincing and passionate, right? So why aren’t more students enrolling? Or why isn’t domestic violence decreasing? Why are families still unable to feed their kids? Well, because we’re not always as effective as our cousins in the marketing departments of large corporations.

When you think about your audience, think about how to retain your core customers/clients/donors/volunteers. Then think about those folks on the fringe of that group – the infrequent volunteers, donors, etc. The third group you might want to think about is the ones not engaging your organization at all.

Wouldn’t it truly be a revolution if we learned how to get domestic violence prevention information into the heads of abusers? What would it take to make something as complicated and un-sexy as alleviating poverty a national priority with a sustainable action plan? What would it mean for your bottom line if, as an artist, your artwork was bought to hang in places no one has ever even thought about hanging art?

Robin Hood Marketing helped me think about these questions. I like any book that can flip my paradigm on it’s head, so I recommend it to you as well.