[Dalya’s Note: This is an excerpt from my award-winning book Writing to Make a Difference: 25 Powerful Techniques to Boost Your Community Impact.]
When you are writing to make a difference, your two-fold goal is both to promote your organization as a part of a socially responsible solution AND to educate your readers about key things they need to know in your issue area.
Constituent education is often the first step in marketing, especially if you are tackling a complex, often misunderstood problem that involves many variables, processes, or actors. Most of your readers are not specialists in your area, but their interests make them want to know more. You would be wise, then, to build an educational component into your organization’s branding.
EXAMPLE:
As a socially responsible business, you offer environmentally friendly laundry services to people in your neighborhood. While your customers obviously know their need for clean clothes, many of them may not be aware of the hazards of chemicals often used in the dry cleaning process. Your marketing, then, would need to include information about why you offer green services, as well as how you do so.
In this world of information overload, we all could use a guide to the most critical aspects of the issues important to us. We also want to hear about how we can personally get involved, presented in a way that we can relate to.
And that information is precisely what you and your organization excel at providing! Give it to your readers—repeatedly and consistently. The more value you can deliver, the more they will see your organization as worthy of their support, investment, or patronage.
Promoting your brand and appropriately educating your community go hand-in-glove.
BONUS TIP:
Just remember that you can never be 100% objective, no matter how hard you try. While your readers know you have a perspective, they also expect you to be clear and honest with your facts and opinions, and to explain your frame-of-reference.
