Before You Spend a Million on Ads, Mail a Bumper Sticker

One of the biggest mistakes organizations make when trying to build brand awareness is assuming the problem is that people dislike them. In many cases, the real issue is much simpler and much more dangerous. People have no opinion at all. No reputation. No emotional connection. No presence in the conversation.

That diagnosis matters. A "they don't like us" problem and a "they don't know we exist" problem look the same in a survey. They require completely different responses. One calls for repositioning. The other calls for activation.

Be Honest With the People Who Already Care

If you are leading a college facing that problem, be upfront with your alumni and tell them exactly that. "A recent brand awareness survey showed something surprising. The issue isn't that people have a bad or good perception of us. It's that they don't have a perception of us at all."

Then ask for help.

The same approach works for a museum talking to its members. For a regional hospital talking to its patient community. For a symphony orchestra talking to its subscribers. For any mid-size nonprofit talking to the people who already give. The institutions that struggle most with awareness are usually the ones that have been around long enough to assume everyone already knows about them. They do not.

What Not To Do First

Now to be clear, I'm not against large advertising campaigns. Multi-million-dollar ad buys absolutely can work. But I wouldn't start there.

I wouldn't start there because spending big on awareness before activating the people who already care is one of the most common ways institutions waste money. It feels like action, generates impressions, and produces a deck, but it skips the cheaper, deeper work of mobilizing the people who already believe. An activated base almost always outperforms what a campaign produces on its own.

The instinct to jump to a big ad buy is usually about leadership wanting to be seen doing something. That's understandable. It's also expensive.

Start With Activation

I would start by activating the people who already care about the institution and turning them into visible ambassadors for the brand.

Send every alumnus a simple message: "Tell us what free swag you want." A bumper sticker. A license plate frame. A golf shirt. A hat. A tie. Whatever makes them feel connected to the institution again. Then mail it to them free of charge.

Why? Because people market what they identify with. A sweatshirt hanging in a gym locker. A plate cover sitting in traffic. A polo shirt at a conference. Those things create thousands of tiny brand impressions in the real world from people who already love you. None of those impressions cost what a digital campaign costs. And all of them come from someone who chose to put it on. That's a credibility ads can't buy.

And just as importantly, it's a community-building exercise. Alumni want to feel included. They want to feel like they are still part of something. The same is true for museum members, orchestra subscribers, and donors anywhere. People want to feel that their belonging is recognized, not assumed.

Before spending millions trying to convince strangers to notice your institution, it might make sense to first mobilize the people who already believe in it.

A Few Questions I Always Ask

• When was the last time we surveyed our base on awareness versus perception? Do we actually know which problem we have?

• Who already loves us, and how visible are we making it for them?

• What's our cost per impression on a license plate frame mailed to an alumnus versus a digital campaign aimed at strangers?

• What would it cost to send every active alumnus, member, patient, or subscriber a small piece of swag this year?

• Where would we see those impressions show up? Gyms, airports, school pickup lines, office desks, cars.

• If a board member walked in tomorrow and said, "give us a million dollars for brand awareness," what would we do first?

The answer to that last question should rarely be "buy a million dollars of ads." More often, the answer is that we already have the most credible marketing in the world sitting in our alumni records, our membership database, our patient list, our subscriber file. We just have to invite them back in.