Marketing Forecast from Ad-ology

Most political strategists admit that President Obama’s 2008 campaign was expertly run at both the local and national levels and with the use of both traditional and new media. Industry observers are attempting to predict how the Republicans will challenge Obama with respect to advertising during the next election cycle. And the spending has already begun.

If there’s one thing that’s in short supply at many nonprofit organizations – it’s money. That problem might explain why so many charities were early adopters with respect to social media. Ongoing research from the University of Massachusetts Dartmouth Center for Marketing Research so that trend is continuing.

What should you buy for the friend or relative who has everything? These days, charitable organizations are hoping that consumers will consider making a donation or volunteering their time as a gift. It’s part of a new trend called responsible giving and was highlighted in Liberty Mutual’s 2010 Responsible Giving Project.

Consumers are expected to give up to $48 billion to nonprofit organizations during the current holiday season. The goodwill comes at a time when people are still closing monitoring household budgets. But consumers understand the importance of sharing their wealth and this year they appear to be using more channels, a process that makes giving convenient and requires less time. As a result, charitable organizations need to make sure they maintain a consistent but visible presence across all channels.

Ad-ology Research recently updated their Industry Marketing Insights report for Political Organizations. The following are the predicted Top 3 Opportunities/Challenges from the report for this industry for the upcoming 12 months:

As we approach what is traditionally known as the Giving Season, charitable organizations are concerned about the continued economic stress on families who give. Charities have reported varying rates of declines in giving. The top 400 charities said that donations dropped by 11% in 2009. But smaller charities indicated that they experienced only a 3.6% drop in donations last year.