The Seacoast Science Center (SSC) is dedicated to sparking curiosity, enhancing understanding, and inspiring conservation of the earth.
The organization focuses on experiential, science-based education for all age groups with the goal of bringing about positive change to help restore the environment. SSC strives to instill a commitment to conservation through the lens of its special seaside location at New Hampshire’s Odiorne Point State Park. SSC’s living laboratory of ocean-focused exhibits, aquariums, marine education and marine mammal rescue programs, combined with the park’s diverse coastal habitats, offer a unique opportunity to study and understand the relationship between people, the local habitat, the ocean and the world at large.
Challenge
With the growing importance of conserving natural resources, SSC embarked on a program to expand its role, value and presence within the northern New England area including New Hampshire, Massachusetts and Maine. President Jim Chase and his team identified the need for clear, consistent branding and marketing messaging as a key component to increasing the nonprofit’s impact within the community.
In the spring of 2019, ESC consultants Claire Larrabee and Peter Baker began working with Jim and Director of Marketing Karen Provazza to develop a Branding and Messaging Guide. The purpose of the guide was to accurately reflect SSC’s mission and vision as well as identify the key messages to be used with the organization’s diverse client segments. The guide would enable SSC to deliver compelling messages that effectively convey the organization’s mission and directly address the interests of each client segment.
How ESC Helped
To create the guide, the joint ESC/SSC team first segmented the many client groups that would require distinct messages. In all, the team identified nine different segments ranging from day visitors to SSC’s facility, SSC members, and parents who enroll their children in SSC camps to volunteers and donors who are focused on SSC’s Marine Mammal Rescue program.
Claire and Peter created surveys with a series of open-ended questions designed to understand what motivates each of the nine client segments to engage with SSC. They conducted onsite, phone and small group interviews to identify key motivations for each group. Based on the results of the surveys, the ESC consultants developed a comprehensive messaging guide that includes:
- A Brand DNA which defines the organization’s high-level principles and how they are delivered
- A Brand Promise which defines what SSC promises to deliver to all its clients
- A Brand Story which communicates SSC’s core values, principles, mission and passion
- An Elevator Pitch that provides a simple, compelling statement of the organization’s role and value
- Coordinated messaging for each client segment that addresses both aspirational and transactional motivations that drive clients to engage with SSC
Results
Shared brand foundation
The Branding and Messaging Guide gave the Seacoast Science Center a clear, shared understanding of its core principles and values—creating a strong base for all marketing and outreach.
Consistent, coordinated messaging
SSC can now produce coordinated messaging across communications, helping the team clearly convey value and encourage the right actions across different client segments.
Brand Story in active use
The Brand Story has become a go-to tool for shaping materials, capturing SSC’s vision and passion and reinforcing the value of its science-based education.
Applied across all channels
SSC is using the guide’s principles consistently across print and digital channels, making outreach more aligned and easier to maintain over time.
Segment messaging with proof points
Client-segmented Key Value Messages, supported by ready-to-use “proof points”, make it simple to build targeted collateral while staying consistent across channels.
Stronger strategy, wider reach
With a coordinated marketing approach and a common framework for evaluation, the guide is helping SSC expand market reach and increase presence and impact across the Seacoast and northern New England.
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TESTIMONIAL
We now have a common understanding of our organization’s core principles and values that permeates our outreach. We can create coordinated and consistent messaging in all our communications that helps us effectively convey our value and drive the desired behaviors in our many client segments.
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