"Business" and "History" — Forging a New Relationship to Benefit Both
Paradigm shifts are going on everywhere.
Information products versus working by the hour. Entrepreneurship versus looking for a “stable job” which no longer exists. Home-based businesses popping up everywhere.
So, too, are paradigm shifts taking place in the nonprofit sector, as they must. The old models based on a certain kind of volunteer, traditional funding sources, and outdated ways of management and program no longer work. In the case of historical societies and historic house museums, the results can actually be quite devastating for a historical community: crumbling buildings and the loss of irreplaceable archives.
Especially where historical organizations are involved, businesses can actually help these organizations by helping themselves.
They can initiate a win-win relationship by forging strategic business partnerships with historical organizations that will benefit both for-profit and nonprofit bottom lines.
In my recent article on this subject , I discuss how businesses can incorporate history — their own and their community’s — into their branding and marketing programs to impress and attract customers. Especially for businesses located in historical communities, this approach works in spades.
But where does the historical information come from? Must business owners are not historians, and neither are their marketing and PR people.
This is why you, the business owner, need researchers and historians!
People at your local historical society, library, or museum know how to do the research, and they can probably provide you with old photographs. A historian will go a step further and ask the kinds of “larger” questions I provide in my article.
All of this information will give your business stature and credibility once you incorporate the information — working with your marketing people to identify which “customer touch points” could use some history.
You can learn more about this unusual approach in our Services section.
Think about it! “Business” and “history” working together in a strategic business partnership for everyone’s economic benefit!
Information products versus working by the hour. Entrepreneurship versus looking for a “stable job” which no longer exists. Home-based businesses popping up everywhere.
So, too, are paradigm shifts taking place in the nonprofit sector, as they must. The old models based on a certain kind of volunteer, traditional funding sources, and outdated ways of management and program no longer work. In the case of historical societies and historic house museums, the results can actually be quite devastating for a historical community: crumbling buildings and the loss of irreplaceable archives.
Especially where historical organizations are involved, businesses can actually help these organizations by helping themselves.
They can initiate a win-win relationship by forging strategic business partnerships with historical organizations that will benefit both for-profit and nonprofit bottom lines.
In my recent article on this subject , I discuss how businesses can incorporate history — their own and their community’s — into their branding and marketing programs to impress and attract customers. Especially for businesses located in historical communities, this approach works in spades.
But where does the historical information come from? Must business owners are not historians, and neither are their marketing and PR people.
This is why you, the business owner, need researchers and historians!
People at your local historical society, library, or museum know how to do the research, and they can probably provide you with old photographs. A historian will go a step further and ask the kinds of “larger” questions I provide in my article.
All of this information will give your business stature and credibility once you incorporate the information — working with your marketing people to identify which “customer touch points” could use some history.
You can learn more about this unusual approach in our Services section.
Think about it! “Business” and “history” working together in a strategic business partnership for everyone’s economic benefit!
Posted by History Smiths Blog at 5/17/2010 9:52 AM 
Categories: history audits, business history, historical communities
Tags: business marketing
Categories: history audits, business history, historical communities
Tags: business marketing
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