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Communications frequency is one strong indicator of effectiveness. If you don’t get your messages in front of the right people often enough, it’s hard to accomplish your communications, marketing, and fundraising goals. Ineffective communications teams reliably underestimate the frequency needed to break through to people.

Below you’ll see the median communications frequencies reported by nonprofit communicators in the 2022 Nonprofit Communications Trends Report. Within the report, you’ll also find a chart that compares the median communications frequencies to what the more effective and the less effective nonprofits reported.

When reviewing how often you should communicate, remember that what’s reported here is the reality, not necessarily the best practice.

For example, we strongly encourage nonprofits to email more often than monthly, which is the median. We also know that posting monthly on social media isn’t effective – those who are posting only monthly likely know that but are simply maintaining a basic presence rather than not using the social media site at all.

You can download this chart as a one-page PDF

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“In the world of ideas, to name something is to own it. If you can name an issue, you can own the issue.”

Here are some of the ideas and issues you should be naming and owning in your nonprofit as a communications director.

The Marketing and Communications Planning Documents

What should your marketing and/or communications plans look like? Name it and own it. Here’s what we suggest for the different types of communications plans and strategies.

The Goals, Strategies, Objectives, and Tactics

All the details in those plans? Yep, use the right vocabulary for that stuff and own it too. Here’s your guide to goals, strategies, objectives, and tactics for nonprofit communicators.

The Seven Styles of Nonprofit Writing

You need different styles of writing for different purposes, and we’ve identified the seven writing styles most often needed by nonprofit communicators. Name them and own them in your work.

The Management Framework for Nonprofit Comms

We call it CALM not BUSY. When you manage communications in ways that are Collaborative, Agile, Logical, and Methodical, you are managing communications for success.

A Timeless Approach to Your Social Media Strategy

Social media platforms are constantly changing but that doesn’t mean your approach to social media has to change too, if you are using our “Be Personal & Be Practical” social media strategy to build trust and influence on social platforms. You can name and own this too!

Very few people in your nonprofit (if any) will really understand what your job is as a communications director. They just know they need someone to do communications. Part of your ability to step up and lead in those roles is to name all the parts of the job and own those parts. These posts should be a big help!

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We covered a lot of ground in Episode 22.

I shared a lot of my Nonprofit Marketing Rules of Three, including the three questions in a quick and dirty marketing plan, the three things you should put in your newsletter, and more.

We also talked about how consistency and having a home base is more important than frequency and being in all the different places online.

Take a listen here or in your favorite podcast app.

The post Marketing Tips for Small Volunteer-Led Nonprofits appeared first on Nonprofit Marketing Guide (NPMG).

If you’ve been at this awhile, the two lists I am sharing won’t be a surprise . . .

Top Channels in Order of Importance for Nonprofits

We’ve seen very little change in the top six channels over the decade we’ve been doing the Trends Reports. The Big Six are email, website/blog, social media, events, PR/media relations, and direct mail. Email and Website/Blog sometimes flip-flop in the number one and two slots, but overall this list is very solid. If you do nonprofit communications, you do these things, end of story.

Top Social Media Sites in Order of Importance for Nonprofits

This year, we decided to break both Facebook and Instagram into two different items, Facebook Pages versus Groups and Instagram Newsfeed versus Stories. That’s because we know Groups and Stories tend to be especially engaging places on those platforms as opposed to the more standard Newsfeed.

You can see that Facebook Groups and Instagram Stories fall to the bottom of the list, even though they are often the more engaging parts of those platforms. Many nonprofits don’t have Groups or haven’t figured out a compelling reason to have one or simply don’t have the time to moderate one.

Stories also present challenges from the nonprofit point of view: they disappear (so is it worth the time?) and there’s no public conversations like the Newsfeed (so, again, is it worth the time?).

My take is that a lot of nonprofit communicators are so busy that just doing Newsfeed content is all they can handle right now. However, that’s not really a good enough reason in my mind to skip over the more engaging part of the platform, which is Stories. I think what’s needed is both a content repurposing strategy and a willingness to share more unplanned, authentic content.

We’ll share the full report with much more data next week. Stay tuned!

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There is no single right answer, although there are certainly editorial calendar trends and preferences in our sector.

Before you make the right choice for yourself and your organization, you have to answer this question: Do you have spreadsheet brain or calendar brain? Odds are EXTREMELY high that you have a personal preference for one over the other.

Spreadsheet brains like the grid. They like to see it all at once in linear fashion. The don’t want anything else to cloud what they see.

Calendar brains complain that they can’t understand anything in the grid. They need the visual structure of days, weeks, and months. They want to instantly see that flow over time, and they often want to see the editorial calendar in relationship to other things on the calendar (e.g. events, holidays).

Both are 100% valid. It’s just a different way of looking at and processing the same information. Pick a tool that has your preference as a core part of the software (e.g., Airtable if you are a spreadsheet person).

What if you have a mix of calendar and spreadsheet brains on your team? I would encourage you to explore a more robust project management software that can show your schedule in either format (e.g., Asana).

Our webinar series on editorial calendars is coming up soon. Join us for Everything You Need to Know about Editorial Calendars in 2021 on November 10 and 12, 2020.

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I went through all the things I teach about how to do engagement campaigns and build out a calendar, but then the “This is great, but we have no one to staff it. What do I do?” question came in. It’s a very common question when speaking to a broad audience of nonprofit professionals rather than comms or development staff specifically.

You can learn all you want about doing great comms planning, but what if it really isn’t anyone’s job and yet you are stuck doing the work or have otherwise taken it upon yourself because you know it’s important?

It’s all about having better conversations internally. That’s where you start.

Better conversations involve better questions.

Start with what we call the Quick and Dirty Marketing Plan questions:

Who are we talking to? Get as specific as you can about your target audience. Everyone or the general public aren’t good answers.

What’s our message to those people? This should usually include a call to action.

How do we deliver that message to those people? These are your communications channels. It’s the comms stuff you make.

Nonprofits without comms staff always have the answer to the third question. We need a flyer! We need a billboard! We need to be on Snapchat! Your challenge is to always introduce the first two questions into the conversation: Who is this for and what do we want to say to them — and what do we want to ask them to do?

Once you get those basics into the conversation on a regular basis, you can add other questions:

So what? This gets to the “why?” question for your target audience. Why should this message or call to action matter to them? What’s in for them to follow through? What does it matter? Think of these questions from their point of view, not yours. This is how you build out the messaging that goes with your call to action.

Why now? Even if you have convinced your target audience that your messaging and call to action make sense, they still need a nudge to do it now. How can you create some urgency so people will stop doing everything else and follow through on your call to action?

Even if you never get around to creating an editorial calendar, regularly injecting these questions into your conversations about communications will move you in a much more strategic direction. Once you get some dedicated staff time, you can work on a real plan.

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No matter what you are working on, there are a few really simple elements to this nonprofit communications work that you can always use to ground yourself and to create a strong foundation for your work.

Ready?

On the STRATEGIC side of things, do the Quick and Dirty Marketing Strategy all day, every day, in every conversation.

1. What’s our message? This will often include a call to action.
2. Who are we talking to? This is your “target audience.” The general public is not a great answer. Try to get more specific. People who . . . what?
3. How do we get that message to those people? This is about picking the right channels. Channels are things like email, print, Facebook, etc. You will probably use multiple channels.

You really need answers to all three questions. Most conversations with others will start with the answer to one of these questions. It’s your job to get answers to all three. If you can’t, then you really shouldn’t be doing whatever that thing is they are asking you to do.

OK, now on to the TACTICAL side of things. This is where we talk about editorial calendar basics. Don’t freak out — it’s OK if this is only in your head or in conversations for now. That’s better than nothing. Work on getting it down on paper or in software later.

Editorial calendars have three core elements.

1. MESSAGING: What’s the message or content? It’s the thing you saying or publishing (like #1 above) but in the actual format for publication.
2. TIMING: When will that message go out? Best to pick a specific day, but for longer-term planning week by week or even month by month will do. If you are swamped with requests that need to go out, you might want to split the day into a.m. and p.m.
3. CHANNELS: Where will it go out? Be specific here about which channels that message will go out on that particular day.

We have a lot more about strategic communications planning and editorial calendars here on the blog and in our training when you are ready. But don’t let that add to your overwhelm! The contents of this post alone will take you a long, long, way.

Hang in there!

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Let’s sort it all out, so you can figure out what you really need to create.

First, let’s address the definitions. Right or wrong, marketing and communications are often used interchangeably in the nonprofit sector. Even if you are clear on the distinctions in your own mind, odds are extremely high that others around you use the words differently. You need to talk about what people really mean and what they are asking for when they request these documents from you.

I don’t want to start any arguments, but here’s how we generally use these terms, although we too use them interchangeably sometimes.

Marketing is primarily about strategy. What are the goals and objectives? Who is the primary target audience, what’s the message to those people, and which communications channels will best deliver that message? These are the questions you answer in a marketing strategy. You are making the decisions infrequently — you make them and stick to them for a while.

Communications is primarily about tactics. How, when and where are you communicating? You make these decisions much more frequently, constantly adjusting to match your current needs. When we talk about communications plans, we are most often referring to two documents, the Big Picture Communications Timeline and the Editorial Calendar.

Naturally, there’s a lot of overlap because you need both marketing and communications to effective.

Let’s look a little deeper into these documents.

What Goes into a Marketing Strategy

If you are creating a strategy, you’ll want to look at

• The 12 most common nonprofit marketing goals
• The 12 most common nonprofit marketing strategies
• The 12 most common nonprofit marketing objectives
• The 27 most common nonprofit marketing tactics 

You’ll need to prioritize and say No to most of what you see on those lists, saying Yes to just a few (that’s basically the definition of being strategic). You’ll also need to define your target audiences and narrow your messaging and calls to action. You’ll usually articulate these as you make decisions on goals, strategies, and objectives.

Here’s a one-page Strategic Communications Plan Outline that we recommend. Yes, we are covering all the terminology bases! You can fill this in and create a document that is anywhere from 2-20 pages depending on how detailed you want to get.

What Goes in a Communications Plan

What if no one is particularly interested in talking about the organization-wide goals, strategies, and objectives? What if they are really asking you for a plan for what content you are going to create and what you are going to post in all of your different communications channels?

That’s where a few other documents come in . . .

I suggest that annually you create a Big Picture Communications Timeline.

The timeline maps out all of the events and milestones (both within and beyond your control) that will drive your communications in the coming year, along with your primary calls to action and the major storylines you want to share. It’s completed with all parts of the organization in mind: programs, fundraising, and marketing/communications.

Of course, you also need an Editorial Calendar. This is your day-to-day working plan. At a minimum, it outlines what you sharing, in what communications channels and when. You can add much more detail, including who is responsible for what, internal deadlines and workflows, and more. You’ll find lots of advice on nonprofit editorial calendars here.

Creative briefs are also very helpful when you are doing more project- or campaign-oriented planning.

So which document are you being asked to create? Who knows! Talk about the contents of this post with others and decide what you need to work on together. This communications plan decision tree could help too. 

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What Should Go in My Editorial Calendar?

At its most basic level, you need the content you are creating, when you are publishing or sending it, and in what communications channel. But you can add a lot more too!

The “How Much and How Good” Grid for Nonprofit Communications

My Five Rules for Repurposing Your Content

Building an Editorial Calendar Based on Stories

Three Drivers for Nonprofit Editorial Calendars

My Editorial Calendar Keeps Getting Blown Up. What Should I Do?

If that’s the case, you may need to build more flexibility into your planning.

Your Editorial Calendar Should Accommodate the Important and the Urgent

Editorial Planning When Everything is Up in the Air

Five Ways to Plan for the Unexpected

What Software Should I Use?

There is no perfect solution for everyone. Much it depends on if you have “calendar brain” or “spreadsheet brain” or need a more robust project management approach.

Here are the editorial calendar software trends for nonprofits in 2019. Here’s what people said in 2016.

Why Do Them, Picking the Right Software, and More

Editorial Calendars in Excel and Google Calendars

How to Use Asana for Your Editorial Calendar

How to Use Trello for Your Editorial Calendar

How Do I Get Others to Use the Editorial Calendar?

How to Get Program Staff to Use Your Editorial Calendar

What questions do you have about editorial calendars? Let us know in the comments!

I’ll also be teaching our two-part webinar series on editorial calendars in May 2019.

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