nptech Archives - Nonprofit Marketing Guide (NPMG)

How to Use Asana to Organize a Social Media and Communications Calendar

Guest Post — Tue, 01 Nov 2022 14:27:16 +0000

In my first blog about how I use Asana, I outlined how I (who is, again, by no means an Asana expert) use this platform to capture, organize and create stories for our organization. I use these collected stories as blogs, newsletter articles, media pitches, and social media content. You may be wondering how I organize all of this communication. If you guessed Asana, you get the day’s gold star. Pat yourself on the back. Take the day off. Ok, maybe don’t go that far. You have things to communicate!

Today, I want to share how I utilize Asana to organize my social media and communications calendar. Full disclosure. I used to use Microsoft Outlook calendar to manage this. I thought I was being productive, transparent, and organized when I first pitched the idea of adding a “communications calendar” to our organization. However, I soon discovered that I was the only one utilizing it. I would get questions like, “When is this topic getting posted to social media?” or “When is eNews distributed?”

When LM switched to Asana, I explored their existing templates and found that I could easily customize them to fit our communications needs. Here’s how I do it:

Calendar:

This view is straightforward. When planning out the calendar (especially the social media side of things), I find it helpful to map out the subjects of my content and assign it to my social media channels. Each channel has a specific color so I can see what content I post and to what channel. I also include scheduled eblasts and ideas for content (By the way, did you know that NPMG has a helpful monthly content guide? I was not asked to mention it, but I use it ALL THE TIME. So helpful!) As I mentioned in my last blog, I use several views of the same project to keep me on task.

Here is the same project in List View:

Here, I get a clearer picture of scheduled content and ideas that are being discussed among the team.

Let’s move on to the meat of the tasks.

Tasks:

Here, I begin to organize my posts. I decide on the social media channel, the post format (Is it a gif? Photo? Article? Video? Etc.), and the content type. (promotion, engagement/feedback, thought leadership, etc.) I will also assign a person to handle the post and, if I am SUPER organized, the verbiage that will accompany the post. I also love Asana because I can add subtasks. So, if I need to create accompanying graphics, I can add them here, along with any instructions for the designer. This is the perfect place to assign a subtask if you work with an outside designer or team member. In this case, I left off the subtask because the designer is me.

Linked Tasks:

Speaking of working with others, Asana allows you to link tasks to multiple projects. Part of our work includes engagement with Alumni, so I work with our Senior Manager of Alumni Engagement for specific communication items like eBlasts. When she assigns them to me in her Alumni Engagement Project, she will add the task to the Social Media/Communications Calendar at the same time. This way, with one click, I can ensure that this communication fits into my calendar and plan. It will also include the tags established in both projects so that we both stay organized.

Finally, I am a massive fan of workflows in Asana. I configure specific flows that automatically move my tasks from “ideas” to “completed.”

Workflows:

The organizational possibilities are endless. If you don’t know where to start, start with a template. It will allow you to include the critical components and organize them for your organization’s specific needs.

How do you track your organization’s communications?

Kaarmin Ford, MA (She/Her/Hers)

Mission-forward work has been a mainstay throughout Kaarmin’s career. In her role as Senior Director, Communications & Engagement at Leadership Montgomery, she works to create and execute the organization’s communications, branding, and outreach strategy. Prior to her role with LM, Kaarmin spent seven years with the Alzheimer’s Association as part of the outreach and development team. Outside of the nonprofit world, Kaarmin has worked in media, banking, and state government. A native West Virginian (Country Roads, anyone?), Kaarmin currently lives in the Washington, D.C. area and enjoys trivia, a good cup of tea, and all things America’s Test Kitchen.

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The post How to Use Asana to Organize a Social Media and Communications Calendar appeared first on Nonprofit Marketing Guide (NPMG).

How to Collect Stories from Your Nonprofit’s Staff Using Asana

Guest Post — Wed, 24 Aug 2022 18:21:19 +0000

During a recent Nonprofit Marketing Guide training on How to Write Faster (recording available with a Free Membership) the chat was on fire with participants sharing their tips and tools for what helps them during their storytelling process.

When I jumped in with my tips for Asana, I received questions for further insight on how I utilize this program within our marketing department (of one). In a series of blogs, I will share with you how I (who is by NO MEANS an Asana expert) use this platform to capture and organize impact stories, create our social media and communications calendars, and field requests for marketing materials.

When I started at Leadership Montgomery, our organization didn’t have much of a system for collecting stories. So when I researched how to begin the process, I found this blog that suggested keeping a story bank utilizing Trello. That seemed fine and dandy, but I needed a way to use our existing program, Asana. So, I took what I learned and added a few additional features unique to Asana, and below, I’d like to share how I organize my Story Bank.

My Overall Board

Here, you can see that I separate my stories into four categories: Ideas, Interviews, Stories in Progress, and Finished. When a colleague or I have an idea (more on that later), it gets placed on the first board, where I then organize, create tasks, and implement deadlines needed for moving into the next phase.

The Interview category is where I keep notes from interviews. Stories in Progress is where I keep notes, create deadlines, and begin writing my rough draft. (Tip: If you use Google or Microsoft doc to write, you can attach files right into the task).

In Asana, I can also create tags. As you can see, our organization has many topic areas for storytelling. Here I can apply categories (or several categories), so when I am looking for content to repurpose, I can easily search by category. Plus, how fun are the colors?

List View

Asana has many views. Depending on how my brain works (or how much coffee I’ve had), I may need a different perspective to help me organize. I use different views for different projects to help keep my process in order.

Asana also allows you to create forms that can be distributed to others. Once submitted, the information goes directly into a project and can automatically include tags, dates, etc. Knowing this, I created a story intake form that stakeholders can complete.

Intake Form

Perhaps the most challenging part is getting my team to utilize it. I admit we can be better at this, but I am taking proactive steps to ensure utilization.

First, I mention it at least once a month in our weekly staff meetings. I have also offered incentives (cake, anyone?). Sometimes I will even take a conversation I have had out of the office and quickly complete the form while the details are fresh. The bottom line is that it is my job to put our storytelling strategy top of mind with colleagues. I know that once this process becomes a habit, the stories will follow.

Again, I am not an Asana expert. But I have found these tools helpful in preventing potential stories from getting lost in someone’s head. We know this process will grow and evolve, and I use Asana because its features will allow it to grow and evolve with us.

How do you organize your stories?

Kaarmin Ford, MA (She/Her/Hers)

Mission-forward work has been a mainstay throughout Kaarmin’s career. In her role as Senior Director, Communications & Engagement at Leadership Montgomery, she works to create and execute the organization’s communications, branding, and outreach strategy. Prior to her role with LM, Kaarmin spent seven years with the Alzheimer’s Association as part of the outreach and development team. Outside of the nonprofit world, Kaarmin has worked in media, banking, and state government. A native West Virginian (Country Roads, anyone?), Kaarmin currently lives in the Washington, D.C. area and enjoys trivia, a good cup of tea, and all things America’s Test Kitchen.

The post How to Collect Stories from Your Nonprofit’s Staff Using Asana appeared first on Nonprofit Marketing Guide (NPMG).

Big Ideas, Small Budgets: Finding Abundance in a NonProfit Marketing Budget

Gladiator Consulting — Wed, 09 Mar 2022 15:07:07 +0000

After my college internship at a national performing arts nonprofit was complete, I landed my first salaried job at a large financial services holding company that housed more than 80 different brands. We had a marketing team nearing 30 people, our own in-house print shop, photo studio, plentiful project budgets, and regular tech upgrades. Not to mention the weekly happy hours and fully stocked snack bar just for our department. We even had access to a private gym, complete with a personal trainer and fitness classes.

Despite all of these perks (and much to my mother’s dismay) in the summer of 2014, I made the jump from this well-resourced corporate marketing gig to working at a small community development nonprofit with an equally small budget. While the decision made a positive impact on my overall mental health and gave me the sense of fulfillment I was looking for, it also left me with far fewer resources to work with in order to do my job efficiently and effectively.

I was suddenly faced with aging technology and a budget under $5,000 – including printing costs. Compared to my former role whose budget included $350,000 just for social media management and advertising alone, I was *winces* challenged to fulfill my role to the same extent, but without the abundance of resources to get our marketing where I envisioned it (and promised in my interview) to be.

After the initial shock wore off, I did two things: first, I looked at ways to prioritize my investments to best utilize my marketing budget, and began digging into alternative resources that would still help me produce quality work without overstretching my organization’s already thin pockets. Today, I share those tips and tricks with those of you who also find yourself with big ideas, but constricted budgets.

The Power of Partnerships:

There is great benefit to partnering with agencies who have similar missions and needs when it comes to reducing costs. The organization I worked for produced a printed newspaper that was delivered to the entire neighborhood. In order to keep this cost effective, they teamed up with two other organizations who wanted to do the same, each getting a bulk rate on printing so long as we produced the same size paper and ordered at the same time each quarter. This saved hundreds of dollars throughout the year, allowing us to cover the remaining costs with local advertisers. Do you have similar events coming up with a partner organization soon? Split the costs of flyers, share paid outreach and advertise both together.

Photos, Photos, and More Photos:

Everyone knows that great marketing needs to be visually appealing to your target audience. This can be a challenge when the budget isn’t there for hiring local photographers at every event (which I do highly recommend when possible), or paying for premium stock photos. Not to worry, the companies below still offer great photography at little or no cost for use. Just remember to use what you need, but don’t fall into the trap of tokenization and depicting an untrue image of your work.

Graphic Design Tools

In the last few years, the market has become flooded with cloud-based tools that allow for easier access to excellent graphic design. If your team is familiar with Adobe Creative Cloud, the nonprofit rate allows you to access the entire suite of products for as little as $30 per month.

If you are only looking for photo editing and layout tools, another great option to consider is the Affinity Publisher. For one single payment of $54, you have access to a robust layout design program that can create longform documents to social media graphics to web design layouts. They also have photo editing and illustration software and templates available for additional cost.

If $54 is still a stretch for your budget, I recommend a free nonprofit account with Canva. The best part about the nonprofit product is the ability to work in teams and access all of the pro branding functions. While it doesn’t have the best functionality for long-form documents in the way that Adobe InDesign can provide, it does well with presentations, infographics, social media images, and email newsletter graphics.

For those who love playing with color, you won’t find a better free tool than Coolors. With designated mobile apps and a Chrome extension, this tool makes finding the best color pallet for your project fun and easy.

Capturing & Editing High-Quality Video

These days, attention spans are short. The modern “need” to constantly take in information–quickly–has conditioned us to focus just long enough to read a tweet or watch a TikTok/Instagram reel. Videos are an excellent way to get an accomplishment or fundraising ask out to your community quickly and effectively. As mentioned above, Adobe Creative Cloud comes with a few video editing products, including Premier Rush, which allows for easy drag-and-drop editing to produce high-quality videos with professional-level graphics and transitions.

If you decide to go a different route from Adobe, DaVinci Resolve is another high–powered option that’s regularly used by the film industry – but their basic software is free to download and use. A little less drag-and-drop friendly, but capable of beautiful color, audio, and lighting effects, this a great option if you don’t have a budget for additional software and can dedicate the time to learning the ropes.

The best part about producing video for your nonprofit today, is the ever-increasing quality of cellphone cameras. The latest models of both Android and iPhone cameras produce very high quality video without the need for extra (and expensive!) video equipment. Simply film on your phone, download the video into one of these editing tools, and you’ll have eye-catching videos for your campaigns in no time.

Where NOT to Cut Costs

Now that you have saved money with design tools, there is one place I recommend not going with the lowest cost option – printing. When it comes to selecting perfect thank you cards or a banner for your event, I highly recommend sticking with local vendors over online options. More often than not, if there is an issue with the final product, your local printers will be able to address it more quickly. As you build relationships locally, these hometown vendors are also more likely to support you with discounts and donations that result in them being more cost effective in the long run.

Even with small budgets, you can accomplish great things with your marketing campaigns. Give these tools a try, reach out to your colleagues for more tips on local resources and don’t be afraid to go after those big ideas. It doesn’t always take big dollars to have a big impact.

Jessica Payne, Director of Equitable Engagement, Gladiator Consulting

Jessica’s passion is making sure that all voices have the chance to be heard. Blending her decade-long experience in communications, social media, and design with her Master’s Degree in Social Work, she works with organizations and communities to reach their goals through consensus building using a racial equity lens. Her broad experience ranges from preparing neighborhoods for the planning process, to creating coalitions for policy action, to leading a small community development corporation in building new affordable housing. She spends her free time gardening and hanging out with her neighbors in Old North.

To learn more about Jessica, click here.

The post Big Ideas, Small Budgets: Finding Abundance in a NonProfit Marketing Budget appeared first on Nonprofit Marketing Guide (NPMG).

How Nonprofits Can Collect More Zero-Party Data for Email Marketing

Kivi Leroux Miller, Founder and CEO — Thu, 03 Feb 2022 22:46:46 +0000

Online privacy is important, and that’s why there’s so much pushback on the collection and use of data that tracks people around on the web, known as third-party data. In response to these concerns, Apple has implemented new email privacy rules, Google is making cookies go away, and governmental privacy protections like GDPR will continue to grow.

But marketers, including nonprofits, need personal data about the people on our mailing lists in order to create the kinds of relevant and personalized messages we all expect to see in our inboxes now.

As an email sender, is there a way for you to create that personalized content while still honoring the desire for privacy? Yes, there is!

That’s where zero-party and first-party data comes in.

What is Zero-Party Data?

You may be hearing the term “zero-party data” a lot lately. To understand what it is, it’s helpful to put it in the context of other types of data.

ZERO-PARTY DATA: Data shared by the person directly with you via setting preferences, completing surveys, etc.
FIRST-PARTY DATA: Data you collect based on behavior and transactions (donations, email clicks, website visits if integrated with your CRM, etc.)
SECOND-PARTY DATA: When you use someone else’s first-party data, such as a partner organization sharing data from their list with you, or from a company like Google or Facebook.
THIRD-PARTY DATA: Data collected, aggregated, and rented/sold by brokers, primarily through cookies and third-party surveys, quizzes, etc.

Are We Ready to Collect Zero-Party Data?

Before you get ready to collect zero-party data, you need to know (1) where you are going to store it and (2) how you are going to use it.

If you don’t have a CRM, it’s time to get one, because that’s where you’ll want to store both your zero and first-party data. CRM stands for customer/constituent relationship management software. You can have standalone CRMs like Salesforce, but you can also have email and fundraising software that functions as your CRM. It holds not just contact information but other data about people too. This includes their interests and their behaviors (did they attend? donate? click that last email?).

You also need to know how you are going to use the data — otherwise, why bother collecting it? That’s just another invasion of privacy. For example, how will you use the data to better segment your mailings? Or how will you use it to drive your content marketing strategy? How will it allow you to personalize the email content you send out?

How Nonprofits Can Collect Zero-Party Data

There are lots of ways for nonprofits to collect zero-party data.

Email Registration. When you have people sign up for your newsletter or other emails, you are collecting zero-party data. If your email service has the functionality, you can start surveying or polling email subscribers and their answers will go right into those accounts so you can use the data for segmenting, etc.

Website Registration. You may want to go beyond simply signing up for emails and have people create accounts on your website. Depending on how you have it set up, you can track how people are using your website and use that to provide more personalized content to them either on the website or via email.

Surveys and Polls. Once you know what data would be most helpful to you, you can include those questions in surveys or polls to build out people’s CRM records.

Quizzes. Treat a quiz like another type of survey, just in a more game-like or engaging format. Use a quiz provider that has an integration with your CRM and you send the quiz answers right into the person’s record.

When you combine these tools with your own first-party data, you’ll understand your community so well, you won’t need to rely on second or third-party data to reach them!

The post How Nonprofits Can Collect More Zero-Party Data for Email Marketing appeared first on Nonprofit Marketing Guide (NPMG).

Marketing Investments to Consider in 2022

Gladiator Consulting — Wed, 12 Jan 2022 17:26:53 +0000

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At the end of 2021, your organization went through many painstaking weeks and months drafting (and re-drafting, and re-drafting) an organizational budget that is fiscally responsible, grows capacity, and allows mission fulfillment. It required a lot of negotiation and compromise. There might be some risk, like big revenue goals or requiring increased frugality AND programming. Or perhaps, you had hoped for more budget for technology or additional staff that you did not get.

But, here we are in January, and the budget has been approved by the board of directors, your goals are set, and it’s time to get to work. Even more exciting – it’s time to start to think about where to get the best ROI on your marketing dollars.

No matter how the budgeting process went or what you ended up sacrificing or gaining, it’s always true that your dreams cost more than your budget. Below, we have compiled a list of areas to prioritize when planning your marketing investments.

1. Relationships with the Community You Serve

Let me introduce Community Centric Marketing (the sister of our favorite topic Community-Centric Fundraising). How can your organization’s marketing stay grounded in equity and social justice and center the voices of the people you serve? Consider the following:

Dismantle non-profit silos. Donate to partner organizations, sponsor their events, join their campaigns as an organization, and encourage others to do the same.
Show up for the community. Attend community events, build relationships and share learnings with your team, on social media, and with anyone who will listen.
Make it a movement. Develop a community-led marketing committee and compensate people for their time*. You may realize that you don’t have to carry the world of marketing on your shoulders. And, you might be giving a colleague an opportunity to dip their toes in the marketing world while unlocking new ideas from someone other than you.
Make space for stories. Develop and roll out an ambassador program where people you serve write (or record) their own stories and how they hope to impact others and compensate people for their stories*. (Check out this example from Forward Through Ferguson)

2. Quality Content

It’s hard to be in marketing in the twenty-first century without knowing that content is everything, but somehow in the non-profit sector, we continue to lag behind our for-profit counterparts in truly investing in the quality content that will connect with our audience. Maybe it’s because we’re busy, I don’t know, helping people? And yet, there’s an audience to engage. Consider the following strategies:

Kickoff (or re-invent) your blog. 2022 is the year to invest time and resources into your external communications. You don’t have to do it alone. Engage other staff members, volunteers, community members and partners as authors and compensate them appropriately*. I brought this up before and I’ll say it again: there might be individuals in your company that want to indulge in their creative side, and you may benefit from their perspective: Coach, let them in the game.
Give your social media platforms personality. There’s no better way to show your brand’s personality than through videos. TikTok and Instagram Reels have made creating engaging and quick videos easy to develop and show off your team, mission, and community.
Podcasts still matter. Even as short-form content continues to grow in popularity, people are still turning to podcasts to dig deeper into their interests and passions. Starting a podcast would provide an opportunity to more deeply highlight your work and expertise (and will give you lots of sound bites you can pull into those short videos).

3. Graphic Design

We know (even if no one else at your organization does) that marketing is made up of a lot of specialties. So often as marketers, we are asked to fill the gaps of all the specialists, and we do ourselves and our organizations a disservice by attempting to be everything to everyone. Graphic design is a part of marketing that we firmly believe should be outsourced to those with those skills as often as it can be. Below are some of the ways we suggest you invest marketing budget into graphic design:

Build relationships with graphic designers and optimize your collateral with their skill. (Please note that graphic designers and content creators do not fit in a single job description). Your collaboration with graphic designers is critical in dispersing the marketing strategy that YOU (marketing manager, etc.) have created. These humans are magical. We promise, their gifts from the heavens will only amplify your messaging.
Ask them to build a variety of design assets you can use for day-to-day content or for campaigns. Pay an upfront premium so you own the assets and they are compensated fairly*.
There are a variety of design software tools that can amplify your skills (whether they are limited or extensive). Consider what best serves your day-to-day marketing needs and invest in anything from Adobe Creative Suite to Canva.

4. Marketing software

It’s a season of rest and we’re dismantling hustle culture. Let’s work smarter, not harder. Consider the fruits of the last two decades (ahem…technology) a gift that will not only increase your organization’s audience (and thus, fundraising potential), keep data organized, and bring your external communications to the next level, but also create institutional memory during staff turnover or shifts. We already know you’re doing too much– consider the following technological supports to employ in your marketing efforts in 2022:

Automation: Marketing automation uses software to automate repetitive marketing work. As marketing staff, you can automate your repetitive tasks such as email marketing, social media posting, ad campaign, and even personalized emails. This isn’t just more efficient, but when done well, it can create a more personalized experience for your stakeholders.
Social media: There are technologies that can handle your post scheduling and alignment across social media platforms. Do all the work in one place, without having to jump back and forth between your personal and professional profiles. Trust me, we all hate accidentally posting our personal posts on our professional page *cringe*.
Customer Relationship Management (CRM) tools: CRMs can feel like…a lot, but at the intersection of marketing and fundraising lives a quality CRM. Do not be afraid to dive into one of their training tutorials. Many also provide 24/7 tech support. And if all else fails, ask a Gen-Z’er to learn with you (and compensate them for their time!)– CRM competency is a marketable resume builder, and it might benefit both of you.
Email: As you consider your CRM, think about how it integrates with your mass email system. Sure, you might prefer MailChimp, but if your CRM is integrated with Constant Contact (please insert any two systems here), use the system that will work across your data sources and will require the least amount of data transfer

Not all of these tools will work for every organization. But, they are all worth exploring, even if they are gradually implemented over time or not at all. Many of the aforementioned investment opportunities– especially the technologies– are constantly changing. A year from now, we may revise this article with all new technologies/trends/investment opportunities that will be critical to 2023. But as for now, we listed what’s working: and we hope to hear your thoughts– where are you investing your marketing dollars?

*Compensating an individual for their time, labor, and experience is a critical factor in honoring those you serve, creating a more equitable marketing program, and upholding your organization’s values.

Brooke Black is the Operations + Content Manager at Gladiator Consulting in St. Louis, MO. At Gladiator, Brooke connects with an array of organizations dedicated to justice and utilizes her passion for writing and a well-honed system to keep the Gladiator team on track and elevate the consultancy’s brand both within the St. Louis Region as well as in the Community Centric Fundraising movement. Brooke loves to solve problems and build communications that will convey a clear message and connect with an audience.

Ann Fisher-Jackson is the Chief of Staff at Gladiator Consulting in St. Louis, MO. Tapping into 10 years of communication leadership experience, Ann helps Gladiator clients define who they are, reach their target audience, and grow their donor base. She combines a deep commitment to improving her community with her gift of organizational and communication strategy. She loves to look outside the box and consider how other industries or organizations might solve the same problem.

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Why You Should Audit Your Marketing Stack (All the Software You Use at Work)

Kivi Leroux Miller, Founder and CEO — Tue, 07 Dec 2021 21:15:56 +0000

All of the software programs you use to do your marketing and communications (and fundraising too) are called your martech or your marketing stack.

It’s a great idea to review your marketing stack annually to make sure you are

still using everything you are paying for
using what you are paying for to the fullest
canceling auto-renew subscriptions on things you aren’t using
evaluating what features you really need and reviewing whether the current stack is meeting those needs
ensuring that individual parts of the stack are playing nicely and integrating as they should
checking out new providers and solutions to see if they can streamline what is spread out over multiple software programs now
eliminating overlaps and conflicts about how different parts of the stack are used
simplifying whenever possible!

I like to do this in December when I am already doing a year-end bookkeeping and budget review. That way, I can look for all of the annual charges that I may have forgotten about before they renew.

Need some specific examples of what to think about? Here are a few scenarios we are familiar with at Nonprofit Marketing Guide . . .

When one new piece of software replaces another, and what else falls from that.

This year, we moved our learning center out of Learn Dash in WordPress to a hosted solution called Thinkific. So not only did we get rid of Learn Dash, but there were many WordPress plugins that we used alongside it. Even though we have deactivated and deleted the plugins, we might still have auto-renewals out there, so we need to confirm those are all canceled.

And while we were able to drop several plugins, we also had to increase our reliance on Zapier. So we need to keep an eye on those automations more often now.

When the functionality of software changes, especially when new features are added.

We were paying for a “link in bio” service for Instagram, but now that you can include links in Instagram Stories, we are just using that feature and occasionally changing the actual link in the bio, instead of paying for a service to manage links.

Also look at software that you use for only one specific thing. Over time, odds are high that the one task can now be accomplished in multiple ways with different software. So maybe you don’t really need that special solution anymore. This also goes for any custom coding you may have had done — new software may now be doing that task better than your custom solution.

When you’ve gone overboard with your big plans and need to dial it back to reality.

You may have signed up for fancy project management software, for example, only to realize that you are using it as a glorified to-do list and calendar. Cancel it like we did and use your regular office suite. (Do not take this as a slam on project management software! Many of you need to upgrade out of your office suite and into project management for your editorial calendars!)

Where should you begin?

The first step in any audit is the inventory. Write down every piece of software you use, what you use it for, and how they are connected.

Next, you assess their value. Are you getting results for the price you are paying? Could you get even more value for the current price?

At the same time, assess the challenges. Where is this software letting you down? What are the challenges?

From there, depending on what you find, you can start discussing your next steps.

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Why We Are Leaving Facebook Groups

Kivi Leroux Miller, Founder and CEO — Tue, 05 Oct 2021 17:52:39 +0000

I was going to wait a bit longer before sharing this news, but after yesterday’s Facebook worldwide blowout, I figured I might as well share now. Over the next several weeks, we are transitioning out of our Facebook Groups and into a private-label solution called Circle.

We at Nonprofit Marketing Guide have used Facebook Groups practically since they became available. We have dozens of them based on the various training cohorts we have created over the years. We often recommend that nonprofits use them to improve their social media engagement.

Their biggest selling point is the convenience: Most nonprofit communicators have to manage Facebook Pages as part of their jobs, so they are already in there anyway. People know how Facebook works, so there is no learning curve. Notifications from our Groups fit right in with the other notifications people are already watching for.

But, the downsides. So many downsides, with the list getting longer by the day.

Over the last few years, a small but growing number of members of our community have refused to use Facebook, which means we can’t deliver everything we are promising to them when they purchase our training and coaching programs.

For the specific kind of work we do, Groups are lacking in many ways. Organizing content by topic is a laborious nightmare. Keeping track of all the different groups and knowing which one to post in when you are a long-time member of the community is a huge hassle. If Kristina and I want to share something with the whole community, we have to post in multiple places.

The whole vibe just feels so wrong now. People on Facebook are obviously and with good reason very concerned about privacy and what Facebook is learning and doing with what people do in Groups. Being on Facebook simply doesn’t feel good for many people any longer. It’s not conducive to the kind of trusting, cooperative, and authentic spirit we want to foster within our community. It’s hard to create a retreat vibe in the middle of a noisy supermarket or town square.

What We are Looking Forward To

So, we are moving on, and our new community will have several benefits:

We’ve organized the community into subgroups around topics and small group themes that people can join or leave at will. Same goes for the notifications. Each person can customize the community to fit what they want to get out of it.
We can control access to different parts of the community based on what people have enrolled in, and yet it’s all in the same place.
We can allow small groups to self-organize and gather on their own, with their own moderators, all within the same larger community.
While it does require a login to our website, the new community login fully integrates with our existing membership and Learning Center login.
It has the right levels of both transparency and privacy. We will require people to be themselves (no organizations/Pages/avatars, just humans), but no outside force will be tracking their behavior and selling it around the world.
We and our members have control over how the community feels, without the ugly influences that seem to leak into Groups from other areas of Facebook.
Members can build out robust profiles specifically for this community, and full directory functionality will be coming soon. This will help our folks get to know each other better.
It looks a fair amount like Facebook in terms of the user experience, so it’s familiar, but cleaner.
Circle is a relatively new service, but developing fast. So while some of the functionality isn’t quite there yet (e.g. livestreaming), it’s coming fast. The management team there is very accessible to their customers and they use their own platform to model what a good community can look like and how community members can support each other.

When You’ll Get Access to the New Community

Kristina and I are building it out now and have been for the last few weeks. We are starting to add a few people here and there this week and next.

Mid-October, we’ll invite in the “Brain Trust,” which are the people who successfully completed the Communications Director Mentoring Program, as well as the current cohort in the Mentoring Program.

The first week of November will be “Moving Week” for our All-Access Pass Holder Facebook Group.

In mid-November, we will start inviting in anyone who has purchased training from us this year, as well as people who register for trainings on the schedule in November and December.

We’ll see how it goes from there.

Should You Stop Using Facebook Groups?

I don’t know. I’m still an active participant in several Facebook Groups centered on hobbies of mine. But those are obviously optional to me and not core to my livelihood. I don’t have to use them.

I’d recommend that you keep an open mind about which platform has the features you want. Maybe Slack or Discord is better. And maybe not . . . maybe Facebook really is the best choice for what you want to do and who you want to reach. When I think about those personal Facebook Groups I am in, for some, I might login elsewhere for that community, where others, I probably wouldn’t.

A lot of this decision comes down to the Convenience versus Quality balance. We initially leaned into the convenience, but have now decided that the quality we believe we can provide in a private community will outweigh the (in)convenience factors of leaving Facebook. That’s a calculation you have to make for yourself and your community members.

The post Why We Are Leaving Facebook Groups appeared first on Nonprofit Marketing Guide (NPMG).

The Return of the QR Code for Nonprofits

Kivi Leroux Miller, Founder and CEO — Tue, 10 Aug 2021 19:43:26 +0000

QR codes have been around for a long time, and I used to really hate them.

I thought nonprofits used them in situations where they made very little sense to me (like on a billboard or on a website) and where a shortened URL — something easy to remember and to type — made infinitely more sense. That was especially true when you needed a special app to read them. For these and many other reasons, they really didn’t catch on.

(What is a shortened URL? You can use something like bitly.com or just create a redirect from your own site like nonprofitmarketingguide.com/trends or buy a shorter domain and use that as your own shortener: npmg.us/trends)

COVID-19 changed all that by encouraging people to touch fewer shared surfaces like menus. Now you see QR codes in many more places, and today most camera phones will process them automatically (or with a quick confirmation that you are trying to scan something rather than photograph it).

So should your nonprofit start using them? Maybe!

You still need to think through the use case. Expecting people to focus a phone on a billboard (even if they are not driving) is still really foolish in my mind. Same goes for putting a QR code online — just give people the link to click!

You also need to be certain that what they see after they scan the code is mobile-friendly!

But I do think it’s worth thinking through whether QR codes could be helpful in places like these:

Physical signage, so I can see a map of where I am or get other information.
On other physical products, where you want someone to be able to learn more about the item they are holding
When someone needs to take quick action that can be done on a phone, like coming up to an information table, scanning the code, and filling out a fast registration or permission form of some kind.
On direct mail or other printed products, so that I can quickly get to the webpage where I can take action. In this case, PLEASE still include a shortened URL
Where you want someone to do something on their phone like download an app
On TV, maybe. As long as you can keep it on the screen long enough for people to get it. I’ve seen this done with big telethon-type fundraisers.
Where you need to quickly exchange information with someone. You pull up your code on your phone, and they scan it on theirs.

Need more details? DonorBox has some good recommendations and resources.

The post The Return of the QR Code for Nonprofits appeared first on Nonprofit Marketing Guide (NPMG).

3 Email List Building Pop-Ups for Your Website

Kivi Leroux Miller, Founder and CEO — Thu, 14 Nov 2019 18:57:27 +0000

During Tuesday’s webinar, we’ll be sharing a ton of great nonprofit examples from our Inspiration Files.

Here’s a little preview of some of the website lightboxes or pop-ups we’ve seen and loved recently.

These are specifically for building your email list. We’ll share some used to generate donations on the webinar and on the blog later in the month.

Oxfam America – We Can Do This

For starters, I love the bright colors. But the best thing about this is the positivity and the supporter-centricity, and how that’s used to invite people to join with Oxfam to end poverty.

Feeding America – Free and Fun Guide

Oh, how we adore some good content marketing at Nonprofit Marketing Guide!

It’s free and full of fun activities for all ages? Yes, please.

SPCA International – Stop the Suffering

This is a more traditional mission-driven approach with a strong call to action. If you have a super clear message like this one, go for it!

You may be thinking, “But do these really work? I hate them!”

That’s what everyone says, and yet the conversion rates for most of these are much, much better than your standard opt-in on a webpage.

Want more data and advice? Check out 6 Reasons Why Popups, Welcome Gates and Slide-Ins Suck and 15 Email Popup Best Practices To Skyrocket Your List both from OptinMonster.

The post 3 Email List Building Pop-Ups for Your Website appeared first on Nonprofit Marketing Guide (NPMG).

How to Connect Email Engagement to Your Big Goals

Kivi Leroux Miller, Founder and CEO — Thu, 19 Sep 2019 20:08:45 +0000

This week I’ve spent several days working over our marketing metrics here at Nonprofit Marketing Guide, especially related to email engagement.

Our CRM tells us who is engaged and who isn’t according to a basic test: If they have opened or clicked any email or filled out a web form in the past 90 days, they are considered “Engaged.” After 90 days, but before 12 months, they are considered “Unengaged Marketable.” After 12 months of no opens, clicks, or forms, they are moved to “Unengaged Non-Marketable” and opted out of our mailing list. I set the 90-day and 12-month timeframes, and the CRM does the rest.

For many nonprofits, just getting this level of information is a big step forward. It’s one of the first steps in maintaining a healthy email and sender reputation. (I’ll teach you all about this during our upcoming webinars.)

But to really connect your email engagement to your bigger organizational goals, you need a lot more information. For example, you really want to know how many people open most of your emails and how many opened just one or two in the last 90 days. They are all lumped under the “Engaged” label even though the variation in their level of engagement is huge.

This week, I analyzed our mailing list in two new ways that gave us information we can actually use to work toward our goals. I won’t get into the detailed steps of how I did it, because that’s very specific to our CRM (which is Infusionsoft, which is fine for businesses, but I do not recommend it for nonprofits). But with a little creativity, you should be able to apply these basic ideas to any CRM.

Using Lead Scoring to Determine Opening Frequency

The first thing I did was reconfigure the lead scoring in our CRM, which gives people a score of from 0 to 5 flames (so 6 levels total). Previously, I had a mishmash of opens, clicks, and tags to come up with a score.

This week, I changed it to just email opens, with one point for every email opened. While it depends on the segment, on average, people on our list get about 8-12 emails per month. If they opened half of those (which would be a personal open rate of 50% — very high), that would be six opens. I decided to track over two months, and expire points after 2 months, so that means if someone opens 12 emails in a two-month period, they hit the top ranking, 5 flames. The CRM does that math down to zero flames from there.

So, now I can tell not only if they are engaged, but just how engaged they are based on how many emails they are opening.

Here is how the two-month engagement for people on our main mailing list breaks out as of today:

5 Flames – 19%
4 Flames – 6%
3 Flames – 7%
2 Flames – 12%
1 Flames – 21%
0 Flames – 35%

Now that’s some meaningful engagement data! We can see who is regularly opening and who is losing interest. And now that we are measuring it, we can put new engagement campaigns in place to try to bump people who are currently at 0 or 1 flame up higher.

Of course, this isn’t perfect (nothing is in this kind of work). For example, brand new people to our list who’ve only been sent a few emails haven’t had enough opportunities to open for their scores to go up beyond zero flames. So we’ll need to be careful when building segments when we ask if people still want to stay on the list. You don’t want to send the same email to someone who has been on the list for months but has zero flames and someone else at zero who just signed up last week!

Merging Email Engagement with Other Actions to Meet Your Goals

Why do marketers want an engaged list in the first place? Because it helps you meet other goals.

For nonprofits, that could be participating in your programs, donating to your cause, volunteering, advocating on your issues or any other call to action important to your mission.

For us at Nonprofit Marketing Guide, our email engagement is important to reaching two goals:

Nonprofit communications staff trusting us and caring about what we have to say (or in wonk language, thought leadership)
Nonprofit communications staff relying on us to help with their professional development (using our programs and services, both free and paid)

So with these goals in mind, I decided to combine lead scores 1 – 5 (again, people who have engaged in the last two months enough to get at least 1 flame) and some other actions they have taken on our website.

Another way to think about our goals is to describe the kind of relationship someone on our mailing list has with us at Nonprofit Marketing Guide. So I created three new relationship statuses for people:

Interested: Email engaged in the last two months, but not using much on our website, perhaps a few downloads every now and then
Casual Learner: Email engaged in the last two months and has taken our Communications Effectiveness Quiz and has a free membership, which gives them access to more downloads and some free e-courses.
Invested Learner: Email engaged in the last two months and has paid for training at any point in the past (e.g. registered at any point for a la carte webinars, the All-Access Pass, or the Mentoring Program).

Of course, you’d come up with relationships that are more meaningful to you given your goals.

Now when I run these searches in our CRM, combining email engagement with other actions, I can see that within these three categories,

22% are Invested Learners
21% are Casual Learners
57% are Interested

Once again, now we can develop campaigns to move the Interested to one of the Learner categories and to move people with zero flames up into any of these three categories.

And if we can’t get them engaged on email? What then? We’ll stop emailing.

What’s Next?

To take this even further, I plan to break out the two Learner categories in more detail based on website activity in our membership areas. I haven’t set that up yet, but I know our software can do it. I just need a few more hours of time to work on it.

I hope this behind-the-scenes look at our work has given you some great concepts to apply in your own work. Give yourself some time to think through your goals, figure out what your database is capable of, and create some reports that really help you make a difference!

The post How to Connect Email Engagement to Your Big Goals appeared first on Nonprofit Marketing Guide (NPMG).