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This blog is all about do-it-yourself nonprofit communications and marketing. I love helping small and medium-sized nonprofits communicate more effectively with their members, donors, volunteers and other supporters, so that together, we can all make the world a better place. I do that as a blogger, trainer, coach and consultant.
I believe that even the smallest nonprofit staffs with the most modest budgets can achieve tremendous results through savvy marketing and communications. I hope this blog and my online marketing training and other resources encourage you to do just that, while helping you grow personally as a nonprofit marketer and communications professional.
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me with your questions and comments. You can also learn more about hiring me as a coach or consultant.
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During yesterday’s webinar on “Successful Nonprofit Websites: How to Make Your Website Work for You,” I asked participants to rank their own websites on 8 of the 10 criteria we discussed.
About 30 people participated, mostly from small nonprofits, producing some interesting results from their own evaluations of their websites.
56% said that their website didn’t allow visitors to sign-up for email communication at all. Only 11% said their email newsletter sign-up form appeared either within their site template (and thus on every page) or at least on all of the major pages of the site.
Getting people to your website is the hard part. Don’t let them just disappear back into cyberspace. Encourage visitors to stay in touch with you by signing up for an email newsletter, action alerts, or whatever you’d like to call your email correspondence. The point is to capture those email addresses so you can start a conversation with those website visitors.
In contrast, only 27% said they didn’t offer visitors a way to donate online. Hmmm . . . What’s the reasoning here? You’ll take their money, but not their email address? Maybe because following through with producing the e-communication is more work and throwing a donate button on the site is easy? You need to do both — email communication and online fundraising — and I’m willing to bet that the orgs with donate links with no e-newsletter aren’t raising much online.
72% own just a single domain name. I strongly recommend that at a minimum, nonprofits own the .org, .com, and .net versions of their main domain names. Ideally, you should also own any reasonable guesses that people might make. For example, The Nature Conservancy owns nature.org (its main site), natureconservancy.org, and thenatureconservancy.org. They own most, but not all, of the .com versions as well. When you don’t buy all the versions, someone else will eventually snatch them up and most likely put an advertising site up.
Only 27% said they usually or always have a story on their homepage. 45% said there were no stories on their websites at all! Ack! Storytelling is probably the most powerful marketing tool nonprofits have and yet it’s not being used on websites. Stories are the easiest ways to give examples of the need for your organization, the challenges you face, what you are doing to overcome them, and your successes. If I had to pick one single area for improvement among the group as a whole, it would be this one.
Only 34% said their home page offered visitors a clear path to the top answers and actions they were most likely seeking. To help focus your site on your visitors instead of your organization itself, I recommend that you think about why people would come to your website in the first place. What three questions would they be seeking answers for? What three actions would they like to take (e.g. registering for an event, donating online)? The path to those answers and actions should be crystal clear on your home page.
It’s a lot to absorb, but the good news is that all of these problems are very fixable. Here’s what a few people said about what they learned during the webinar:
“You hit on so many of the issues I’ve been trying to articulate to my organization about our website that I’m thinking about just having them listen to the recording at our next committee meeting. The idea of a CMS, of making the website relevant to our clients (and donors and volunteers) and of loosening IT’s grip on the website is so intimidating to agency management that I feel I need another voice to back me up. They’re open to making changes, so I hope an expert voice will help me make my case!” ~ Rebekah Hickey, Community Services Consortium
“(Liked) the reinforcing comments about having pictures and stories. Also, I like it when you pose questions about how to improve example websites - the interactivity is great. Also nice to hear other suggestions and get my brain thinking, rather than just being a passive listener. ~ Erin Kangas, Manitoba Children’s Museum
“(The webinar) had a lot of practical ideas. We are in the process of selecting a company to re-do our website as part of a capacity building grant and I wanted to have some information on what I should ask for. I got it!” ~ Belisa Urbina, Renovacion Conyugal, Inc
Wish you’d joined us? You can get the next best thing - the video recording - by purchasing an All-Access Pass to Nonprofit Marketing Guide.com. The recording is available in the Webinar Archive right now, along with nearly all the recording from the past year. Your All-Access Pass also let you RSVP for live webinars for the next 12 weeks at no additional cost. Get the details.
P.S. Join us for our next webinar on Tuesday, May 12, Getting Your Nonprofit Started with Social Media.
More Goodies: Get Kivi's Nonprofit Marketing Tips E-Newsletter (2-3 times per month)
Not raising money online yet? Or not raising enough? (How’s that for a stupid question?)
Next week we are hosting a two-webinar boot camp specifically on online fundraising. This is your chance to learn both the basics and the advanced techniques for turning your website and email list into a real, sustainable fundraising force for your cause.
Magic Keys Radio on E-Newsletters
But first, on Friday, Claire Meyerhoff and I are back with another edition Magic Keys Radio, our live Internet radio show and podcast and we’ll be talking e-mail newsletters and how you can use them for fundraising. How to do them, why to do them - whatever you want to know about nonprofit email newsletters - we’ll do our best to answer. Join us on Friday, April 17 at 1:00 p.m. Eastern (10:00 a.m. Pacific) for the half-hour show where you listen live over the Internet through your computer speakers. You can call in your questions over the phone or chat them in on the Blog Talk Radio site. The podcast is available right after.
Online Fundraising Basics: Jumpstart Online Giving to Your Good Cause
Then on Tuesday, April 21, I’ll be teaching the “Basic” online fundraising course, where I’ll talk about the different elements you need to have in place, including the system that actually processes your donations securely. But online fundraising is about much more than just processing credit cards and big “Donate Now” buttons. We’ll talk about what you need to have on your website (and where) and what you need to send out in email to be successful. We’ll talk about creating the kind of content for your website and email newsletters that inspires donors to give more, and to give again. We’ll also touch on growing and managing your email list and tracking your success. Get the details.
Advanced Online Fundraising: Getting to WOW! in 8 Steps
On Thursday, April 23, I’ll turn it over to Alia McKee of Sea Change Strategies for the “Advanced” course. Alia will show you how to go beyond the basics and, in eight steps, take your online fundraising to an entirely new level. She’ll give you the how-tos and some great examples that show you how it all works. I took a peek at her slides today, and if you feel like you have a solid foundation in place (decent processing, decent website, decent email) and are ready for the next step, you will love this webinar. Get the details.
As usual, individual webinars are an affordable $35. You can take both of these for $70. Or you can do the really smart thing and get the All-Access Pass for $97, and take these two webinars, plus everything else we offer for the next 12 weeks. Your Pass gets you access to both the live and recorded versions of the webinars, plus access to the Webinar Archive of recordings from the past year. Take a 3-Minute Tour of the All-Access Pass.
I hope to see you and your great questions Friday, Tuesday, and/or Thursday!
More Goodies: Get Kivi's Nonprofit Marketing Tips E-Newsletter (2-3 times per month)
Posted by Kivi Leroux Miller on Dec 8, 2008 in
Copywriting,
E-Newsletters,
Writing for the Web
Photo by terren in Virginia on Flickr
Email subject lines should tell us about the candy (the content), not about the wrapper (vague descriptions or formats, like “Winter Edition of the Newsletter”). |
Last week, in my Nonprofit Marketing Tips newsletter (sign up in left sidebar), I published some advice on writing the best possible subject lines for your nonprofit’s email newsletters.
Here are my five tips. You can read the full article with explanations here.
1. Describe the Candy, Not the Wrapper.
2. Emphasize the Personal Value of the Content.
3. Don’t Tell People What to Do.
4. Keep It Short.
5. Piggyback on Hot Topics and Brand Names.
If you want to learn more about publishing an email newsletter, check out the next three webinars in the Nonprofit Marketing Guide weekly webinar series:
Easy and Effective Ways to Build Your Email List (Tuesday, December 9)
Going from a Print Newsletter to an Email Newsletter (Thursday, December 18)
Email Newsletter Essentials for Nonprofits - From Start to Finish (Wednesday, January 7)
Registration is $35 per webinar, or you can attend all three and many more with your All-Access Pass.
More Goodies: Get Kivi's Nonprofit Marketing Tips E-Newsletter (2-3 times per month)
Online Writing: Dos and Don’ts of Writing for the Web and Email
Webinar This Wednesday,
November 12, 2008
1:00 pm Eastern (10:00 am Pacific)
Learn More and Register
|
Maybe not, if you believe what Jakob Nielsen says about writing styles for print versus the web.
Neilsen (whose Alertbox e-newsletter is a must-read) writes:
In print, you can spice up linear narrative with anecdotes and individual examples that support a storytelling approach to exposition. On the Web, such content often feels like filler; it slows down users and stands in the way of their getting to the point.
Web content must be brief and get to the point quickly, because users are likely to be on a specific mission. In many cases, they’ve pulled up the page through search. Web users want actionable content; they don’t want to fritter away their time on (otherwise enjoyable) stories that are tangential to their current goals.
Instead of a predefined narrative, websites must support the user’s personal story by condensing and combining vast stores of information into something that specifically meets the user’s immediate needs. Thus, instead of an author-driven narrative, Web content becomes a user-driven narrative.
In my webinars and workshops on nonprofit websites, I talk about organizing your site around the answers to the top three questions visitors will have and the top three actions they’ll want to take. But in that same course, I also talk about the importance of telling stories on your homepage as a way to give people solid examples of exactly what it is you do.
So if we believe what Nielsen says (and I almost always do), how can good online writing and storytelling co-exist?
I believe the answer is through good page layout. Instead of throwing a story into the middle of an article that is otherwise very how-to oriented or full of bullets, put that story in its own column or box. Let the story support the fact-based article and vice versa, but don’t meld them into one.
What do you think? How do you blend the web user’s need for speed with emotional storytelling? Leave a comment to add your perspective.
Want more? Attend Wednesday’s webinar on how to write for the web and email.
More Goodies: Get Kivi's Nonprofit Marketing Tips E-Newsletter (2-3 times per month)
Posted by Kivi Leroux Miller on Sep 19, 2008 in
E-Newsletters,
Online Courses,
Writing for the Web I’m teaching a new webinar on Tuesday, September 23 called Email Newsletter Basics for Nonprofits: From Start to Finish.
This webinar is for you if:
– You are thinking about starting an email newsletter, or
– You have an email newsletter, but you’ve been winging it and have some knowledge gaps, or
– You are debating whether an email newsletter is right for your organization or not.
The webinar will be an expansion on the article I wrote a few months ago called 10 Surprisingly Easy and Startling Effective Ways to Improve Your Email Newsletter.
As usual, it’s $35 for one connection: as many people can attend as you can fit around one computer monitor and speaker phone. Or if you have the All-Access Pass, this webinar is included free of charge.
P.S. If you didn’t listen to Magic Keys Radio today, you missed a great show with Nancy Schwartz talking all about nonprofit taglines. No worries, we recorded it! You can listen on your computer or download/subscribe to our weekly podcast.
More Goodies: Get Kivi's Nonprofit Marketing Tips E-Newsletter (2-3 times per month)
Does this belong on our website? What should go on our home page? How can I make our website more user-friendly? How can we grab our website visitors’ attention and keep it?
My answers to these very common questions from nonprofits usually include some form of this response: It’s all about the answers your website visitors are seeking and the actions they want to take on your site. If you focus on making your site about answers and actions, you’ll successfully address the concerns behind these questions. (Learn more about online writing during this Thursday’s webinar.)
Answer Your Visitors’ Questions
People use the Web to find answers to their questions. What questions would someone have when they come to your website? That will all depend on what it is you do, but let’s look at a few examples.
If you run a local humane society, people will have questions about adopting pets.
If you run a Meals on Wheels program, people will have questions about receiving meals and delivering meals as a volunteer.
If you run a “Save the Squirrels” group, people will have questions about why the squirrels need saving and what they can do to help you save them.
Figure out the top three questions people have related to your group’s work and make the answers prominent on your website — on your home page and in your site navigation. Immediately upon visiting your site, visitors should either see the answers or see where to click to get them.
Make It Easy for Your Visitors to Act
In addition to finding answers to their questions, website visitors also want to take actions online, and they expect those actions to be easy and time-saving over doing it in person or over the phone.
Let’s look at the same three organizations and review the actions visitors would like to take on their websites.
If you run a humane society, it would be great for visitors to see which pets are currently available for adoption and to fill in adoption forms online (or at least print them out and start them on paper).
If you run a Meals on Wheels program, visitors will want to apply for meal delivery and complete forms to volunteer online.
If you run a “Save the Squirrels” group, visitors will want to advocate for the squirrels in some way, such as by signing a petition or sending an email to an elected official.
And, of course, every nonprofit should let visitors sign-up for an email newsletter and donate online.
Learn More
Want more online writing tips? Don’t miss this Thursday’s webinar: Online Writing: Dos and Don’ts of Writing for the Web and Email, Thursday, August 14, 2008 at 2:00 p.m. Eastern.
Tags: online-writing, web-writing
More Goodies: Get Kivi's Nonprofit Marketing Tips E-Newsletter (2-3 times per month)
When you write your web content, you are writing first for real people and second for search engine spiders. For your website to be as successful as possible, you need to keep both in mind.
Prominent keywords are important for both audiences. They help real people skim your page, so they can decide if they are in the right place or not and they help the search engines figure out what your page is about.
So where do you put them? Here are nine good places to use keywords.
1. In your page title. This is what appears at the top of the browser window when someone visits your website. It appears in the page code in between the title tags in the head section.
2. In your page description. Visitors don’t see this, but the search engines do. This is the two lines of text that appear below the main title in search engine results. It appears in the page code between the description tags in the head section.
3. In your page URL. Using your keywords in your page URL (what goes after the www.) can also be helpful with search engines. That’s why lots of blogs, including this one, use post titles in their URLs.
4. In your headings and subheadings. Make it easy for your readers to very quickly see what your page is about by using lots of headings and subheadings.
5. In your first sentence and your first paragraph. Make sure your important keywords appear here — the earlier, the better.
6. In your last paragraph. Use your keywords at the end of your content too.
7. Elsewhere in your body copy. When keywords fall naturally throughout your article, consider bolding them. Don’t go overboard with it or it will be a distraction. But if it makes the article easier to skim, bold those keywords.
8. In your link text. Instead of linking to words like “click here,” use your keywords in your link anchor text.
9. In your ALT tags on images. The search engines can’t read images (yet). With every image, include a bit of text called the ALT tag and use your keywords in that text.
Don’t worry about the keyword tags in the head section. Though it would seem like the obvious place to put keywords, it’s too obvious, and the search engines don’t pay much attention to that tag any longer.
Learn more about writing for the web during the August 14, 2008 webinar, Online Writing: Dos and Don’ts of Writing for the Web and Email.
Tags: keywords, online-writing, website
More Goodies: Get Kivi's Nonprofit Marketing Tips E-Newsletter (2-3 times per month)
The biggest mistake that a nonprofit can make with its website is to use it as an old-fashioned brochure, where you immediately hit the visitor with your long, jargon-filled mission statement, right at the top or smack in the middle of the home page, followed by bulleted lists of “projects” or “services.”
Why is this so bad? Because it’s all about the organization (and usually the most boring parts at that) and it shows little interest in what your website visitors really care about.
But isn’t our website supposed to be about us, you ask?
Yes and no. Yes, it’s about you and what you do, but organized in a way that’s easy and intuitive for your site visitor. What they want is more important than what you think they should be interested in.
Two Easy Ways to Organize Your Site for Your Visitors
Let me show you what I mean. There are two easy ways to organize your website so it is more audience-focused.
The first is to divide sections according to who the visitors are. The home page of KidsHealth.org is a splash page with links to sites for parents, kids and teens. Each group is going to respond best to information presented in ways that speak to their age groups and specific needs and questions. Ultimately the facts may be the same on each mini-site, but the language and presentation are totally different depending on the audience.
The second way, and the one I usually prefer, is to organize your website around (1) the answers to the top questions people are most likely to have and (2) the actions they want to be able to take on your website. What three main questions would a potential website visitor have and what three things would they like to be able to do on your site? Figure that out and organize your site accordingly.
The New York City Meals of Wheels program, for example, has three tabs right across the top: Get Meals, Volunteer and Support Us. That about sums it up, doesn’t it? The overwhelming majority of people who come to a Meals on Wheels website will want to find out how to get meals delivered or how to volunteer to deliver them, and “support us” is thrown in for good measure. The left side menu includes additional information, but those three tabs right at the top stand out, and show me that they know exactly why people are coming to their website.
Learn more about nonprofit websites during these upcoming webinars: July 30 - Attracting More Website Visitors: Traffic-Building Tips for Nonprofits | August 14 - Online Writing: Dos and Don’ts of Writing for the Web and Email | August 28 - Online Marketing Basics for Nonprofits: From Email to Social Media
Tags: audience-focused
More Goodies: Get Kivi's Nonprofit Marketing Tips E-Newsletter (2-3 times per month)
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