Here’s another quick peek at the data coming in for the 2019 Nonprofit Communications Trends Report (take the survey here). This data could change, so if you are reading this after mid-January 2019, download the full report.

For the first time, we asked about specific communications strategies. Not goals, not tactics, but strategies.

Of our list of 12 nonprofit communications strategies for nonprofits, these were the highest priority overall in the sector, based on our preliminary data:

  • Permission-Based Marketing (71% say it’s a high or essential priority). Permission-based marketing is sharing content with specific people who have signed up, subscribed, or otherwise agreed in advance to join your mailing lists and lists of social followers.
  • Content Marketing (54% say it’s a high or essential priority). Content marketing is attracting people to your work and retaining their interest in it by creating and distributing content they find especially valuable and relevant.
  • Event Marketing (53% say it’s a high or essential priority). Event marketing is using frequent events or participatory experiences to promote your programs and services, encouraging in-person interaction between your organization, supporters, and/or program participants.
  • Relationship Marketing (50% say it’s a high or essential priority). Relationship marketing is creating strong, long-term, loyal relationships with specific individuals and focusing on the quality of those relationships, rather than on individual transactions with those individuals.

After that, the next most essential strategy comes in at 38% and that’s Word of Mouth Marketing.

You can request a copy of the 2019 Nonprofit Communications Trends Report here.

I’m also teaching a new two-part webinar series on January 8 & 10 called Communications Planning That Works: Getting Your Goals, Strategies, Objectives, and Tactics Right in 2019.