I recently interviewed Robert Rosenthal, vice president of communications and marketing at VolunteerMatch. Robert talks about how VolunteerMatch has moved away from paid advertising toward content marketing — creating multimedia content that draws people in. For VolunteerMatch, those people fall into two institutional audiences: nonprofits and corporations. Watch as Robert outlines the strategy. (Sorry the…
At South by Southwest, I met Jenna Boig, digital lead for North America, with The Nature Conservancy. TNC is global, so you can imagine how big a task it must be to collect stories from different staff members all over the world and to turn that into a consistent story on their website, social media,…
If you had busy week like I did, relax and enjoy some Mixed Links! First off, we have lots of good stuff on nonprofit websites: Is your nonprofit’s website “slick or ick?” Find out how your website stacks up and take this quiz from Network for Good. Nancy Schwartz talks about A/B testing for websites and what a big…
I love being one of the judges of the Nonprofit DoGooder Video Awards, and you can experience the fun of judging too! Public voting is now open. Select one of four categories (Small, Medium, and Large Orgs, plus Video Storytelling). Watch the intro video, then click on the arrows on the side of the viewing…
You know what they say, “A picture is worth a thousand words.” A good photograph captures your audience’s attention in ways that words can’t. And using pictures you took with your cell phone can’t do as much as professional looking photos. But who can afford a professional photographer? Marta Lindsey with TransForm shares how she handled this…
For all of you in the Midwest who have wanted to come to the Total Focus Marketing Plan Workshop, but just couldn’t make it to the coasts, we have great news. Nancy Schwartz and I are bringing the workshop to Chicago on September 19th! Want more good news? Be one of the first 15 people…
Search Engine Optimization (SEO) is one of those things that a lot of nonprofits don’t want to think about, because they think it’s too hard to understand, or too difficult to keep up with. But it’s really important! In today’s guest post, Brian Honigman shares a few simple ways to boost your SEO through link…
Welcome to this week’s Mixed Links! Did you know that nonprofit websites with a branded donation page get 5 times the donations as those websites with a generic donation page? For more insights like this, download Network for Good’s Digital Giving Index. Penelope Burk has some interesting quotes pulled from the Cygnus Donor Survey. Read…
While most of us realize that Ryan Gosling is an attractive man and a good actor, who knew he would be so good at nonprofit communications? We came across the Ryan Gosling memes while updating our March edition of our free Monthly Nonprofit Writing Prompts, so we added this to our pop culture and news section…
On Monday, I shared some links to some national polling and survey data to help you learn more about your target audiences. But you’ll probably want to supplement that with a survey of the people on your list. What questions should you ask to find out what people want to read in your newsletter or…
What do family holiday or vacation traditions, the departments in your favorite magazine, and the primetime TV schedule all have in common? They give us something to look forward to! (At my house, Monday nights are all about The Voice and Smash.) In all of the information chaos around us, it’s important that we give…
You’ve accepted that “the general public” is not a target audience. Congratulations! Now’s the fun part: learning more about the groups of people who really are most important to your success. You can and should do some original research via surveys, interviews, and informal focus groups with people on your lists (which I talk about…
