The American Red Cross wants every household to do three things: to build an emergency kit, to create a communication and evacuation plan, and to be informed about the disasters that are common in their communities. Fair enough, but how are they going to make it happen? By working the basics of a good marketing…
If you’ve already started incorporating social media into your communications strategy and have done any research on it at all, you’ve come across the advice to LISTEN FIRST. What you are less likely to have found in your research is a practical list of what you can actually do with all of this new-found knowledge…
As you may know, I am in the middle of writing the full-length, printed book version of Nonprofit Marketing Guide, to be published in Spring 2010 by Jossey-Bass. As I was writing various chapters on both strategy and tactics, I realized that I was making choices about what to include and what to leave out…
Next Thursday, Jocelyn Harmon will be presenting a new webinar for us called Your Nonprofit’s Face: Adding Personality to Your Marketing Mix . I asked Jocelyn to give us a little preview with a guest post. Here’s Jocelyn . . . Nonprofits have mixed feelings about marketing, branding and personality.On the one hand, we know…
On Tuesday, August 4, Alia McKee of Sea Change Strategies and Kevin Gottesman of Gott Advertising will present a webinar for us called Beyond Viral: Building Your Email List through Paid Marketing. If you are wondering how the leading nonprofits in U.S. expand to their email prospect lists to hundreds of thousands of people, Alia and…
It’s a debate that anyone using social media these days is having: How much personal information do I share when I’m using social media for work, and how much work information do my personal friends care to know? What are reasonable expectations for a nonprofit to have about what staff members will say online? Should…
The conventional wisdom these days seems to be that nonprofit organizations should not use social media for marketing, communications, promotion or anything like that. Instead, the CW goes, social media is only for listening and learning (call it market research and professional development if you actually want it to survive your work planning process). Ironically,…
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…
My favorite session at last week’s Nonprofit Technology Conference was “This is Iron Chef . . . Battle Nonprofit.” Three teams made up of consultants from four different agencies (Beaconfire Consulting, Forum One Communications, Free Range Studios, and Firefly Partners) got together on a Sunday for a strategy and design competition. Their challenge was to…
Yesterday I attended a workshop organized by one of my favorite bloggers (and NTC roomie) Nancy Schwartz on how you deal with branding issues for your organization within social media. The panel featured Danielle Brigida, National Wildlife Federation; Felicia Carr, National Parks Conservation Association; and Wendy Harman, American Red Cross. Nancy created a wonderful guide…
This Friday, March 20, John Kenyon will join me in presenting a webinar called “Creating Online Evangelists: How to Excite and Motivate Your Supporters.” Who are these online evangelists that your nonprofit should be exciting and motivating? They are ordinary people who, because of a great personal passion for your good cause, do extraordinary things…
Wow – yesterday’s post about thank you notes and the lack thereof got the conversation started! Thanks to everyone who took the time to add some thoughts to the debate. Several people mentioned that the practical realities of nonprofit management mean that getting thank-you notes out promptly, especially when donations come through non-traditional channels for…
