It’s no secret that the majority of nonprofits work on a
limited budget. Employing a
fully-staffed communications team is typically unheard of. Many rely on freelance writers, editors and
designers to help them develop content. Higher education institutions tap their
alumni to make connections with each other, generating content to draw more
alumni into donating to their alma mater. Organizers in the nonprofit world, especially
those who are conscious of every donated dollar they spend, should embrace the
high ROI of content marketing.
No matter how an organization generates content, it is a
necessity for them to understand their audiences and be able to tell their most
authentic stories. The more targeted, the better. This means that content managers
should continually develop new strategies to add to their arsenal of best
practices.
How can this be done?
1. Segment your
donors.
When program staff and nonprofit managers become more aware
of their target audiences, they become clearer about how to craft unique
messages, and begin framing their content towards getting specific results.
This may require some research and data analysis of your
donor portfolios, but segmenting your donors, or grouping them into categories
(such as place-based locale, giving amounts, or issue-based interests), will
allow you to integrate storytelling, story gathering, program planning, and
monitoring and evaluation all into your content marketing strategy.
2. Craft audience
personas.
With some light research into your donors, nonprofits can
learn about donors and alumni by how they interact with your web pages, your
calls to action, your social media feeds, and your e-newsletters and donation
clicks. Nonprofits can use this data to create an audience persona, or multiple
audience personas based on your donor segmentation research.
Audience personas can help your team create content for a
more specific group of supporters than ‘the general public.’ These audience
personas, developed and based on actual supporters (or potential ones), can
give direction on how to create content in the personalized ways your donors
like.
3. Plot your
supporters’ journey.
When you ask people to take on your cause, it has to be
something the donor feels speaks to their own goals. How you craft your content
will depend on what you believe is your supporters’ journey. Plot the
supporters’ journey with clear calls to action and share relevant stories that
help them see how supporting your organization’s cause or mission allows them
to succeed in their own goals.
Organizations often frame content from an internal
projection, rather from the donor’s point of view. Make your content about the
donor, not only about your organization.
4. Encourage
constituents in sharing their story.
Your most powerful, often overlooked, and untapped resources
for authentic storytelling are the people you serve. With some initial
investment of time and training, and sensitivity to constituents’ comfort in
sharing their struggles, failures and successes, constituents who share their
stories can become the nonprofits most impactful storytellers.
Constituent personal experiences ring true to donors in ways
and words that scripted mission and vision statements cannot. When a person who
has benefited from your organization’s programs can speak to how effectively
your interventions addressed their problems in unique, highly-personal, and
innovative ways, those stories reveal the profound ways in which your
organization values and measures success.
5. Allow for
authentic voices to tell your organization’s story.
Nonprofits, whether they recognize it or not, naturally
attract authentic storytellers. Your message drew them to you, and they want to
give back, and share the purpose of your organization’s mission. That’s why
they showed up.
And don’t overlook your staff! They were drawn to your organization for a
reason as well. Why do they show up
every day? What does your mission mean
to them? Everyone has a story to tell
and theirs could be key to a great campaign for your organization.
6. Set clear
guidelines on how individual stories highlight your organization’s mission.
Some precaution and clear guidelines should be established
with constituents, volunteers and staff when their individual stories are used
to highlight the organization’s work and mission.
Make sure you get signed waivers for all photographic images
and text.
Add time at the tail end of deadlines for stories to be
properly reviewed for cultural and political sensitivities that might create
difficulties for constituents, volunteers or staff whose stories are featured.
Add disclaimer-like language in the “ask” part of the
content to make sure donors know they are giving to the organization, not the
individual, and that giving to the organization adds to the collective impact
on the community at large.
7. Build content
marketing into your programming.
When planning events and programming, consider how to
capture the events; how to frame the story of each activity to your donors and
supporters; or the policymakers you want to hear your perspectives.
Try to have all visits, talks and trainings documented
through video, in pre-event montages or post-event interviews. Often this
documentation cannot be done by staff delivering the programming, but could be
an ideal job for a volunteer, student or intern to show your mission in action.
Nonprofit organizations often go to great lengths to plan
events, but neglect to create a content marketing strategy for how to capture
these experiences and share them widely to donor audiences.
8. Assess what
content marketing strategies work best for your target audiences.
Nonprofit organizations need to think strategically about
communications – outline a plan; write it down; set measurable goals’ and assess
them. Not all steps have to happen in
one year, nor in the order outlined here.
Developing branding, the time taken to review and analyze
the organization’s content, has incredible intrinsic value. Often, organizations
find a new voice, uprooting old organizational mindsets and changing the ways
in which success is measured.
Highlighting your organization’s impact on the personal,
community and social levels widens the net of who your content speaks most
authentically to and helps open links for you to connect with new donors,
volunteers and supporters.
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