Online Marketing and Communications at Nonprofits: A (Very!) Brief Overview

Online Marketing and Communications at

Nonprofits:A (Very!) Brief Overview

Steve StreicherNew York Cares, Inc.

9/23/14

First StepsKnow your goals

So….what are they?

Know your audience?So….who are they?

Resource!!

Brandraising by Sarah Durhamwww.bigducknyc.com

Brandraising

Source: www.bigducknyc.com

What’s next?Creating content – no small challenge

Distributing content and extending its life

Measuring its effectiveness

Creating better content

Definition!!

From Wikipedia, content marketing is:

The technique of creating and distributing relevant and valuable content to attract, acquire and engage a clearly defined target audience in order to drive profitable customer action.

Helpful Hints to Creating Content

Think of your audience and what attracts them – and remember, we’ve been content marketing our whole life.

Read the news!

Check out what people are searching for

Resource!!

Google Trendswww.google.com/trends

Google Trends

DistributionWebsite

Blog

Email

Social Media

Pro Tip!!Don’t forgot to think about device.

MailChimp gives you free wireframing abilities and allows for viewing email on a variety of devices. www.mailchimp.com.

Google Chrome also has this capability. Simply right click and “Inpsect Element.” Then click on mobile phone icon and select device.

WebsiteUse a CMS (probably)

Responsive design (if possible)

Make sure you set conversion goals

Resources!!Responsive design frameworks are getting easier to implement.

Bootstrap, created by the guys at Twitter, is about as easy as it gets. www.getbootstrap.com. For CMS, Wordpress and Drupal, which are free by the way, have easy-to-implement responsive themes.

BlogMake sure this is interesting to someone

Should have the human element and should follow the merits of good storytelling

Or make sure it advances your SEO/SEM efforts

DefinitionSEO is search engine optimization – the process of affecting the visibility of a website or a web page in a search engine's "natural" or un-paid ("organic") search results.SEM is search engine marketing – a form of Internet marketing that involves the promotion of websites by increasing their visibility in search engine results pages through optimization and advertising --- Google Adwords

SEOA few excellent places to get started:

Moz.com – or specifically their learning page (http://moz.com/learn/seo). There’s also a free 30-day trial.

Whole Whale – a fantastic blog post about the basics: http://wholewhale.com/seo-success-small-nonprofits/.

EmailMUST consider mobile

Source: EmailMonday.com

EmailBe ready for diminishing returns

Open rates are declining and declining

Think segment and interest as much as possible. Do not blast your lists.

Resources!!MailChimp – free email for up to 2000 subscribersConstant Contact – good nonprofit pricing and should always ask for it for freeVertical Response – can send even more if you are a nonprofit (10K range), but there is a charge per email above their limit.

SocialNo silver bullet; you will have to put in the time.

Source: David Mihm, SEOmoz.com

SocialGoals are outrageously important with social.

What do you want people to do?

What are your goals?Donations, sign ups, volunteers, awareness,

advocacy? Impressions, clicks, likes, shares?

TipOn social, make sure to send people to landing pages….always! What are landing pages? They are pages meant to convert.

MeasurementYou’ve gotta see if people are doing what you

want them to do, right? If you have goals and the conversions down, then there are a lot of tools to work with.Google Analytics – web trafficOptimizely – landing pagesHootsuite, Sumall, Followerwonk – social media

And the full graphic…

Questions?Ask me anything!