Communicate!

Helping you win loyal friends through your communications

TY Thursday: Your Nonprofit Organization’s Best Friend

by 16 Comments

loyalty

Who is your organization’s best friend?

Every nonprofit organization has one: the most loyal supporter.  The person who gives as often as she can, or as often as you ask.  The one who volunteers for all your events and brings her friends.

You’d like a thousand like that.  You’d like to clone her.  What if you could?

Businesses have time-tested strategies that create loyal customers.  Some of these strategies work especially well on social media. Nonprofits can adapt and adopt these strategies to thank our donors, volunteers, and supporters.

Danny Maloney, CEO of the social media firm Tailwind, lists “4 Ways to Turn Social-Media Fans Into Raving, Loyal Customers”:

  1. Use a targeted approach.  Find the people who are already talking about you on Facebook, Twitter, and the web at large.
  2. Let your fans know you’re listening.  “If they took the time to share a blog post you wrote or to give you a positive review, be listening for it and thank them.”
  3. Target your special offers.  Businesses give loyalty discounts.  What can you give your most loyal supporters that they would enjoy: a chance to write for your blog? lunch with a celebrity who also supports you? an award?
  4. Curate compelling content.  That’s jargon for finding and sharing information that interests your supporters.  It could be an insider analysis of where their favorite legislation stands in Congress. It could be a video that explains the issue you and they both care about.

Sharing this content with your most loyal supporters makes them feel smarter and happier because they’re associated with you.  It shows them your gratitude. It keeps them coming back to your social media.

And it keeps them advocating for your organization, increasing awareness of you among their friends…who may become your next most loyal supporters.

 

Fundraising Tuesday: How Well Do You Know Your Donors?

by Leave a Comment

Toyota hybrid alesman

(AP Photo/Shuji Kajiyama)

Who knows your donors better: you, or the companies that sell them cars?

My wife, Rona, was an early adopter of the Toyota Prius. She bought the first model the dealer ever had sitting on the lot. Every five years or so since then, she’s traded in and bought another Prius. And the dealer knows it.

The dealer doesn’t mail her in years 1, 2, or 3 after her purchase. But beginning in year 4, they start sending her teasers about how much she could get if she traded in now.

They don’t advertise Camrys to her. They don’t send her email about Highlanders or RAV4s. They talk to her about what they know she wants to buy–the new Prius–at the time when she’s most likely to buy it.

Does your nonprofit organization know your donors and their giving, the way Rona’s car dealer knows her buying habits?

When Your Donors Give

A lot of donors give once a year, in November or December. That may be because your organization only asks them once a year. I’ve suggested you should try asking for donations more often. See what happens!

But if you are among the one-third of nonprofit organizations who ask at least every few months, you don’t have to guess. You can look at your donor’s track record. If you’ve been sending Debbie Donor letters every season for three years, and Debbie only ever gives in September, does it really make sense to send her those other asks?

Your donor's behavior is telling you something. You ought to listen. Share on X

Of course, what the donor is telling you may be, “I’ll give to your organization for general support once a year.” That means if you ask her for money at other times, it had better be for something special.

  • Does Debbie care about sending kids to summer camp? Then a letter in early June might do the trick.
  • Is she worried about low-income families freezing? If you’re in New England, February might not be too late for that kind of appeal.

What They Give For

How do you know what your donor cares about? You call and ask. You send surveys. You look for her name on the lists of donors to other organizations.

A little detective work will make sure you ask for donations when the donor is ready to give and for the good work he or she actually wants to support. You don’t have to promise to use the money exclusively for that purpose–but you do have to bring the results the donor wants to achieve to the top of your donor’s mind.

Otherwise, you’re peddling a truck to someone who wants a Prius.

 

Need help figuring out how to ask for donations at the right time, for the right cause? Email me, dennis@twofisch.com, to set up a free consultation. Because it’s more expensive to send out hundreds or thousands of appeal letters that don’t work than to get expert advice.

 

Congratulations, You’re Our New Social Media Expert

by 4 Comments

Congratulations, class of 2016. You graduated. You even landed a job.

Now, watch out.

Your employer thinks you’re a social media expert.

Just because you’re a “digital native” who played with an iPhone before you could ride a bike, your new employer thinks you can be the company’s social media manager.  Without training.  In addition to all your regular duties.

What are you supposed to do with that?

It all depends.  Do you want to be a social media expert?  Then, here are three things you need to do right away.

One: Explain to your boss what you have to learn.

  1. How to create a strategy for your organization, so that you reach the people you want to reach, where they hang out, with a purpose in mind.
  2. Who in your organization has great stories to tell.
  3. Who in your organization can take great photos.
  4. Who in your organization can produce great graphics.
  5. How to motivate the people in 2, 3, and 4 to send that content to you to use.
  6. What a publication calendar is, and how to stay on schedule.
  7. How to write killer subject lines for email, headlines for blogs, and text for tweets.
  8. How to write content that will make people look past the headline.
  9. The best ways to make sure your Facebook posts get seen.
  10. The best times of day and days of the week to post on Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, Instagram, LinkedIn….
  11. How to integrate your print communications, website, blog, email, and social media.
  12. What will make your followers like, share, and comment on your posts.
  13. How you can find and curate content your followers will be glad to read.
  14. How to tell whether any of it is making a difference.

 

Two: Tell your boss you’ll need a budget for training.  (Call it “professional development”: it sounds classier.)

  • There are great online courses.  John Haydon’s Facebook Bootcamp and the Social Media Managers School founded by Andrea Vahl and Phyllis Khare are two of them.
  • You can also take webinars on the subject of your choice.  I will humbly mention my Blogging on a Mission webinar…and check out the entire series offered by NPO Connect.
  • In-person classes and conferences will bring your skills up to date and keep you there.

 

Three,  politely explain that being a social media manager could be a full-time job.  Heather Mansfield, author of Social Media for Social Good, estimates that doing a good job with just Facebook could take you seven hours a week.  Get a very clear set of instructions about your boss’s priorities: in writing, if possible!

 

But perhaps you’d rather eat live snakes than manage your organization’s social media.  Then show your boss this blog entry to make the case that it’s just too big a responsibility to do on the fly.  Suggest that he or she hire a communications consultant to do it right. (I might just be available.)

You just helped make your organization better.  Congratulations, graduate!

Yes, I’d like weekly email from Communicate!

Get more advice

Yes! Please send me tips from Communicate! Consulting.

Subscribe to Blog via Email

Enter your email address to subscribe to this blog and receive notifications of new posts by email.