This week I read the article “To Communicate Better, Think Like a Donor,” an article by Caroline Bermudez for the Chronicle of Philanthropy. I was immediately interested in this article because it pertains directly to the work of BBBS of CM/MW on numerous levels; it deals with getting and keeping donors, utilizing newsletters, and effectively using Twitter. All of these subjects are areas that matter specifically to BBBS of CM/MW, and as Marketing Intern, I am involved directly, and sometimes singlehandedly, in these efforts.
“Too many nonprofit organizations fail to keep donors because they don’t do a good job of making their work interesting.”
This article asserts that “traditional marketing” was about “thrusting your stuff in front … and interrupting” as opposed to “content marketing”, which is about “attracting” people via your communications efforts. While I’m not well-versed in marketing terms, I take a bit of issue with the terms and definitions she’s aligned here. Marketing has always been about content—how can you communicate or market something without content?—so I think it may be more fitting for “content marketing” to simply be “modern marketing”, or, as a noted transition in the definition of marketing. I think Bermudez is definitely right in noticing the recent trend to actively engage your audiences. In the Information Age, it’s more important than ever capture people’s attention, to speak to them directly, to make them notice you, care about you, and interact with you instead of dismissing you. In this sense, Bermudez accurately notes the difference between “thrusting” content into audiences’ faces versus actually engaging them.
“A lot of nonprofits publish newsletters that are just about the nonprofit’s work. It ends up being a narrative of the staff’s to-do list for the last month. With a content-marketing approach to a newsletter, you would know what the readers of your newsletter are interested in and write content that they’re going to be excited to read.”
I like what Bermudez says here because I think one thing BBBS of CM/MW does well is tailor the e-newsletters (which I have a major part in creating) to different audiences, recognizing what our different audiences want to hear about (and engage in!). For example, in March’s e-newsletter, we featured the following sections: an article on a corporate partnership, photos from a sports event, an event Save the Date, a video on National Women’s History Month, among others. The article on a corporate partnership was the first item in the newsletter for a few reasons: 1. because we want this partnership to share the article and hopefully get other corporations to work with us, and 2. because we want sponsors and donors to see how our partnerships are making a difference, and continue funding us. The photos from a sports event also apply to two of our audiences: our younger crowd, that will follow the link to Facebook and engage with us in social media, and our donors, who supplied us with tickets to the event and who will see how great it was and be motivated to continue donating to us. The Save the Date section is for an event geared nearly solely to our sponsors, donors, and adult audiences. Lastly, the National Women’s History month is a very personal, face-to-face, real life way for ALL of our audiences to see the impact of what we do. Also, at the end of the newsletter, we included a story of the strong bond one of our matches has, inviting viewers to share their own stories with us. In all, I think we address Bermudez’s concern by taking special care to tailor our e-newsletters to different audiences and make it more engaging than a “to-do list”.
Finally, Bermudez states that many organizations still do not understand how to properly use Twitter, and are using it as a place for 140-character mini-press releases. She notes that organizations that use it well “share a good mix of timely, helpful updates on their issues, combined with responsiveness to their followers.” I think “updates” on issues will pertain more to when BBBS of CM/MW launches a fundraiser (which is coming up). When I did research on created a social media strategy, one thing I found reiterated a lot was responsiveness to followers. This one thing that we actually do really well with on Twitter, and I am trying to incorporate it into our Facebook page, which also gets a decent amount of interaction.
I'M A MKTG INTERN! 