Digital Marketing DIY
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I can’t tell you how many board tables I’ve sat around where someone will raise their hand and say “we need a Twitter strategy” or “we need to be more active on Instagram.” And then all of a sudden, staff are expected to run and go make that happen.
Sound familiar?
Digital marketing for charities is kind of a funny space where it feels like we’re falling behind compared to other industries. This week we reached out to Avery Swartz, founder and CEO of Camp Tech, the tech workshop company for non-technical people, and helms North Coast Group, a website advisory and digital consultancy. We asked Avery all about digital marketing and how your small nonprofit can boost engagement without increasing your spending.
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ASK YOURSELF “WHY?”
When it comes to digital marketing, we often imagine ourselves trying to do everything all at once. It seems like a no-brainer to be on Twitter, Facebook, Instagram and so on. Before you jump onto every platform in sight, Avery challenges us to ask ourselves one simple question: why?
When you ask “why?” it immediately allows us to get down to what our goals are and reminds us of what we’re doing as an organization. Think about your mission and then decide what digital marketing strategies align with it. Other questions you may ask yourself or your board are:
What is it going to do for us?
How are we going to operate on this particular digital tool?
How are we going to do it successfully?
Do we have the resources to do this?
WHO ARE YOU TARGETING?
Once you answer the “why,” you need to figure out the “who.” Who is your audience? Digital marketing is more than just getting in front of people, it’s about getting in front of the right people. It’s one thing to build awareness of your organization, but it’s a whole other playing field to build sustained awareness and interest amongst those who have already heard about you. It’s also more efficient and cost-effective to focus on relationships you already have than to try to attract new donors. It’s important to put your organization out there to the general public, but we can’t forget about our loyal donors who are already invested in us.
You can also target specific audiences using Facebook’s “custom audience” tool which allows you to reach people with a particular location, age range, gender, or interest. While this may concern people about privacy laws, it truly doesn’t because it’s never public. It acts as a deal between you and Facebook where you get your database or Excel document of email addresses and say, “Facebook, I want you to target all of these people and those who are similar to them.” You can use Facebook as a communication vehicle to reach donors who have already had a touch point with your company and those who may be similar to do that.
There is also another “who” you need to consider: who is going to implement your digital media strategy? Often, we think of outsourcing this task to a volunteer, perhaps someone much younger. While it’s not necessarily a bad idea, but Avery suggests that you have staff learn and improve their digital skills. Technology is advancing every day and it’s important to learn basic digital skills otherwise your organization can fall further and further behind. Think of it as speaking a different dialect of language. As society moves forward and increasingly uses this form of communication, you risk losing touch with your donors to a point where you may not fully understand each other anymore.
VOLUNTEERS: YAY OR NAY?
Avery likes to think of social media as a really big, fancy party where lots of people are chatting amongst themselves. If your organization gets invited to that party, which member of your staff are you going to send? Are you going to send the executive director? The head of development? The intern? If you do decide to send the intern, chances are, you’re going to want to brief them with key messages in advance. The exact same thing should happen in your approach to social media.
Recruiting volunteers and young people are definitely a great way to help execute your digital marketing strategies, but they shouldn’t be the only person crafting the message. If you have a great relationship with your volunteer or intern, you should sit with them and spend possibly an hour a week and discuss the key messages you’d like them to communicate. Your key messages should always go back to your organization’s mission and goals. You can also work together to craft the key messages. After all, social media is social right?
WHERE IS THE PARTY?
It’s also important to think about the kind of “party” that you or your staff member attends. While it is tempting to focus solely on attracting new donors, working on your relationship with current donors is just as important. If your organization mainly focuses on a younger demographic, then perhaps Snapchat may be an ideal platform for your organization to “party” in. If your organization is targeting a completely different generation, then it would make better sense to be on Facebook. You should also consider the way you communicate on each platform as well. If you’re working for an organization that has a lot of fun projects where you’re always snapping photos, you could do really well on a visual platform like Instagram or Pinterest. If you don’t have any visual material, then a text-based platform like Twitter might be better for you. If your organization can do a mix of text, images and perhaps video, then LinkedIn and Facebook could work really well for you. What is great about all of these tools is that they are inexpensive, have a higher return on investment and more importantly can reach the right audiences.
THE GOLDILOCKS METHOD
Just like Goldilocks and the Three Bears, you need to test different strategies to find one that best fits with your organization. Before you start trying out different strategies, it’s important to make a decision early on about what metric you’re going to pay attention to. When you go into the back-end of social media platforms, you’ll be given some analytics about how your organization is performing. While there are some that are really important, Avery strongly warns us about vanity metrics like impressions.For example, if every single person who was interacting with you happens to glance at your message, it counts them as someone who interacted with you, regardless of whether or not they really paid attention to it.
There are better, more insightful metrics that you are given in the analytics. Your click-through rate, which measures how many people clicked on a link you shared and landed on your website, is a better indicator of someone who actually interacted with your organization. The amount of time someone spends on your website is also a better indicator, especially if someone spends even 10 seconds watching a video, which in internet time can feel like an hour. Share rates are also good indicators of engagement if someone is sharing your content and then 14 of their friends comment and possibly share that same content to their friends. Now that you know which metrics to pay attention to, don’t forget to keep tweaking your strategy until you find out what works best for you!
IS EMAIL DEAD?
We talked a lot about social media, but we can’t forget email marketing! Emails are Avery’s favourite because it’s something that truly belongs to you. She often sees people spend a huge chunk of their resources building their digital castle on somebody else’s land when they could easily do it on their own! Whether you’re using Razor’s Edge, Blackbaud’s, Mailchimp or ConstantContact, you’re in control of your information and you can be sure that the information goes directly to the donor. Most people check their email at least once a day, and even if they don’t open it, they probably saw it in their inbox. So if you’re wondering if email marketing is dead, it’s definitely not!
It’s also common to be concerned about how frequent you send emails. Everyone thinks that their organization is sending out too many emails. What’s enough? What’s too much? What's just right? Using the Goldilocks Method, you need to try out different email campaigns until you find one that works well with your audience. Maybe you send it weekly or every couple of days, and then you watch for your key metrics and tweak as appropriate. Then you notice that perhaps when you send an email once a week, click-through rates are actually higher.
Avery also notices that the design of an email is also a big concern for organizations. Sometimes the placement of a specific button performs better.
