Let’s face it – the more important  social media becomes to marketing special events, the more difficult it is to be heard above the ‘social media noise.’

The AJFF 2012 is scheduled to start for February 8^th. Incredible that more than 21,000 tickets sold in the first two weeks of sales!

How is the film festival getting above the noise? A focused year-round marketing plan topped with strong social media is key.

AJFF communication strategies consist of a blend of online buzz with compelling content for social media websites and consistent outreach to secure coverage in the news.

To ensure that the AJFF team reached its communications objectives to cultivate diverse audiences, increase awareness and enhance coverage, the marketing committee held brainstorming sessions and developed a social media content calendar.

AJFF 2012 Facebook page is visually compelling. I’m one of the more than 1500 people who have liked the page. Each day I get engaging posts with tickler descriptions of different films including video-clip trailers and reminders to purchase tickets.

AJFF website is geared to provide information on films, location of theatres and ticket sales. The online media center contains press releases and press kits - everything bloggers, reporters and twitter influentials need. Contact information is visible. Email queries and phone calls are answered promptly.

In an earlier post Promoting a Film Festival in 3 weeks! I describe marketing tools to use to increase the buzz and ticket sales for a film festival.

If you would like a copy of my film festival PR template, please contact me at deborah@creative-si.com.

Special thanks to Brad Pilcher and Shayne Walsey, AJFF communication co-chairs and Kendel White from Weber Shandwick for their hard work to make AJFF 2012 a communications success.

Now, if you will excuse me I need to finish ordering my tickets for the festival before they’re sold out!

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As 2012 begins, it is the perfect time to look back to move forward.

What worked? What didn’t? What could have been even better?

Be sure and invite board members as well as staff to look back to 2011 with you so you can productively move forward.

Make the session upbeat. Celebrate your successes and learn from your challenges.

I’ll help you start with a few opening questions. These are based on lessons I learned over the past year – and beyond.

Did you -

1. Create/update your strategic marketing plan? Did you really use it?
2. Base all your marketing communications messages on your mission? Or did you go off message?
3. Cull/update your database? Identify from whom you had not heard?
4. Reach out to donors and volunteers and thank them – and then thank them again?
5. Stay the course and build on your successes, or were you swayed to deviate from your project plans? If so, did it work?
6. Capitalize on your branded special events or try something new? Were you as successful?
7. Build-in evaluations throughout the year? Create benchmarks to ensure quality?
8. Ensure that you know your audiences and that your audiences know you?
9. Invite new voices to participate in your brainstorming?
10. Launch a social media campaign? How did it work, how can it grow?

Please stay in touch. Let me know what’s on your mind and how I can help you launch a very successful 2012!

You can always reach me at deborah@creative-si.com or visit our Facebook page .

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The rollercoaster ride that nonprofits have experienced since the beginning of the ‘great recession’ has been anything but fun!

Although the great recession began in 2007 according to the National Bureau of Economic Statics, the reality of its effects on nonprofits really hit home the day the venerable brokerage firm Lehman Brothers filed for bankruptcy in September ’08. Pretty soon nonprofit leaders and staff came to realize that how nonprofits managed their fundraising would be changed forever.

The Nonprofit Finance Fund provides financing, funding and advocacy services to nonprofits and funders nationwide. For the researchers among us, they are a fount of data. Their “Guide to Navigating Changing Times” provides answers and resources to help weather these difficult times.

An October 11 blog posting from David King, president Alexander Haas highlights “10 Lessons Learned from the Great Recession.”

1. Relationships matter more than causes
2. Serving on a board in not an honor, it is a real job with real responsibilities
3. If you stop fund raising, you will stop raising funds
4. Endowment is not an insurance policy against declines in earned and donated revenue
5. Take donors for granted and they will take their donations elsewhere
6. Financial acumen is, in fact, a requirement for nonprofit executives
7. Your next campaign does not “have” to be larger than you last campaign
8. We have a new definition for what we “need”
9. The donor pyramid has been pinched in the middle (think hour glass)
10. Fear of multi-year pledging has reshaped how capital campaigns are executed.

I have always been committed to a fundraising board. Last year I was asked to do a presentation on the “Role of the Board & Successful Fundraising Techniques.”

This presentation is a Call to Action for nonprofit boards to encourage ownership and enthusiasm for fundraising.

You are welcome to share with your nonprofit’s board of directors. I’d love to hear from you to learn of their response.

I know this is an extremely busy time for fundraising. We at Creative Solutions & Innovations wish you the very best in your quest.

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Giving Thanks

 

 

My life would not be as rich and meaningful without each and every one of you.

My wishes for a wonderful Thanksgiving Holiday filled with friends and family.

Deborah

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A very dear friend lost her husband unexpectedly. I wanted to make sure the nonprofit in which she had been very involved knew about the funeral. I also wanted to make a donation in his memory.

I hit the website knowing that I would easily find the needed contact information, since I had worked with the organization as a marketing communications consultant in 2008.

Imagine my surprise when I could not find any email addresses or phone numbers except to a central box.

What a wake-up call!

So, as you get ready for your end-of-the year push, I want to share my personal pet peeves that make me think twice before supporting a nonprofit:

• No way to send an email and/or make a phone call to a specific staff member
• Sending me a letter and/or an email addressed to ‘Dear Friend” – There’s just no excuse. You need to send personalized email and letters.
• No one to answer the phone and/or respond to email the end of December – It boggles my mind when nonprofits completely close down during this most important fundraising period. I can’t tell you how often I’ve heard from ‘almost’ donors who moved on to support organizations where they could reach a human being.
• Making me hunt for a way to make a donation – A donate now link is not enough. Visitors to your website need to see a donate button regardless of where they land when they enter your site. Complement each page with a donate pitch with an easy to find donate button
• Donate now buttons that don’t link directly to the donation page – For each extra click you are losing potential donors.
• Donation pages without contact information and an address for regular mail – Personally I like to charge my donations. But, there are still people who like to send a check. Be sure to invite visitors to do so.
• No way to make a tribute donation – I’ve developed deep relationships with nonprofits who provide a phone number and/or email address for tribute donation details. On the flip side I’ve crossed off nonprofits that don’t have some mechanism for making these gifts.
• No personal thank you notes for online donations – Most online systems have an automated response system. Be sure and follow up with a personalized thank you.
• A registration that promises an online newsletter that never comes

Don’t let these stumbling blocks keep you from reaping the end of the year fundraising benefits.

Do you have any suggestions ? We’d love to hear from you.

Have questions? Need more information?

Please contact me at deborah@creative-si.com.

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Marketing Strategies and Tactics

Recently I was speaking with a prospect and I mentioned the importance of nonprofit marketing. “Well, sure,” he said. “I know that ads and PR are important.”

That was not exactly what I meant! I soon realized we had verydifferent definitions of marketing.

What is Nonprofit Marketing?

“Marketing is so basic that it cannot be a separate function. It is the whole business seen from the point of view of its final results, that is, from the stakeholder’s point of view.” Marketing Guru Peter Drucker

I see nonprofit marketing as – the strategies and tactics used to identify, create and maintain satisfying relationships with your donors, members, volunteers, clients and other stakeholders that result in value for both your organization and your stakeholders.

Below are 12 principles for guiding your nonprofit through a marketing lense:

1. Always market your mission, not your current services. The ability to adjust its services to suit client need is key to ensuring the organization’s survival and its financial support.
2. Carefully define whom your mission serves. You need to meet the needs of our corps stakeholders.
3.  Measure your constituents’ needs. Research, research, research to ensure your programs & services resonate with your target audiences.
4. Design programs that meet needs.
5. Evaluate the success of programs & their relationship to your mission.
6. Communicate regularly & consistently.
7. Craft your messages to reflect how our mission affects your different audiences.
8. Communicate in terms of your ROI even when it is not in monetary terms; quantify your economic impact.
9. Celebrate your successes. Show how your ‘market diversification’ creates the funding to provide your services.
10. Know your organizational elevator speech so you can articulate your vision & Competitive Advantage Statement.
11. Keep a “face” on your marketing initiatives
12. Evaluate often & be prepared to refocus your efforts.

Want a template for creating a nonprofit marketing plan? Please let me hear from you at deborah@creative-si.com

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ReelAbilities ATL Film Festival

“Hi,” my friend said. “Do you have any extra time? I could really use some PR help promoting our upcoming film festival, ReelAbilities ATL. The only problem is that the film festival is in three weeks!”

Well, believe it or not, we met the challenge. A small but dedicated staff and a real commitment to get the message out lead to a successful launch.

Although I would never advocate waiting so late to promote an event, it happens. So, here’s my suggestion on how to proceed:

Brainstorm, brainstorm, brainstorm

• Bring new voices to the table.
• Explore new ways to engage partners.
• Identify possible ways to distribute the message and outlets to approach.
• Look for the story within the story. 

Make sure that the event website is functioning properly.

• Ask someone who doesn’t know how it is supposed to function to navigate the site.
• Is it easy to navigate?
•  Do all the links work?
•  Are the messages clear?
•  Do the links make it easy to buy tickets to the film festival and/or make a donation?
•  Is it easy to find contact information?

Launch a Facebook page.

• Send messages to all your personal friends to “Like” the page.
• Invite your organizational partners to Like and share the site.
• Keep the posts fresh with photos from films, updated press releases, new volunteer opportunities, etc.

Use a news distribution service with social media capabilities.

• Send a link of your html press release to all your partners and ask that they in turn distribute to their media contacts.
•  Be sure to send a link, not a PDF copy of the release.
• Make sure that your news distribution has the capability to add Social Media Links such as Facebook, LinkedIn and Twitter to your release.
• Confirm that the service enhances your release by Tweeting and/or blogging about your festival.

Send personalized email to your media contacts

• Paste the release to the body of the email.
• Send a link to PDF and JPEG files housed on your website instead of sending attachments.
• Make personal phone calls to media contacts.

Monitor Your Progress

• Set up a Google Search. I used ReelAbilities ATL + news.
• Be sure and share the results with your leadership and team.
• Track mentions about the film festival in your social media sites

It is never too late to promote your events. If you would like a copy of my film festival PR template, please contact me at deborah@creative-si.com.

Cheers! Now enjoy the film festival.

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“How can you squander even one more day not taking advantage of the greatest shifts of our generation? How dare you settle for less when the world has made it so easy for you to be remarkable?” Seth Godwin

Pascha

A few weeks ago, I was having coffee with social media marketing diva Toby Bloomberg. Toby is my friend, mentor and inspiration. Without Toby’s guidance I’m pretty certain that I would not have launched this blog.

I always seem to find a way to interject Pascha and Black Olive into my conversations and Toby is very understanding.

I’m sure by now that all my readers know I have a passion for horses. What you might not know is that my riding and working with nonprofits intersects. Whenever I have a chance to be involved with an event that revolves around horses and supports a meaningful cause I jump at it – no pun intended!  My most meaningful gigs involved raising money for nonprofits through horse-related events such as grand prix and polo classics.

One area of many where Toby excels is her interviews. When conducting interviews with nonprofits Toby stays true to her commitment to help people understand social media. Each nonprofit shares their social media experiences and lessons learned.

I always look forward to those blog posts. Each nonprofit’s story is different. And each describes ways in which they incorporate social media to increase the good they do in the world.

So, imagine how excited I was when Toby asked me if I had ever heard of a horse named Barbaro* and proceeded to tell me about an upcoming post with Alex Brown, author of Greatness and Goodness: Barbaro and his Legacy.

Well, I wasn’t disappointed. Whether you’re a horse person or not, I hope you read the posts.

Here are some of the lessons I learned about using social media to help support your cause:

1. Create an on-line community to support your cause.
2. Develop a marketing plan that includes conventional as well as social media.
3. Establish analytics so you can gauge the effects of each medium.
4. Make a commitment to stay abreast of the issues that touch your community and communicate, communicate, communicate.
5. Be prepared to always learn and expand your reach.
6. Once you’ve developed your website and your community is comfortable with how it works, stay the course.
7. Find a way to develop a community of action to raise awareness and funds for your cause.
8. Engage moderators for the community to help keep the conversation on target.
9. Make sure to update all your media sources including Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, and  website
10. Let your passion show and color all your initiatives to promote social good.

 Please join me and share your social media ideas for supporting your cause!

 *I first met Barbaro’s trainer Michael Matz at the 1996 Olympic Games when Michael was a member of the US Equestrian Team. Then I started following his new career as a thoroughbred trainer when I was involved with thoroughbred yearlings, who were hopefully going to start careers as race horses.

I watched with horror and tears in my eyes when Barbaro had his accident at the Preakness. Toby’s interview with Alex Brown has reignited my commitment to horse welfare, and to making the world a better place.

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“Getting to know your supporters, volunteers, clients and other participants in your mission is easy, if you build that listening and learning into your everyday work.” Kivi Leroux Miller

I know a lot of people think ‘putting together the puzzle pieces’ is a hackneyed term. Beyond the fact that our logo is constructed around a puzzle piece, I think it is apropos to organizations trying to get above the noise in the marketplace to build awareness and raise funds.

What do I mean putting together the puzzle pieces? Reaching out and building better relationships by understanding and knowing your target audiences.

There is no question that knowing your target audiences is the most essential aspect of your nonprofit’s marketing communications and fundraising. Nonprofit marketing guru Kivi Leroux Miller goes so far as to call knowing your target audience the Number 1 Rule in Nonprofit Marketing.

And, I agree.

That said, Kivi also provided some easy to do suggestions on how to know your audience. These appeared in her Nonprofit Marketing Tips on July 12, 2011:

• Be curious, all the time
• Formalize that curiosity
• Convene Informal Focus Groups
• Conduct an Online Survey

I would like to add to Kivi’s suggestions:

• Create a CRM database and really use it. Take notes on what you learn. Be sure and qualify how you received a gift, e.g., direct mail, social media posting, personalized letters or special events.
• Invite board members, key donors and volunteers to sit around the table and discuss your mission, programs and services. Ask what they see as important to each of them.
• Take that information to craft messages to reach out to current donors, sponsors and prospects.
• Provide “Invite a Friend” programs to your members. Ask each to invite their friends and family to join them to support you. Be sure and provide meaningful information about what you do and how you touch the community.
• Consider reaching out to the business community and elected officials to show how you make an impact. Be sure and figure the economic impact of your programs. Gauge their interest and learn how they like to receive information.

Be sure and use this knowledge as you build your marketing communications program. I’ve created a template based on my experiences. There are some excellent templates that can be accessed through a key word search.

The key is to personalize to your organization and keep the plan updated as you learn more and more about your target audiences.

If you’d like a copy of my strategic communications template, please contact me at deborah@creative-si.com.

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“If you don’t know where you’re going it doesn’t matter which way you go!”

While putting together my PowerPoint slides for an upcoming marketing session at GCN’s Nonprofit University, I had an ‘aha’ moment. I clearly saw that positioning was key to virtually everything we were going to discuss in the session.

A positioning statement is a tight, focused description of the core target audience to whom a brand is directed, and it provides a compelling picture of how the nonprofit wants its targeted audiences to view them. A well-constructed positioning statement brings focus and clarity to the development of a marketing strategy and tactics. Note: Brandeo is an online marketing resource and provides an excellent description of positioning and what is needed to craft a positioning statement.

I truly believe that the only way to be heard above the noise, and to create and sustain what your audiences think about your organization is to position it correctly.

A couple years ago, I worked with a dynamite team on AMA Atlanta’s pro bono project. The Team conducted a SWOT analysis, reviewed and critiqued all written materials provided by the nonprofit client and the website, and conducted audience discovery calls.

The audience discovery consisted of 11 interviews from members, funders, sponsors, partners and a legislator.  Looking at the interviews by audience segment, it became clear that their Funders found the message and purpose of the organization to be clear and concise, and felt that they were valued partners. However, its sponsors/members/partners and the legislator believed the client needed a clearer message statement. They wanted more involvement with the organization to feel included as a valued stakeholder. The organization had an opportunity to gain additional funding through its members/sponsors/partners by having a clear message and involvement with this core group.  There was also much to gain on the advocacy front with these segments knowing the defined mission, vision and services.

After analyzing the results of the SWOT and Audience Discovery calls, the team decided to create a Vision Statement, two positioning statements [The client separated its advocacy and program/services into separate units] and to provide a list of marketing communications opportunities in the short term.

If you would like more information on positioning and audience discovery calls please contact me at deborah@creative-si.com.

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