Thriving and Surviving in Uncertain Times: Digital Marketing Techniques for Non-Profits Sponsored by the Council of Public Relations

Firms Boston

January 14, 2009

DIGITAL 2.0 TOOLS TO ENHANCE & EXPAND

REACH

Resources

Joel Richman, PAN Communications

jrichman@pancomm.comtwitter.com/xylemFacebook: Joel Richman www.linkedin.com/joelrichmanwww.prspeak.com

Richard Greif, Everybody Wins! USA

rgreif@everybodywins.orghttp://everybodywins.typepad.com/www.linkedin.com/richgreif

Scott Beaudoin, MS&Lscott.beaudoin@mslworldwide.

comhttp://tinyurl.com/sb-facebook http://prfinishline.blogspot.com

Laura Tomasetti, 360PRltomasetti@360publicrelations.

comtwitter.com/Laura360www.360prblog.com

Holiday 2008 Campaigns

Social Media Advantages

• Reach supporters when they’re interested, on their terms.

• Reach younger/new generation of supporters.• Opportunity for immediate engagement.• Save on hard copy mailings.• Track and measure more immediately.

Considerations

• Determine what’s right for your organization – survey existing base about their social media use.

• Prioritize – don’t try to do everything at once; consider a stepped approach, evaluate & build.

• Resources – determine who will own, allocate the time.

• Set guidelines for interaction.• Integrate social media activity with other

development & communications.

USA Digital Media

• Primary Goals:– Energize & Connect Our Current Network– Develop Potential Board, Advisors & Partner Contacts– Build Network of Supporters

• Secondary Goals:– Increase General Public Awareness– Fundraising

• Digital 1.0 tools: Website, Blog, Enewsletter

• Digital 2.0 tools: LinkedIn, YouTube, Facebook

Session Take-Aways

1. Know your goals and tailor digital tools to those goals – fundraising, board development, volunteer or partner recruitment.

2. Prioritize – you most likely can’t (or shouldn’t) use every tool; do what’s right for your organization, evaluate and build.

3. Quality of interaction is often more important than quantity.

4. Link social media tools to content from your website, blog, e-newsletter and refresh often.

5. Integrate social media activity with other development and communications.

Copyrighted Material-PAN Communications-Confidential

▲Tool for short (140 character) communications with “followers”

▲ Watch who your followers track & vice versa▲Value in discovery, community engagement

(instant focus group!) and sharing information▲One of a few Web 2.0 tools to really break into

the mainstream: +/- 4.5 million users*

*Compete.com

TWITTER!

What is it?

Copyrighted Material-PAN Communications-Confidential

Twitter, Cont.

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Copyrighted Material-PAN Communications-Confidential

More Twitter

How to build your network ▲Sign Up and Dive In!

▲Follow PeopleTwellow.com – Twitter Yellow Pages

▲Find InfluencersTwitter.grader.com

Search by person’s Twitter username, search for “elite” by geography and keywordsIdentify influencers based on their following/follower ratio, number of Re-tweets, etc.

Copyrighted Material-PAN Communications-Confidential

FACEBOOK

What is it?▲Social networking service that lets you connect with

friends, co-workers, and others who share similar interests and/or common backgrounds.

▲Join networks organized by city, workplace, school, and region to connect and interact with other people.

▲People add friends and send them messages, update their personal profile to notify friends about themselves or their organizations.

▲Massive mainstream adoption – currently has more than 130 million active users worldwide.

Copyrighted Material-PAN Communications-Confidential

Facebook, Cont.

▲ Viral, potential to get in front of a huge audience – 132 million users▲ Great for promotion; showcase an event you want to let people

know about▲ According to Forrester analyst Jeremiah Owyang: Facebook

provides targeted advertising unlike we’ve ever seen before, the ability to provide messages segmented by location, gender, and or preference gives the ability to accurately market effectively

▲ Some, like former Forrester analyst Charlene Li, believe that Facebook could surpass Google in terms of search. Eventually, we may just go to Facebook to poll our friends or ask a question for a more direct answer.

Value to Non-profits

Copyrighted Material-PAN Communications-Confidential

More Facebook

▲Pages▲Include link to Website, Org. overview, causes, news & blog

feed, YouTube videos▲People become fans – ex. dog rescue, homelessness, etc.

▲Groups▲Have a purpose▲Interactive, creative – members can add video, photos,

comments▲Questions &Polls

▲Application you can download and then pose questions to your audience

▲Scour page

How Nonprofits can use Facebook

Copyrighted Material-PAN Communications-Confidential

Search Optimization (huh?)

Method of creating content optimized for web search:Top of Search = Top of Mind.

What is it? Think of search as “home page.”

Copyrighted Material-PAN Communications-Confidential

Search Optimization Cont.

74% of journalists and bloggers use Google or blog search

Copyrighted Material-PAN Communications-Confidential

SEO on the fly

1. The story must be interesting and relevant

▲ Start before the press release gets crafted▲ Who cares about this story?▲ Who does it help?

Copyrighted Material-PAN Communications-Confidential

More SEO

▲Understand your target audience▲Speak audience’s language rather than your org’s ▲“Couch” instead of “Sofa”

2. Research the words your audiences use for search

Copyrighted Material-PAN Communications-Confidential

SEO (almost done)

▲Tools you can use to determine the variation of keywords:▲Google Adwords Keyword Tool

▲https://adwords.google.com/select/KeywordToolExternal

▲Google Trends▲http://www.google.com/trends

▲Google Analytics▲http://www.google.com/analytics

Search Research, cont.

Copyrighted Material-PAN Communications-Confidential

SEO (fini!)

▲Focus on 2 to 3 relevant search terms that your audience is likely to use

▲Average search term is 2-3 words long, so use 2-word and 3-word phrases

▲Include these terms throughout release – focus on first 100 words (headline and lead paragraph)

▲ Add hyperlinks: help people find interesting, related content

▲Use social media so readers pass it on: Twitter, Facebook, blogs and LinkedIn groups

Use the Keywords in releases & widely distribute

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There are nearly 4 billion mobile phone subscribers

More than half of mobile subscribers use SMS (text) each month

Mobile Marketing

How do we use wireless media as an integrated content delivery and direct response vehicle within a cross-media marketing communications program to create awareness and raise funds?

Mobile giving outperformed online giving in first year ($300K vs. $500K)

1997 – Online – $300K 2008 – Mobile – $500K 2009 – Mobile – $5M projected

50% of giving ($10M) occurs online

Mobile Giving Benefits Larger audience Opportunity for constant communications No credit card required

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Nonprofits leverage mobile marketing in a variety of ways.

Fundraising

Advocacy

Raising Awareness

Communications

Recruiting/Volunteer Engagement

Research

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Nonprofit Mobile Marketing Campaigns

Please fix our healthcare.

Martha V.

Consumers text in healthcare views

Texts posted live on giant screen near Capitol building

600 SMS messages received

Advocacy/Awareness

Advocacy & Awareness

Donate $5 by texting GIVE to 2HELP

Attracts more than $190K in pledges in months; 38,091 text messages

Garners praise as industry’s most successful nonprofit text fundraiser

Online or text sign-up for geo-coded volunteer opportunities

Opportunities sent 1-2 times/month

Celebrity PSAs posted on YouTube

Fundraising

Volunteer Engagement/Communications

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Nonprofit Mobile Marketing Resources

mGiveSocial marketing company that helps nonprofits utilize mobile technology to increase fundraising campaigns.mgive.com

Mobile Giving FoundationFoundation provides information on mobile fundraising campaign development. www.mobilegiving.org

MobileActive.org Blog includes directory listing of nonprofits using mobile technology, as well as a list of tools and resources. mobileactive.org