Tips for Creating An Effective Nonprofit Newsletter

For nonprofit organizations, ongoing communications with donors is an important part of building and maintaining a healthy relationship with them. E-newsletters are a smart, inexpensive way to inform and inspire your supporters. But how do you ensure that your newsletter gets read and what type of content best engages donors?

Here are a few tips to help you optimize your next newsletter:

1. Make Donors Feel Good

Donors are essential to your mission, so be sure to make them feel important. Let them know how their support has helped you. Nurture your relationship by reporting accomplishments or results, thanking them for their contribution and showing how the need still exists and continue to warrant their attention.

2. Let Pictures Tell the Story

Readers will naturally gravitate toward the headlines, bullet points, sidebar info and pictures in your newsletter. Insert photos of the people you've helped or the people who are doing the helping! Don't forget to include captions that explain the story and the results. Videos are another great way to engage readers and tell a story.

3. Encourage Social Sharing 

Encourage readers to spread the word about your nonprofit. Include social sharing icons (for Facebook, Twitter, Google+, LinkedIn, etc.) at the top of your newsletter to make it easy for readers to share it on their social networks. Results: more new followers and supporters for you.

4.Offer Advice and Tips

Teach your readers something new. Depending on the mission or work of your nonprofit, what tips can you offer to help readers?

5. List Items That are Needed

Nonprofit organizations always have a wish list of items that they'd like to have or need. Give your supporters and readers the opportunity to help by including that list in your next newsletter.

6. Drive Traffic to Your Website 

Whether your readers are accessing your newsletter from their desktops or their mobile phones, your email communication needs to be brief. Avoid lengthy newsletter articles: insert only first few paragraphs and link to the rest of the article to your website. This is a great way to direct more visitors to your website.

For help with your next nonprofit newsletter or email, contact Jocelyn Murray at 203.377.9980.
  

Six SEO Tips for Small Business Owners

For businesses owners with a website and an online strategy, search engine optimization (SEO) is an important factor. If much of your business comes from local customers then local SEO, which helps businesses be found in a specific geographic market, should be part of your web strategy.

If you're seeking the greatest stream of web traffic in the ever-changing search engine scene, there are some non-technical ways to take advantage of local SEO. In addition to hiring an SEO professional like Scott Pierson from The Executive SEO, try to increase your rankings through a combination of simple tasks, some of which Scott recommended in our recent meeting.

Here are six tips to get you started:

1. City and State Info

Include your business city and state in your web site's title tag, alt tags and in your website content.  Ideally, your landing page should include the name, address and phone (NAP) of your company and it should match your Google+ Local listing.

2. Blog

To become a local authority and to be found online, write/blog about the subjects your target audience wants to know about. To strengthen your local strategy, include blog posts and press releases that focus on local business transactions and community events your business is involved in.

3. Inbound Links

Quality links that point to your site will strengthen your online presence.  Remember to link back to your site from social media sites, when you guest blog or comment on a blog.  Ask your business partners to post links to your site on their Resources page and do the same for them.

4. Claim Local Profiles

One of the best ways to optimize for local SEO is to completely  fill out your local profiles on sites such as Google My Business, Yelp, Bing and Yellow Pages(to name a few). For an $84 fee, Moz Local (moz.com) will ensure that your business listings are correct and consistent  on sites and directories that factor most in local search engine results.

5. Use Location-Based Hashtags

Increase your relevancy and visibility for local audiences by using location-based hashtags. Use your business' and your target audiences' neighborhoods, cities or towns (#Milford #Devon or #Bayview, for example) in your posts so your content will be found by your local market.

6. Reviews

Periodically ask your clients to favorably review you on Google+. A steady flow of positive reviews will go a long way in building your SEO.

Staying current with local SEO is a challenging but important task for entrepreneurs. If you're overwhelmed or not getting results, enlist help from an SEO expert to advance your local SEO strategy.

Instagram as a Business Marketing Tool

Instagram is useful for reaching new audiences through images and short messages. It can be particularly helpful for reaching customers who prefer a visual form of communication. Instagram can be leveraged to create significant connections with customers and improve your brand's visibility. As a result, it can transform the interaction between individuals, brands and companies.

Here are some Instagram business tips to keep in mind:

1. Balance fun images with pictures about your business

Pictures on Instagram can give your followers insight into your company. Use Instagram to tell a story through various images and try to keep a similar theme that is consistent with your brand. Take advantage of the various filters and image editing applications to enhance your images so they are appealing to followers. Remember to track the engagement on your images to find what followers respond to the best.

2. Use hashtags   

A hashtag is simply a hash symbol (#) followed by a keyword or phrase, that is incorporated into social media posts. This makes your post available to anyone with the same interests, even if they are not your followers. Using a trending hashtag that goes along with your marketing strategy ensures you reach a larger viewership. A hashtag is a powerful tool to aid you in reaching your target audience and boost your brand awareness. Try to keep them relevant to your content and use branded hashtags to increase loyalty of your followers.  

3. Engage with followers

Engage by following your target audience and liking their photos. Crowdsource images, so your stream is not just of photos you took. These tactics help build meaningful relationships with followers. Also, Instagram should be about connecting with followers on levels beyond just trying to make a sale. Brands shouldn't just engage; they should also inspire.

4. Reward your followers

Give followers a first look or sneak peak preview of an event or product. Also, provide them with special promo codes and discounts for your products or services. Delivering incentives to your followers will make viewing your social media content a priority.

To make the most of Instagram, post consistently and avoid being too pushy with your brand or product. Show what people can do with your product rather than just showing the product itself. The best time to post on Instagram is from 5-6pm on weekdays and 8pm on Mondays with a sweet spot at 6:00 pm (Source: SumAll). According to an article by CyberAlert, the reorganization of Google+ into separate services signals its downfall. Therefore, Instagram can be an alternative marketing tool for Google+ users.
  

Leverage Videos & Virtual Events to Increase Your Reach.

“Show the readers everything, tell them nothing!” - Ernest Hemingway

Yes, show and don’t tell. It is a powerful storytelling technique that can help us gain attention from our audience. It becomes more important in this day and age when businesses are driven by technology, and videos and social media are also quickly becoming more important in our marketing strategies. Every business is competing for “eye balls” and “face time” so the question is, what do we do to increase our reach in less time?

1.     Videos

Video is the perfect format for quickly grabbing busy audience’s attention. Remember, facts tell, stories sell and here are 3 reasons why marketers use videos:

·         To put emphasis on showing (not telling)

·         A video becomes memorable due to the storytelling process.

·         Videos can be used to measure success using video analytics.

“A picture says 10,000 words and a video says 50,000 words!”

This year, in 2015, video marketing and the play button will take center stage. More marketers will realize the importance of video as part of their digital marketing strategies.

As our devices get smarter, so should we! More than 50% of viewers watch more than three quarters or a given video, and more than 70% of marketing professionals report that video converts better than any other medium. Take YouTube for example. It is a great channel for distributing videos because it can help us increase and expand our reach, and most importantly, attract new audiences.

Almost everyone I know, and especially business folks, either owns a computer, a smartphone, a tablet, or all three. So the fact that many are spending less time watching the TV and migrating to their favorite devices in search of “on demand content”, it is almost essential that every business leverage videos to reach their audience faster. At the touch of a “play” button, we are able to access the information and/or content, and the best thing is, we can do it on our time

2. Virtual Events

Virtual events are very valuable because they have the ability to increase and expand the reach of our events to an unlimited number of people who can attend from anywhere in the world. The best thing about it is, they don’t even need to leave their desks! Many companies are trying to serve a global marketplace and virtual events are the perfect tool to amplify the power and reach of events.

When Are Virtual Events Right for Your Business?

1.     If you want to expand the reach of your target audience beyond a specific region.

o    They help dramatically increase participation especially when in-person marketing tools like live seminars and large physical events are limited in scale by demography and behavior. This is why many companies and organizations that run large physical events are now adding a virtual component, enabling anyone to attend, from anywhere.

2.     Budget

o    Virtual events can be significantly more cost effective than traditional in-person events and they often deliver increased value for our investment.

o    Removing the challenges and expenditures required to deliver a brick and mortar event allows us to focus on more important content.

3.     Virtual events are savvy and cool because they help build and connect online communities!

o    In many post event surveys, virtual event participants say that they really enjoy the virtual experience. They are able to easily participate without disrupting their work and personal lives.

ABOUT ZEF ZAN

Zef Zan is an entrepreneur and the President and Founder of Entrepreneurs That SOAR!, a New Media Marketing company where she is known for being a “High Tech, High Touch Marketing Strategist” who helps entrepreneurs and business folks leverage videos, webcasts, and virtual events via Hangouts to increase reach and humanize your brand. She also aces at helping individuals and teams harness the power and reach of social media to build connectivity and communities globally.

Zef is also an inspirational speaker, and the creator, producer, and host of two web shows, Creative Chat Cafe, The Business Talk Show Hangouts, aired every Wednesday at 12:30 pm ET on www.EntrepreneursThatSOAR.com , and Zef’s Zest TV on YouTube.

Steps to Create a Social Media Marketing Strategy and Plan

With the massive number of people actively participating in online social communities, it's become a necessity for your business to get organized with your social media marketing.  As social media continues to change the way people communicate, it is an increasingly important tool for small businesses.

Here are some steps and tips to help you get started:

1. Define Your Goals

It's critical to specifically define what you want to achieve through social media. Your goals for social media should relate to your overall goals for your business and tie in with your sales and marketing plans.

For example, you may want to use social media to:

• Build your brand-name recognition and credibility
• Execute online customer support - answering questions about products/services
• Increase sales through offers
• Drive traffic to your web site or a landing page
• Promote a new line of products

2. Define Your Target Audience and Where You'll Find Them

A business must have a clear understanding of who they are targeting.  Find out which social media channels your audiences prefer and what information they read, share and post.

If you need help figuring out where to find your target markets, check out research organizations such as Pew Research Center that publish valuable studies with this data.

3. Competitive Analysis

Check out your competitor's social media pages! Where are they and what kind of presence do they have?  How can you position your company in relation to the competition? Use a competitive analysis to help craft your own social media strategy and plan.

4. Content Strategy and Plan

Your content strategy needs to directly support your goals. For instance, if your goal is to increase sales through offers, then you might implement a strategy to issue a monthly discount coupon to existing customers or an introductory discount to new customers.

Also consider developing useful information that's of interest to your target audiences. Choose three to five hot topics or categories of information that you'll post about. Your content should be relevant and fresh, and focus on the clients rather than on your company. What does your audience want to read? What do they want to learn? Remember to plan a variety of content types( text, article links, photos, video, coupons, etc.)

-Posting Frequency

Instead of posting randomly, decide how often you'll post on each network . Remember- consistency is key.

-Create a Content Calendar

To ensure that you cover all the topics that you intend to, and that you pay attention to all of your chosen social medial platforms, consider creating an editorial calendar. Try using an Excel spreadsheet to plan out and outline what, when and where you'll be posting. Try using a social media management and scheduling application such as Hootsuite to schedule posts to social media sites in advance.

5. Track Your Progress

Measure your social media results based on the objectives you set. Check your each social media site's analytics such as click throughs (number of people who took action on your post) and click through rates (percentage of people who click on your offer out of all the people who saw it),

Make it easier to track your results by including a call to action in each campaign or on each platform. Use a unique promotion code or develop targeted landing pages.

In today’s connected world, where customers research purchases online and seek recommendations from friends and family, it is in the best interest of most small businesses to not only have a social media presence but an organized plan to get results.

Sources: Social Media Examiner and Investopedia/Jean Folger

Branding: Identify and Differentiate Your Small Business

Brands aren't just for large companies—they can make small businesses stand out from the crowd. Understand the components of your brand and how to use them effectively in your marketing and communications.

According to marketing guru Seth Godin, “A brand is a set of expectations, memories, stories and relationships that together, account for a consumer's decision to choose one service over another.“

Effective branding will clearly deliver your message, confirm your credibility, connect to your target market and motivate your buyer.

 
What makes up a brand?

A brand is made up of a logo, name, message and positioning.  A brand is often called a business’ “identity”, but branding is really the personification of the core business  and its values, not only what it looks like. When customers connect with you it’s because they share the same values and beliefs that your brand projects.

Successful brands and businesses must be relevant to consumers, unique in relation to the competition and credible. Effective branding leads to higher sales and better differentiation from your competition.    

Tips for Building Your Brand

1.    Define Your Brand

Think about the products or services your business offers, pinpoint the space in the market it occupies and the emotional and rational needs of your potential customers. Your brand character should connect with your target market and differentiate your business. 

2.    Professionally Designed Logo

A robust, professionally designed logo can be the foundation of your brand and the lasting visual depiction of your firm. A good graphic designer can interpret your brand's strategy and create a unique, professional look for your business.  Your brand should emphasize your key differentiators and help you communicate, in a visual image, what sets you apart.

3.    Be Unique

Your brand should be distinct from your competitors, with its own personality and unique characteristics. Consider hiring an experienced graphic designer who can help you create a distinctive, professional look for your business.  

4.    Positioning

Positioning is the conceptual place you want to own in the target customer’s mind. It is one of the most important elements of branding. Try to establish yourself in a specific place within the hearts and minds of your potential customers. Look carefully at the positioning of your competition.

5.    Strong Tag Line and Messaging

The corporate tag line is an often overlooked and under-appreciated part of a brand’s marketing message. A strong tag line should be around three to six words that really highlight the core product or service and benefit your business provides in some way that sticks in a customer's mind.

Common Branding Mistakes

1.     Not Identifying with Your Target Audience

Know your target well and be sure your brand can easily connect with and attract them.

2.     Inconsistency

Managing your brand is vital. Make sure everything is consistent, from the fonts and colors to your messaging. Don’t let your prospects become confused about who you are and what you offer.

Incorporate your brand into your marketing consistently. Make sure that no matter where your business is seen (web site, brochure, ads, emails, product packaging, social media, etc.) your customers and prospect experiences the same, high-quality branding. Establishing a constant, recognizable brand for your business is crucial to capturing and keeping clients. 

Facebook 2015 Mistakes to Avoid

Last month, I blogged about Mari Smith's Facebook 2015 webinar which revealed predictions for trends on Pages. This post will cover Mari's recommended mistakes to avoid on Facebook in the coming year.

Don't make these Facebook errors:

1.  Posts are all the same

Vary your posts to keep your audience interested! Try a combination of videos, links, images, funny quotes, relevant news and quirky news that all work toward your social media goals.

2.  Not responding to fan comments

When fans and followers comment or ask a questions, it's important to respond promptly. Monitor your account often so you can reply or take action as needed.

3.  Advertising to existing customers

When promoting an event or product/service, be sure to filter out attendees or clients. This is an advanced advertising feature that's worth learning.

4.  Ad frequency overdone

Don't run the risk of having people "unfollow" your page! Avoid having your ad shown more than 1-2 times to the same audience. Check your frequency report to see how many times your ad was shown to avoid over exposure.

5.  Not integrating Facebook with other channels

While you probably have a Facebook icon on your web site that links to your Facebook Page, have you considered embedding a 'Like Box' so visitors can click and Like right from your Page? Drive your email lists and other social media network followers to your Facebook Page and vice versa.

6.  Quitting Facebook

Keeping up with the myriad of Facebook changes can be frustrating but don't give up on the platform. While its organic reach has dwindled, Facebook does offer an inexpensive advertising entry point that can be used to find new prospects and customers for your business.

As always, if you need assistance with your Facebook or other social media, please give me a shout!