A fundamental decision nonprofit marketers must make when developing a marketing communications strategy is whether to push, pull or both. A push strategy relies on outbound marketing and means you are going to interrupt people and buy (advertising), beg (media and public relations) or bug (email marketing, direct mail, telemarketing) them for attention. A pull strategy relies on inbound marketing and means you are going to try and earn people's attention by developing great content and amplifying that content with social marketing and making it easy to find out about your cause through search engine optimization.

1. Rethinking
Online Marketing
Presented by:
Jono Smith
October 24, 2010
#Convio10
NO BOUNDARIES

3. Session Objective & Outcome
• SESSION OBJECTIVE:
– Strengthen your effectiveness in online marketing
• SESSION OUTCOME:
– A few good ideas to test when you get back to the office
• SESSION AGENDA:
– Inbound & content marketing defined
– Inbound & content marketing in 5 steps
– Content marketing examples
• INTENDED AUDIENCE:
– Beginner to intermediate
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4. Who‘s here?
Executive Management
Unit Directors/Managers
Staff
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5. Inbound, Outbound, or both?
Outbound: Interrupt
• Buy: Advertising
• Beg: Public Relations
• Bug: Telemarketing, Inbound: Earn
Direct Mail • Develop great content
(podcasts, white papers,
webinars)
• Amplify content with social
media (blogging & RSS
syndication)
• SEO (Make it easier for
people to find our content
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6. Downturn Strategy: Maximize Net Revenue
Before you spend another dollar on your existing online
marketing programs, I would ask three questions:
1. Does it increase donations?
2. Does it boost net revenue?
3. Does it protect an existing revenue stream?
Some nonprofits don't measure net, they measure gross. And so
they may be thinking they're producing a lot of money, but
they're actually losing money.
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7. So how do I become an
inbound marketer?
Time out. First things first.
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8. 10-Point Website Check-Up
1. Is your URL guessable?
2. Do your publish your URL on every
communication, both online and offline?
3. Do you use website design strategically?
4. Do you provide relevant content that tells your story through
words, pictures, videos, or podcasts?
5. Can you collect email addresses on every page of your website?
6. Do you use social, email & search marketing to drive traffic back
to your website?
7. Is your Donate Now button above the fold?
8. Is your donation page optimized?
9. Can people find your website in search engines?
10. Do you have your social icons on every page of your website?

9. Why is this important?
• Usability is the ‗donation killer‘
• Turn-off factors:
– 20% of people can‘t find where to donate
– 40% don‘t donate because of poor design, cluttered
pages and unintuitive layouts.
– 40% can‘t find the information they need or find the
website content unclear.

10. Why is this important?
• On average, over 45% of
online giving is during December.
• In December, nearly half of the donations for the
month are in the last 6 days, when each day
Convio is processing more than $1 million in
donations.
• Average donation is 40% higher in December
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11. So how do I become an
inbound marketer?
Marketing needs to become a
content creation engine.
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12. Content Marketing Strategy
• Inbound Marketing is a subset of Content Marketing
• Content marketing is the art of understanding exactly
what your target audience wants to know about your
mission and delivering it to them in a relevant and
compelling way to grow our business.
– Develop great content
– Make the content easy to find
– Provide opportunities for engagement
– Capture prospects, cultivate prospects & convert prospects
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13. Measure Everything
Website Google Monthly Inbound
Grade Indexed Unique Links
Pages Visitors
Susan G. Komen 99 3,010 201,281 180,230
National Breast 98 20,100 38,097 51,161
Cancer Foundation
Data from website.grader.com and compete.com
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14. Ok, you have committed to Twitter…
So what are you going to Tweet about?
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15. Get Into the Content Mindset
• Make emails into blog
posts
• Turn forum posts into
blog posts
• Shoot videos at events
• Interview supporters for
your blog
• Do podcasts with your
program & executive staff
• Share lessons you learn
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16. Content Marketing Strategy
There are four components to a content marketing strategy:
1. A relevant issue of interest to your target audience
– i.e., breast cancer, microfinance, conservation, etc.
2. A strong point of view
– We are the only nonprofit advocating for a better way to create
neighborhoods nationwide by promoting conservation subdivisions
3. Research that supports the point of view
– Conservation subdivisions preserve 50% - 70% or more of the buildable
land, plus unbuildable wetlands, steep slopes and floodplains.
4. Case examples that validate the issue
– The same number of homes can be built as allowed in conventional "cookie-
cutter" subdivisions.
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17. Here’s the problem.
It is not enough simply to
identify a global or regional
issue that your constituents
are facing and develop
content that explains it.
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18. What Makes You Different?
• You need to take a strong point of view on why it is an
issue, what is going to happen, and how to deal with the
ramifications.
• Your point of view should be differentiated from
competitors' views, original, and hopefully counter-
intuitive.
• Your online value proposition represents the
principal means by which to differentiate yourselves
against the online competition.
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19. Crafting Your Online Value Proposition
• Mission Statement: Our mission describes what we do. It is
factual, not aspirational—we can substantiate it every day.
– Our mission is to empower people to work their way out of
chronic poverty, transforming their lives, their children’s
futures and their communities.
• Vision Statement: Our vision describes our ultimate goal.
– Our vision is a world in which all people have the opportunity
to provide for their families and build a fulfilling life.
• Value Statement: Our value proposition is an internal
expression of our most compelling differentiator.
– We are the only nonprofit providing lending, savings,
insurance and training to emerging entrepreneurs in more than
20 countries who want to work their way out of chronic poverty.
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20. What makes you the only?
• Complete this sentence:
– My nonprofit is the only ________ that __________.
• For example:
– Malaria No More is the only nonprofit applying business methods
to the malaria fight.
– LandChoices is the only Michigan land protection organization
creating nature neighborhoods.
– Baltimore Furniture is the only furniture dealership that sells
sustainably manufactured furniture.
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21. What‘s your ―onliness?‖
• If you can‘t say why your nonprofit is both different and
compelling in a few words, don‘t fix your statement... fix
your nonprofit.
• Once you‘ve defined your nonprofit‘s onliness, you‘ve
got a decisional filter for all your online marketing
decisions.
• By checking back against your onliness statement, you
can quickly see whether any new marketing campaign or
initiative will help or hurt, focus or unfocus, different or
me-too.
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22. NO BOUNDARIES
Content & Inbound Marketing
in 5 Steps

23. #1 The Goal
Focus on a single focused goal to provide direction,
motivation, and operational guidance A focused goal
comprises five elements:
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24. #1 The Goal
Align Content Marketing with your 2011 Strategic Plan
1. Examine your 2011 goals
2. Pick one where content
marketing can have an impact
3. Focus on content & relationships,
not tactics & technology
4. Adopt Google‘s mantra:
―Fail fast, fail smart.‖
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25. #1 The Goal
• Listen to your community
• Help your constituents connect with each other
• Influence event participation
• Build thought leadership
• Improve constituent relationships
• Improve recruiting
• Improve search engine rankings
• Influence fundraising
• Increase media coverage
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26. #1 The Goal
Finish the sentence:
―We will know our inbound marketing efforts are worth
further investment if…‖
• Facebook fans become donors.
• Twitter followers become volunteers.
• LinkedIn followers become event participants.
• Blog readers share our content.
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27. #2 Research Your Audience
Think of donors like readers.
What do they need to know to
be happy and successful?
What are their pain points?
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28. #2 Research Your Audience
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29. #2 Research Your Audience
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30. #2 Research Your Audience
Demographics Psychographics
e.g. Where are moms online? e.g. Who are moms influenced by?
Source: ―Digital Mom,‖ RazorFish and CafeMom, 2009
http://digitalmom.razorfish.com/publication/?m=4248&l=1
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31. #3 Understand the Value
What‘s the value of a fan or follower?
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32. #3 Understand the Value
Engagement & Reach Earned Media
•Offline media mentions
•Page Impressions, Visits, Unique Visitors
•Online media mentions
•Time Spent, Pages per visitor
•Emails opened, click-throughs
•Videos viewed, audio plays Search Visibility
•Higher search results
•Greater search results “share”
Word of Mouth •3rd party results
•Number of Mentions, Posts, Comments
•Recommendations Research
•Mentions-per-user
•Send This To A Friend •Customer/stakeholder feedback
•Inbound links •Product sampling
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33. #4 Choose the Tactics
―We should blog & Tweet!‖
1. Are you listening to your online community?
2. Do you have something unique to say?
3. Are you willing and able to say it?
4. Are you willing to be challenged and criticized?
5. Are you willing and able to dedicate the resources to
succeed?
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34. #5 Develop a Content Calendar
• Every good publication
has an editorial calendar.
• The calendar-planning
exercise generates a
wealth of ideas.
• Since some of the
content we offer as
marketers is ―evergreen‖
(i.e., the topics will be as
relevant next year as
they are today), there‘s
no reason not to have a
plan for content.
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35. NO BOUNDARIES
Case Study
How Content & Inbound Marketing Strategies
Fueled the Growth of Fundraising123.org

36. Case Study
Fundraising123.org
• The mission of the
Network for Good
Learning Center is
simple: to provide
nonprofits with free
access to the best
available online
fundraising and nonprofit
marketing training and
resources.
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37. Humanistic
We started by researching our audience and developing personas
• Offline Ozzie: Ozzie is deputy director for a small, child services nonprofit that has a one-
page web site that doesn‘t really work, and his organization has done so little effective
online marketing that existing efforts have not yielded any real results.
• Technophobic Tina: Tina works for a small- to medium-sized nonprofit that is eager to raise
money online, and she‘s in charge of doing that as a development officer or marketing
director. But she‘s totally intimidated by technology.
• Overthinking Alex: Alex is executive director of a smallish nonprofit that has a modest web
site, but he‘s got big dreams. He‘s ready to get a donation processing tool and an email
tool.
• Corner-cutting Candace: Candace is an accidental techie at a small- to medium-sized
nonprofit with a web site with big potential. She is somewhat tech-savvy but also
overwhelmed.
• Savvy Samantha: Samantha is a web developer working full time at a medium-sized
nonprofit that is growing fast. She‘s quite pleased with the system she‘s created – she has
Basic or maybe even Custom DonateNow, Constant Contact for emailing donors, and an
Excel list of donors.
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38. Actionable, Clear & Happy
• Vision: To make our customers, partners, and partner‘s
customers wildly successful, fundraising and marketing
superheroes.
• Micro goals:
– Capture email addresses and grow our house list
– Gain top 25 placement for our target keywords
– Drive traffic back to the main website
– Build deeper relationships with influencers
• Marco goals:
– Creating awareness of the need to facilitate online giving, building
trust in the brand, and generating revenue through new
subscriptions.
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39. Testable
• Ran a four month test
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40. Lessons Learned
• Avoid the measurement for measurement‘s sake
challenge – know in advance what you‘re measuring and
why.
• Creating a fact-based, predictive culture requires a
willingness to experiment
• Carry out pilots and small-scale experiments before
committing the big bucks
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42. Results
Fundraising123.org (2008-2010)
• 471,000 AUVs
• 1.6 million page views
• 3 mins avg time on site
• 2.1 avg page views
• 21,000 inbound links
• Google Page Rank: 7/10
• Grew house list from 30,000 to 150,000
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43. Results
Fundraising123.org (2008-2010)
• Traffic Sources:
– 46% Referring Sites
• 1) Blog
• 2) Facebook
• 3) Twitter
• 4) StumbleUpon
• 5) Email Marketing
– 29% Direct
– 23% Search Engines
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44. NO BOUNDARIES
Tweets for a Cause
How Twitter generated more than 11,000
website visits and exposure to more than 1.2
million Twitter users for the Atlanta affiliate of
Susan G. Komen for the Cure

45. Campaign Overview
• Goal:
– Generate awareness, registrations and donations for Komen Atlanta
and its upcoming annual Race for the Cure
• Strategy:
– Engage active Atlanta Twitter users to spread the message ―8 Ways
Your Mom, Wife, Sister May Have Breast Cancer‖
• Tactics:
– Landing page with strong call-to-action
– Komen Atlanta notified their individual Twitter followers about the
upcoming initiative.
– A modest PR push targeting local Atlanta media, along with national
breast cancer and charity bloggers complemented the program
launch.
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46. What worked?
• Simple message
• Clear call-to-action
• Strong landing page execution
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48. Measurement
Within 24 hours, TFAC significantly increased awareness for Komen
Atlanta and its mission as measured by the following engagement
metrics:
• More than 300 retweets of the message ―8 Ways Your Mom, Wife,
Sister May Have Breast Cancer‖
• 5,000 total link clicks to the educational landing page including
2,900 link clicks in the first 20 minutes after the initial tweet
• Exposure of Komen Atlanta to 1.2 million twitter users
• 11,000 visits to the Komen Atlanta Web site
• Mentions of Komen Atlanta by targeted power-twitters including
@mashable
• Editorial coverage of Komen Atlanta and TFAC‘s collaboration on
CNBC.com, BreakingTweets.com and other media outlets
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49. Three Final Thoughts…
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50. There is no silver-bullet
marketing tactic. In reality,
you need a combination of
on- and off-line channels
to create awareness and
drive fundraising.
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51. Everyone should stop
doing inbound marketing
until they know what they
want to do with inbound
marketing.
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52. What if your supporters
spread your content to
prospective supporters for
you - essentially becoming
your marketing arm?
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53. Contact Information
Jono Smith
Event 360, Inc.
Washington, DC
773.247.5360 x130
jsmith@event360.com
www.event360.com
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