If any of these outdated beliefs still linger within your organization, then your nonprofit may be suffering both in terms of finances and mission delivery.
It’s time to retire these obsolete practices once and for all:
1) You separate marketing and digital marketing because you think they are different
This is generally indicative of an organization that thinks “digital marketing” is more about mastering tools and platforms (e.g. Facebook) than mastering a long-term engagement strategy to strengthen your organization’s brand and mission.
Symptoms may include:
- Digital initiatives that may appear cutting edge but don’t actually contribute to your organization’s mission or financial bottom line
- An inability to activate online communities to behave in your organization’s interests despite having numerous fans on multiple platforms
Treatment: Certainly, organizations benefit from having a team that excels in online community management and maintains a thorough understanding of social media tools and digital engagement opportunities. That said, it is critical that these team members maintain constant involvement with the broader marketing and public relations leadership so that they may be empowered to integrate a strategy for ongoing engagement that yields returns rather than simply utilizing social media tools for social media’s sake.
2) You identify online donors and you treat them differently than offline donors
A donor is a donor. The means of conveying funds to an organization is irrelevant…it’s like treating a donor differently because they used a check for a gift instead of a credit card. Basic courtesy and “real life” donor cultivation techniques should prevail regardless of how a person chooses to give. A donor who gives online shouldn’t be any less deserving of a personal thank you than a person who gives face-to-face, yet, somehow, the reliance on automated gift acknowledgments remains a practice for many organizations. Similarly, because a donor gives onsite may not mean that the individual does not expect the organization to recognize them when they interact on social media.
Symptoms may include:
- A general lack of donor retention
- An even greater lack of donor retention for those identified by the organization as “online donors”
- Difficulty transitioning donors to the next level of giving
Treatment: Gather information and cultivate “online donors” just as your organization would cultivate “offline donors.” Similarly, if a “real life” donor engages with the organization online, acknowledge them and value their digital endorsement and communication. Treat donors online the same way that you would in person – just because something can be automated online doesn’t mean that it should be! Personalized touch points and cultivating the relationship are still critical practices.
3) You think marketing and fundraising serve independent functions
Marketing no longer serves as simply the megaphone for an organization. Today, marketing often provides critical touch points that serve to create meaning for audiences and connect them to the organization. This isn’t very different than fundraising. A failure to recognize the importance of marketing and fundraising working in concert to achieve an organization’s goals may have negative consequences.
Symptoms may include:
- Inability to identify new, potential donors
- Few donors actively engaging with your organization online
- Difficulty transitioning persons with interest in the organization into meaningful donors
Treatment: From an org chart perspective, marketing and fundraising departments certainly need not be one entity. However, it is critical that these departments (and the organization as a whole) recognize that the path to success in terms of donor identification, member retention, and donor cultivation lies in an intimate, real-time relationship between marketing and fundraising experts. The fundraising team (next-level meaning-makers) needs the input of the marketing team (and their real-time touch-points with audience members) to identify potential donors and aid their cultivation through an engagement funnel. In fact, social media is the new force empowering giving decisions.
4) You think marketing performs a service function for the organization
If you still think that marketing plays a service role within your organization, then it’s time to catch up. The role of this team has evolved from being the one-way voice of the organization (i.e. its mouth) to being its eyes and ears as well. More than ever before, it is the job of the marketing department to know, listen, and build relationships with your constituents. By necessity, successful marketing teams are increasingly expert about your audience.
Symptoms may include:
- Low interest and engagement in initiatives and programs
- Perceived irrelevance of your organization by the market
- Difficulty getting attention from audiences
- General lack of general success of new initiatives
Treatment: Consider the input of the marketing team before moving forward with initiatives instead of demanding that they “market this” (maybe not-so-great idea) after its actualization.
5) Your social media managers operate in a silo
Social media is an every-department job so access to the rest of the organization – especially experts – is critical for creating compelling content. A bad idea: Hiring an outside company to run your social media if you are an organization that builds reputation based upon being “expert” or builds affinity by telling powerful stories that are best communicated with the passion of an insider (which is basically all good stories).
Symptoms may include:
- Several marketing-related messages on social platforms (which generally do not perform well)
- Lack of audience engagement on digital platforms
- Inconsistent social media posting
- Lack of compelling stories that adequately communicate the passion of your nonprofit
- Social media posts that demonstrate mission drift
Treatment: Make sure that folks working within your organization embrace the importance of sharing stories and are open to aiding social media managers in creating compelling content. Also, do your social media yourself or with a partner that has ongoing access to your entire organization. Your stories are your lifeblood.
6) You think the more followers, the better
This one is no surprise by now: The number of social media followers that you have is not necessarily indicative of the strength of your online community. It’s far better to have 1,000 followers with a genuine passion for engaging with your organization and sharing your message, than 100,000 fans that don’t help your organization reach its goals. In fact, having a lot of inactive followers dilutes your community and makes it appear as though you have bad content because not many people are interacting with you, despite your high fan number.
Symptoms may include:
- An inability to activate fans to act in your organization’s interest despite high fan numbers
- Distraction from achieving the organization’s true goals due to fixation on unimportant metrics
- An inability to retain true fans due to superficial content that yields more “likes” than real affinity
Treatment: Quit focusing too heavily on fan count (and certainly do not dilute your community by buying fake fans). Pay attention to metrics that matter, and share content that inspires true evangelism. Instead of “the more followers, the better,” think “the more meaningful engagement related to our mission, the better.” If and when those ambitions cross, then that is great.
7) Similarly, you think your number of website views adequately measures online success
It doesn’t. In fact, data suggest that online audiences are more likely to carry out desired behaviors (like making a donation, buying a ticket if you are a visitor-serving organization, etc.) if they are sent to social media platforms or peer review sites (TripAdvisor, etc.).
Symptoms may include:
- Distraction from actual, meaningful metrics
- Preoccupation with a metric that is not indicative of success
- Directing audiences to platforms that are less likely to result in a desired behavior
Treatment: The role of your website has changed. Consider website views in the greater context of your overall digital engagement strategy. Understand that this number does not show the folks who are engaging with your brand or researching it on other sites.
8) You deny the necessity of brand transparency
This means purposefully leaving your key evangelists out of the loop in regard to big decisions and happenings – it’s always a bad idea. Thanks to the web, we live in a “show and not tell” world and potential constituents make decisions about your brand based upon what you “show.” In sum, transparency is a critical value for successful online communications
Symptoms may include:
- Negative sentiment or reactions from audiences on social media channels
- Audience misunderstanding of or disbelief in an organization’s goals or objectives for a given project
- Lack of trust in organization
- Constituents “opting-out” of involvement with the organization
Treatment: Question someone who tells you to purposefully hide critical information that may aid audiences in understanding your brand or internal thought-processes (whether it is an internal or external person). Times have changed. As is the case in real life, organizations are consistently finding that, indeed, honesty is the best policy.
9) You need an industry example before carrying out an initiative that may help you meet your goals
Web engagement best practices are constantly evolving – and so are the platforms upon which engagement often occurs. This means that – from time to time – your organization may come up with an idea for online engagement that may help your organization better reach its goals…but your idea hasn’t been tried before. Far too many organizations prefer not to invest time and resources in a new opportunity unless there is an extant case study available for analysis and consideration. Invariably, it is the laggard organizations – ever fearful of innovation – who are left behind while admiring others’ bold inventions.
Worse yet, some organizations would seemingly move forward with very bad or detrimental ideas simply because they’ve seen other organizations launch a similar initiative. If your organization is more comfortable copying mediocrity than innovating success, then prepare to soon be irrelevant.
Symptoms may include:
- Lack of original engagement ideas
- Lack of superlative perceptions of your organization among audiences
- Missed opportunities to build affinity and cultivate evangelists
- Execution of initiatives that do not match the goals of an organization
Treatment: Just because an organization carried out an initiative doesn’t mean it was successful or that it is a surefire win for your organization. View the initiatives of others with due scrutiny or admiration and act accordingly with regard to your own organization’s goals and values. Also, if your organization has an idea for a new initiative that hasn’t been done before, perform a SWOT analysis and if the strengths outweigh the weaknesses, consider giving it a shot. You just might end up being an industry leader.
If these old notions still permeate your organization, it’s time to change.
