Excerpt of Forbes – YEC COUNCIL POST
Skillful digital marketing can influence opinion leaders, politicians and the general public to push for changes that’ll benefit your nonprofit’s cause. Many discussions on social issues and awareness are held online. Therefore, it’s worth putting your efforts toward establishing a powerful digital marketing strategy to find people who’ll connect with your story.
Digital marketing will help you focus on activities that help with:
Convincing people to give their money and time without the promise of any tangible return is not a walk in the park. However, it can be achieved by being deliberate with your messaging online and by targeting the right audience. No matter your geographic location, you’ll find that the following tips provide you with cost-effective solutions and measurable results.
A robust online presence means being noticeable and memorable on online channels. Investing in a number of online channels brings you closer to more people who may be interested in helping you champion your cause in one way or another.
Some examples include:
Keeping your online pages engaging and active will give you an edge. You can also integrate the channels using backlinks so that they work together for even more exposure and interaction.
Most social media platforms have a free option and a paid option that can increase your visibility and engagement.
The list below shows how you can use paid options to boost your online presence.
The beauty of digital marketing is that it levels the playing field for well-established organizations and beginners or newcomers. You can benefit from this effect by creating quality content on a regular basis. This will help you build authority and allow people to familiarize themselves with your cause.
Expert Tip: Do not underestimate the power of any social media platform. Regardless of the platform, there’s likely to be a user who’ll resonate with your cause.
To improve the quality of your leads and the conversion rate, you must invest in software that automates repetitive marketing operations.
Marketing automation tools can help with the following marketing operations:
Investing in marketing automation helps the essential personnel speed up their daily operations, allowing them to focus on other important tasks.
Emotions drive action. Therefore, your messaging needs to be personalized and target particular individuals. This means that the content you put out must be relatable. Choose stories that involve real people and the impact your organization has had on their lives.
Whether you’re tackling mental health issues or rebuilding homes after a natural disaster, the key is to show how real lives were affected by your efforts. People will be more likely to want to work with you.
Depending on the platform, you can tailor your message to appeal to the demographic you’re targeting. You’ll get an idea of what works best on which platform by keeping track of your engagement and the results derived from each kind of interaction.
One big mistake that nonprofits and charities make is having a donation page with too many requirements and too much information.
A successful donation page:
Remember to assure donors that their card details are safe. Including an optional share button will allow donors to post on social media that they’ve supported your cause.
Finally, always remember to send a personalized thank you message to every person who donates. Appreciate their contribution and keep them updated on the progress of your work. This keeps you connected and more likely than not, they’ll donate again.
Expert Tip: Avoid distractions and pop-ups on the donation page. It’ll keep the donor’s attention focused on the donation button.
Excerpt of Forbes – Mike Kappel Contributor
Marketing is important to every business’s survival. As a small business owner, you probably have a small business marketing strategy. But, marketing is always changing with new tactics.
As marketing evolves, shouldn’t your small business marketing strategies change, too? Learning how to improve marketing for your organization can only benefit your business’s bottom line.
If your marketing strategies for small business never change, they can go stale. Your competitors will find better ways to market, and your customers will get tired of you. You must follow marketing trends to stay fresh with your customers.
While your basic marketing plan might work for your business, there are things you can do to improve. Find out how to improve marketing for your small business.
When searching for ways to improve your marketing, look to your competitors. Find out what they are doing to attract customers. If you’re the only company in your industry still using cold calling techniques and with little return, it’s time to learn from the other players in the game. Their tactics might work for you, especially since you are trying to attract the same customers.
For example, if you see that your competitors regularly run ads on Facebook, you might consider doing the same. The regular Facebook ads might indicate that your competitors see success from running the ads. You might experience similar success with your ads and cause some of your competitors’ customers to come to you.
Before people buy something, they often look for reviews that validate their purchase. People want to know that they’re spending money on quality. And, they want to know if what you have to offer is better than what your competitors have to offer.
You can attract more customers by getting reviews from people who have already purchased from you.
You can put your reviews in multiple places, so potential customers are sure to see them. You can add reviews to your website. You might have a dedicated testimonials page, or you might let customers review your products. Either way, customer reviews are a critical component of what makes a website effective.
You can have customers leave reviews on social media. For example, customers can leave reviews on your business’s Facebook page. Customers can also leave reviews on dedicated review sites.
Ask your customers to leave reviews. You can prompt them with an email or a social media post. If you talk to customers in person, ask them to write a review. You can even direct customers to the locations where you want them to leave reviews.
You probably already know that social media marketing is important for small businesses. But, simply having accounts isn’t enough. There are always new social media marketing tips for small business that can improve your presence on social platforms.
First, keep your account information updated and accurate. If something about your business changes, your social media profile should change, too. Make sure your website, address, hours, logo, and pictures are all current.
Second, post fresh content. You must regularly post new content on your social media pages. Don’t create an account and then forget about it. Frequent posts keep you in front of customers’ faces. Post about new products and sales, and show your followers what you and your business are up to.
Whether you have a storefront or a home-based business, it’s important for potential customers to get to know you and your business. They need to see you. Sometimes, that means you have to go out to where your customers are instead of waiting for them to come to you.
Develop your local marketing strategies by going out to local events. If you can, get a booth or table at events. What events you attend will depend on your product or service. You might go to flea markets, farmer’s markets, local festivals and fairs, and special interest events. For example, if you sell homemade soaps, you might attend an expo for creators of homemade goods.
When you attend events, you can bring items to sell and information about your business. Even if someone doesn’t buy something from you, offer them a business card, brochure, or other information about your business so they are reminded of your business later.
You can also hold a contest and have people sign up for your emails. You should find a way to nurture your leads and remain in front of them after the event ends.
You can improve your small business marketing by positioning yourself as a local expert. Becoming an expert is one of the long-term marketing tactics for small business, but can provide a big payoff.
Find local interest group meetings that fit in with your business’s brand. Attend them to network, find customers, and show off your expertise.
You can offer yourself as a speaker at local events and meetings. You might also do demonstrations. Leverage the networking benefits of joining a chamber of commerce. Also, talk to libraries and other local organizations to find out how you can get involved.
Talk to local journalists. Instead of trying to get reporters to write articles about your business, you can offer yourself as an expert for other stories. Create a relationship so journalists will come to you when they need to interview someone in your niche. Ask the reporter to mention your business when they quote you in the article.
Excerpt of Forbes – Michael Georgiou, Forbes Councils Member
Co-Founder at Imaginovation, overseeing the company’s global creative and strategic marketing, branding and advertising initiatives.
In today’s digital world where the internet is overflowing with information, choices and intense competition, what really makes a brand stand out?
Is it an excellent and unique product or service? Is it a brand’s visibility? I’d say it’s the brand’s authenticity. Having a quality product is, no doubt, essential for a brand, but it’s not enough.
The modern customer is smart, tech-savvy and research-oriented. Today, consumers can observe you, even when the spotlight is off. In my experience, what they really crave is a genuine, credible, trustworthy and authentic experience in this hyper-connected virtual world.
But how can you build an authentic brand experience? And why is it so important to winning more customers?
An authentic brand is one that decides to be transparent and consistent in its messaging and branding initiatives. It has business values it remains true to, and most essentially, it is honest.
Do you know what can happen when customers do not trust a brand — when they do not find a brand authentic? They often start looking for other brands they can trust.
Your brand’s authenticity has never been more relevant. According to recent Stackla data (via SocialMediaToday), 90% of customers mentioned authenticity as an important factor in deciding which brands they like and support.
There are many reasons why I believe brand authenticity is crucial for winning customers.
Read more:
Excerpt from Fast Company – By Dan Osusky
As the world’s governments continue to balk at taking the necessary aggressive action, more and more companies are announcing what appear to be bold climate commitments, stepping up to take action where countries are not.
But while more than 3,000 businesses have made commitments within initiatives of the UNFCCC’s Race to Zero campaign, that’s a drop in the bucket. Only 42.8% of Russell 1000 companies have disclosed a commitment to reducing emissions, with only about 26% having more rigorous commitments including Net Zero by 2050 or an approved science based target. You might conclude that we need more climate commitments.
(…)
How to bridge the gap between these perspectives? More action is necessary, and commitments are one way to do that, but rather than focus on the commitments themselves, let’s focus on accountability to the commitments.
Accountability can ensure that the commitments being made are meaningful: ambitious and aligned with the science on timelines, including in their scope the things that matter (like all emissions from a product’s supply chain and use, and the greenhouse gases beyond carbon), and the methods to achieve them (i.e. direct reductions, removals, offsets, and so on). It also ensures that the commitments are actually upheld—not only by the “end date” of the commitment, but in regular increments that demonstrate that the end goal is actually feasible and on track.
Where commitments are valuable are as a means to enable accountability. Once a commitment is made, that commitment can be scrutinized and evaluated. It’s not all negative: the right commitments can be applauded and praised for positive reinforcement. When necessary, they can be criticized and condemned. But once a commitment is made, transparency needs to follow. Lack of transparency can itself be criticized, and when we have transparency, it’s possible to ensure that companies are living up to their commitments on a regular basis and following through with the proportionate level of action and achievement of results towards their end goal.
Read the full article: https://www.fastcompany.com/90696664/corporate-climate-commitments-dont-mean-anything-without-accountability
Generating leads is the most important part of any business. The ability to market an organization’s services to the right target demographics in a successful way is a skill that takes a lot of time to master. Lead generation makes or breaks a company – making it especially integral at the onset of an entity’s operations. Lead generation is among the top marketing priority for marketers. [1].
Leads qualify based on the interest of potential costumers [2]. For example, a marketing-qualified lead of a contact expresses interest but the client is not yet ready to discuss sales. A sales-qualified lead inquires about the business’ product or service ready to buy. While a product or service-qualified lead defines a returning costumer to engage again in the business’ service or product. Finding and developing these leads require a good marketing and communication strategy that successfully leverages a business’ activities [3].
This means identifying what makes the business different from its competitors and emphasizing how their products and services are the superior option. However, markets have become more competitive and consumers more aware of their choices than ever. As such, purpose-led organizations that seek to improve their communities and promote change are favoured by a majority of consumers [4, 5]. For example, a company with a sustainable business model creating environmental and social benefits on top of its products and services sets itself apart from competition [6].
Building leads require investing time in a marketing strategy that highlights the business’ strengths and direction the organization wants to go. This includes to identify the client journey, the target audience and their key concerns while creating content relevant tailored to their public. This means actively building an online presence through relevant content by publishing articles on blogs, engaging in social media while creating content for leads – [1-3]. The organisation becomes a thought leader in its domain.
When carrying out engagement activities, having a Call to Action (CTA) is especially important. A CTA is a prompt for leads to get into contact or purchase a good or service and helps building the company’s customer base. Cultivating leads and providing good service pre, peri and post sales ensures word-of-mouth promotion and create a positive brand image that emphasises a business and generates more leads [1-3]. How are you generating leads and grow your business?
[1] HubSpot State of Marketing 2021
[2] Lindsay Kolowich Cox, 2021 “Lead Generation: A Beginner’s Guide to Generating Business Leads the Inbound Way”, Hubspot.
[3] Robyn Kyberd, 2020, “The Ultimate Guide to Lead Generation for Sustainable Business Growth”, Medium.
[4] Deloitte, 2021 “The Deloitte Global 2021 Millennial and Gen Z Survey”, Deloitte Touche Tohmatsu Limited.
[5] Southern Cross University, 2019, “Going Green”, Southern Cross University.
[6] Vincent Diringer, 2022, “The Importance of Sustainable Business Models”, LEAD-WiSE.
Excerpt from McKinsey – By Marco Albani and Kimberly Henderson
Companies are increasingly expected to join with other organizations—both public and private—to address social and environmental problems. Here are seven ways to make such alliances successful.
Business is being asked to do more than ever to solve social and environmental problems. As a result, a growing number of leading companies are taking the challenge of sustainability seriously, not only to reduce their environmental footprint and bolster their reputations but also to improve operations and financial performance.
Many ecosystem challenges cross jurisdictional boundaries and require systemic changes beyond the capabilities of individual companies or even of an industry. In these cases, the best approach for business can be to partner up—with governments, investors, local communities, nongovernmental organizations (NGOs), and other companies. Think of these partnerships as distinctive and complicated joint ventures, often with multiple parties.
Such collaborations often go through phases—good, bad, and sometimes ugly, particularly in the early days. The Marine Stewardship Council (MSC), a partnership that sets standards for the fishing industry, struggled in its first few years with high staff turnover and unstable funding. In the past decade, however, it has become a force. Its certification standards cover 10 percent of the global seafood harvest, and almost a quarter of global shoppers recognize the MSC label. This covers more than 20,000 products sold in over 100 countries.
To understand how to make these collaborations work, we interviewed dozens of business, government, and NGO leaders. From this research, we identified seven essential principles of success.
Read the full article: https://www.mckinsey.com/business-functions/sustainability/our-insights/creating-partnerships-for-sustainability
Excerpt of an article by Hubspot written by Allie Decker
Not a process, method, or technique. Storytelling is described as an art … the “art” of storytelling.
And — like art — it requires creativity, vision, skill, and practice. Storytelling isn’t something you can grasp in one sitting, after one course. It’s a trial-and-error process of mastery.
Sounds like a lot of work, right? It is, and rightfully so because storytelling has become a crucial component of the most successful marketing campaigns. It sets apart vibrant brands from simple businesses and loyal consumers from one-time, stop-in shoppers.
It’s also the heart of inbound marketing.
Storytelling is an incredibly valuable tool for you to add to your proverbial marketing tool belt. That’s why we’ve compiled this guide, to help you discover and master storytelling and weave gorgeous, compelling tales for your audience.
Pick up your pen, and let’s dive in.
Storytelling is an art form as old as time and has a place in every culture and society. Why? Because stories are a universal language that everyone — regardless of dialect, hometown, or heritage — can understand. Stories stimulate imagination and passion and create a sense of community among listeners and tellers alike.
Telling a story is like painting a picture with words. While everyone can tell a story, certain people fine-tune their storytelling skills and become a storyteller on behalf of their organization, brand, or business. You might’ve heard of these folks — we typically refer to them as marketers, content writers, or PR professionals.
Every member of an organization can tell a story. But before we get into the how, let’s talk about why we tell stories — as a society, culture, and economy.
There are a variety of reasons to tell stories — to sell, entertain, educate or brag. We’ll talk about that below. Right now, I want to discuss why we choose storytelling over, say, a data-driven powerpoint or bulleted list. Why are stories our go-to way of sharing, explaining, and selling information?
Here’s why.
We’ve all experienced confusion when trying to understand a new idea. Stories provide a way around that. Think about times when stories have helped you better understand a concept … perhaps a teacher used a real-life example to explain a math problem, a preacher illustrated a situation during a sermon, or a speaker used a case study to convey complex data.
Stories help solidify abstract concepts and simplify complex messages. Taking a lofty, non-tangible concept and relating it using concrete ideas is one of the biggest strengths of storytelling in business.
Take Apple, for example. Computers and smartphones are a pretty complicated topic to describe to your typical consumer. Using real-life stories, they’ve been able to describe exactly how their products benefit users … instead of relying on technical jargon that very few customers would understand.
Like I said above, stories are a universal language of sorts. We all understand the story of the hero, of the underdog, or of heartbreak. We all process emotions and can share feelings of elation, hope, despair, and anger. Sharing in a story gives even the most diverse people a sense of commonality and community.
In a world divided by a multitude of things, stories bring people together and create a sense of community. Despite our language, religion, political preferences, or ethnicity, stories connect us through the way we feel and respond to them … Stories make us human.
TOMS is a great example of this. By sharing stories of both customers and the people they serve through customer purchases, TOMS has effectively created a movement that has not only increased sales but also built a community.
Stories make us human, and the same goes for brands. When brands get transparent and authentic, it brings them down-to-earth and helps consumers connect with them and the people behind them.
Tapping into people’s emotions and baring both the good and bad is how stories inspire and motivate … and eventually, drive action. Stories also foster brand loyalty. Creating a narrative around your brand or product not only humanizes it but also inherently markets your business.
Few brands use inspiration as a selling tactic, but ModCloth does it well. By sharing the real story of their founder, ModCloth not only makes the brand relatable and worth purchasing, but it also inspires other founders and business owners.
Words like “good” and “bad” are relative to user opinion. But there are a few non-negotiable components that make for a great storytelling experience, for both the reader and teller.
Good stories are …
According to HubSpot Academy’s free Power of Storytelling course, there are three components that make up a good story — regardless of the story you’re trying to tell.
Now that you know what your story should contain, let’s talk about how to craft your story.
We’ve confirmed storytelling is an art. Like art, storytelling requires creativity, vision, and skill. It also requires practice. Enter: The storytelling process.
Painters, sculptors, sketch artists, and potters all follow their own creative process when producing their art. It helps them know where to start, how to develop their vision, and how to perfect their practice over time. The same goes for storytelling … especially for businesses writing stories.
Why is this process important? Because, as an organization or brand, you likely have a ton of facts, figures, and messages to get across in one succinct story. How do you know where to begin? Well, start with the first step. You’ll know where to go (and how to get there) after that.
Who wants to hear your story? Who will benefit and respond the strongest? In order to create a compelling story, you need to understand your readers and who will respond and take action.
Before you put a pen to paper (or cursor to word processor), do some research on your target market and define your buyer persona(s). This process will get you acquainted with who might be reading, viewing, or listening to your story. It will also provide crucial direction for the next few steps as you build out the foundation of your story.
Whether your story is one page or twenty, ten minutes or sixty, it should have a core message. Like the foundation of a home, it must be established before moving forward.
Is your story selling a product or raising funds? Explaining a service or advocating for an issue? What is the point of your story? To help define this, try to summarize your story in six to ten words. If you can’t do that, you don’t have a core message.
Not all stories are created equal. To determine what kind of story you’re telling, figure out how you want your audience to feel or react as they read.
This will help you determine how you’re going to weave your story and what objective you’re pursuing. If your objective is to …
Your objective and call-to-action (CTA) are similar, but your CTA will establish the action you’d like your audience to take after reading.
What exactly do you want your readers to do after reading? Do you want them to donate money, subscribe to a newsletter, take a course, or buy a product? Outline this alongside your objective to make sure they line up.
For example, if your objective is to foster community or collaboration, your CTA might be to “Tap the share button below.”
Stories can take many shapes and forms. Some stories are read, some are watched, and others are listened to. Your chosen story medium depends on your type of story as well as resources, like time and money.
Here are the different ways you can tell your story.
Now it’s time to put pen to paper and start crafting your story.
With your core message, audience objective, and call-to-action already established, this step is simply about adding detail and creative flair to your story. Read more about our storytelling formula to help you with this step.
Don’t forget to share and promote your story! Like with any piece of content, creating it is only half the battle — sharing it is the other.
Depending on your chosen medium, you should definitely share your story on social media and email. In addition, written stories can be promoted on your blog, Medium, or through guest posting on other publications. Digital stories can be shared on YouTube and Vimeo. While spoken stories are best conveyed in person, consider recording a live performance to share later.
The more places you share your story, the more engagement you can expect from your audience.
Read all: https://blog.hubspot.com/marketing/storytelling
Today’s society is overwhelmed with news, stories and advertisement. Audiences have limited time and are picky when it comes to digesting content.
Brand journalism helps to tell your organizational stories around your brand purpose. Ideally, you communicate in your content about your values, your mission, your company stories and reflections. When conveying these stories, you highlight your purpose, your beliefs and create momentum. You connect with your audience; you inspire and guide your reader’s reflection.
Brand journalism is a mix of traditional journalism, marketing and public relations to create awareness through stories and content associated with your organization. It is not selling, but telling authentic, purpose-driven stories which add unique value to your customer.
Generating leads is the most important part of any business. The ability to market an organization’s services to the right target demographics in a successful way is a skill that takes a lot of time to master. The process of lead generation makes or breaks a company, which makes it essential and the core of business operations. Lead generation is among the top marketing priority for marketers. [1].
Leads qualify based on the interest of potential customers [2]. For example, a marketing-qualified lead of a potential consumer expresses interest but the client is not yet ready to discuss sales. A sales-qualified lead inquires about the business’ product or service ready to buy. While a product or service-qualified lead defines a returning customer to engage again in the business’ service or product. Finding and developing these leads require a good marketing and communication strategy that successfully leverages a business’ activities [3].
Potential customers are on a journey to identify what makes the business different from its competitors, wondering whether the product or service meets their needs and values before making the decision to buy or engage. Markets have become more competitive, the choices are vaste and consumers are more aware. As such, purpose-led organizations that seek to add value beyond making a profit and promote change are favoured by a majority of consumers [4, 5]. Being sustainable is no longer a nice-to-have, it is a business approach and necessity for innovation. Businesses with a sustainable business model creating environmental and social benefits on top of their services set themselves apart from competition [6] and have a true chance to reinvent capitalism.
Building leads require investing time in a marketing strategy that highlights the business’ strengths and direction the organization wants to go. This includes identifying the client journey, the target audience and their key concerns while creating relevant content tailored to their public. This means building an online presence through relevant content by publishing articles on blogs, engaging in social media while creating content to nurture lead generation [1-3]. Ultimately, the organisation shares its thought leadership and enhances its brand.
When carrying out engagement activities, having a Call to Action (CTA) is especially important. A CTA is a prompt for leads to connect with or purchase a good or service and helps build the company’s customer base. Cultivating leads and providing good service pre, peri and post-sales ensure word-of-mouth promotion and create a positive brand image that emphasises a business. At last, leads come in and become more and more sales-qualified. [1-3]. How are you generating leads and grow your business?
[1] HubSpot State of Marketing 2021
[2] Lindsay Kolowich Cox, 2021 “Lead Generation: A Beginner’s Guide to Generating Business Leads the Inbound Way”, Hubspot.
[3] Robyn Kyberd, 2020, “The Ultimate Guide to Lead Generation for Sustainable Business Growth”, Medium.
[4] Deloitte, 2021 “The Deloitte Global 2021 Millennial and Gen Z Survey”, Deloitte Touche Tohmatsu Limited.
[5] Southern Cross University, 2019, “Going Green”, Southern Cross University.
[6] Vincent Diringer, 2022, “The Importance of Sustainable Business Models”, LEAD-WiSE.