Dreamforce Conclusion: Marketing in the Google Era

Katya’s note: My colleague Jono, who guest-starred here at the blog earlier this year when I was on a tropical island, is at Salesforce’s Dreamforce meeting out in San Fran. He’s sharing reports hot from the center of relationship management nirvana. Network for Good has been working with Salesforce.com to adapt its database tools to nonprofits. Here’s what he’s heard today.

By Jono Smith

One of the highlights of Dreamforce’s Marketing Track was a session called Marketing in the Google Era. In the spirit of Robin Hood Marketing, here are 6 ways to apply these corporate marketing principles to your nonprofit.

1.    Optimize Your Web Properties

2.    Get Started With Search Marketing

3.    Make Your Message Relevant

4.    Define Your Goals

5.    Measure Everything

6.    Engage Your Community

That concludes my Dreamforce updates. You can visit the Salesforce Marketing Blog for more details on Dreamforce.

 

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Dreamforce III: Know your audience

Katya's note: My colleague Jono, who guest-starred here at the blog earlier this year when I was on a tropical island, is at Salesforce's Dreamforce meeting out in San Fran. He's sharing reports hot from the center of relationship management nirvana. Network for Good has been working with Salesforce.com to adapt its database tools to nonprofits. Here's what he's heard today.

By Jono Smith

Dreamforce is a huge event, and it's full of some great examples of good marketing. Here is one:

Yesterday afternoon, during a break between sessions, I snuck outside to get some sun. A Salesforce employee walked up to me and asked me how I was enjoying the conference, and if there was anything they could be doing better. I kind of laughed to myself at this eager employee, until I looked at his name tag and saw the words "Conference Chair." Tom Wong, Salesforce's Senior Director of Customer Marketing Programs was in the middle of hosting a conference for 7,000 people, and yet he found the time to walk around, introduce himself to the attendees, and ask if there was anything they could be doing better.

What I saw over the next three days of Dreamforce really struck me: every experience I had as an attendee was designed from my perspective, not Salesforce's.  From the little things, like name badges you can actually read from 3 feet away and incredible signage throughout the convention center, to the big things like running a green conference and giving 30 minutes of free consulting to any customer that wanted it. They even had a technique for Powerpoint fatigue: every presenter had 1-3 personal photos on their title page. It made the presentations personal & memorable from the start.

The whole experience reminded me of how many events and conferences I've been to over the years where the focus was more on the host organization than the attendee. I'll never forget being at one conference presentation last year which started 20 minutes late because they were more concerned with recording the audio than whether anyone in the room could hear ok.

So how can you capture some of Salesforce's corporate marketing savvy and apply it to your next nonprofit event: audience, audience, audience. It doesn't take a big budget to let your audience preferences and needs guide your event planning.

Last night, the Salesforce Foundation took all of their nonprofit guests across the bay on a ferry to dinner.  If that event had been tonight, Salesforce would have had a problem: today's wind conditions on the SF bay have grounded all ferries.  What do you want to bet Tom Wong had a backup plan to get everyone to dinner last night in the event of inclement weather?

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Dreamforce II: Search Engine Marketing for Nonprofits

Katya’s note: My colleague Jono is at Salesforce’s Dreamforce meeting out in San Fran. He’s sharing reports hot from the center of relationship management nirvana. Network for Good has been working with Salesforce.com to adapt its database tools to nonprofits. Here’s what he’s heard that can help us! I’m especially fond of this post - read carefully, it can help you.

By Jono Smith

There’s been some great discussion about Internet marketing taking place here at Dreamforce, and particularly about search engine marketing (SEM). In a nutshell, SEM is a way to promote your website by increasing its visibility in search engine results.  Now, I will let you in on a little secret: before coming to this conference, I knew next to nothing about SEM.  And to make matters worse, every time I heard the phrase it made me break out into a sweat—it sounded like the domain of a bunch of Internet whiz kids. Here’s the good news:

1) SEM is common sense
2) If you are a nonprofit, SEM is free, thanks to Google.
3) Getting started with SEM is as easy as 7 steps.

So why should you care about SEM?  Let’s say you are a small AIDS prevention nonprofit in Boise, Idaho.  It’s December 30, and several Boise residents have logged onto Google to search for a charity to donate to so they can get a last minute tax deduction.  These potential donors might do a Google search for “boise aids charity.”  If your nonprofit doesn’t pop-up near the top of the search results, these donors may never find you. So, how can you make sure your organization DOES get to the top?  There are two ways: either organically by designing a website that is search engine friendly, or by paying a search engine to place your ads prominently in their search results.  I am going to focus on paid search in this blog entry, since Google Grants provides free paid placement to 501(c)(3) nonprofits.

Here’s how to get started in 7 steps:

1) Signup for Google Grants: www.google.com/grants
2) Advertise your nonprofit on Google Adwords: Take five minutes to write your first ad. Not sure what to say? CRAM!
3) Develop your keywords: A keyword is the search word or phrase that you “buy” from Google (i.e., boise aids charity). Ask yourself which keywords–word combinations and phrases–you would type into the Google search box to find your organization’s programs and services. Select as many keywords as you like.
4) Still not sure which keywords to select? Go to www.google.com/keywords for suggestions. You can type in the address of your website and Google will even make recommendations on what keywords to use.
5) Target your audience: Through Google AdWords, you can create a variety of groups of ads for different audiences, as well as target your ads to different geographic locations (i.e. Boise) and even languages.
6) Test, test, test: Create two versions of the same ad: one that points to your website, and one that points directly to your donation page. See which does better.
7) Track your results: When people search on Google, your ad is displayed and traffic is driven to your website. But how do you know if anyone is clicking? Google’s dashboards provide an easy way for you to proactively monitor the status of your keywords and their associated ads.

UPDATE 9/24:

Jane Lytel from a wonderful organization called Zero to Three wrote in to suggest two points of clarification about Google Grants. 1) The Google Grants website faq indicates they process all applications within 6 months, although many organizations have waited much longer than this. 2) In addition, Google will only pay for keywords in a grant for up to $1.00. If you want to supplement this, it comes out of your own budget.

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More free marketing calls!

We have another free Nonprofit 911 call coming up in October here at Network for Good.

The topic is Email Fundraising on a Tight Budget and it’s Tuesday, October 2 at 1pm (eastern)
Speaker: Marc Lee, Affinity Resources

Sign up here.
 
On this page, you can also download free transcripts of our last three calls, including:

September Nonprofit 911: Crafting Your Call to Action
 
August Nonprofit 911:Website 101 for Fundraisers

July Nonprofit 911: Cultivating Donors Online

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Live Blogging from Dreamforce

Katya’s note:  My colleague Jono, who guest-starred here at the blog earlier this year when I was on a tropical island, is at Salesforce’s Dreamforce meeting out in San Fran.  He’s going to share some reports hot from the center of relationship management nirvana.  Network for Good has been working with Salesforce.com to adapt its database tools to nonprofits.  Here’s what he’s heard so far—more to follow!

By Jono Smith

Hundreds of nonprofit marketers and fundraisers are among the 7,000 attendees from 42 countries gathering this week in San Francisco at Dreamforce 2007, Salesforce.com's annual users' conference. I will be blogging from Dreamforce this week with examples and tips for using technology to improve the effectiveness of nonprofit marketing.

In the meantime, I am currently live blogging from the opening keynote, where salesforce CEO Marc Benioff is speaking about how community-driven models—arising from the Internet—create new possibilities for organizations to innovate without huge investments in software and technology infrastructure. Marc just introduced another Marc—Marc Sternberg is the principal of Bronx Lab School, a nonprofit, public college preparatory school funded in part by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation.

The vision for Bronx Lab School is uncomplicated: with the right support, work ethic and attitude, its students can succeed. Through small class and school size, a passionate and cohesive staff committed to innovative and dynamic project-based instruction, and a non-negotiable culture of excellence, Bronx Lab's students excel.

School Principal Marc Sternberg is speaking about how his Bronx Lab School is managing accountability by using salesforce to measure and track behavior, attendance and homework.

"One of the important metrics we must report to the Department of Education is our student attendance. With accurate attendance benchmarks, we can retain control of the way we run our school, and stay up-to-date on our teaching staff needs. Salesforce has allowed us to create a detailed student database that does much more than generate the reports we need for the city, it helps us identify students who may need extra help to stay in school."

If you are interested in examples of how technology is helping nonprofits improve their marketing and online fundraising results, stay tuned this week for more updates from Dreamforce. If you are attending Dreamforce, stop by and visit Network for Good in the nonprofit pavilion on Tuesday between 11am-12:30pm.

Dreamforce 2007 Keynote

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What is good: being relentlessly generous

What is good fundraising and what is bad fundraising?  What is the difference between good outreach and bad outreach?

I think the difference between good and bad has a lot to do with generosity.

If you’re focused on fundraising, you’re probably focused on inspiring generosity in other people.  But how generous are you?  I’ve found in life, in fundraising and in blogging, the more generous I am, the more successful my efforts.  Scrooges in terms of sharing information, credit and or time get little.

Be a good fundraiser (and person) by:

1. BEING GENEROUS WITH OUR THANKS: Thank people before they give, after they give and every chance you get.  All of us have many options for spending the precious time we have in our short lives.  If someone chooses to spend a few moments on you - by reading your message or taking your call, not just by giving - you should be honored.  Thank people for even bothering to pay attention.  Be generous in thanking - and in listening.

2. BEING GENEROUS WITH OUR INFORMATION:  If you have really useful information, share it first and ask for support after.  You could require money and registration to get valuable information from your organization, but increasingly online users will just go elsewhere if you present that barrier.  Give it away and people will give.  I truly believe this.  Just look at public radio.  How many listeners would they have if you had to pay to tune in, like cable TV?  We give away loads of free trainings and information here at Network for Good—and wouldn’t you know it, a lot of the people who get things for free decide to become paying customers of our other services.

3. BEING GENEROUS WITH GIVING CREDIT:  Blog reader Zan of the Pride Foundation’s annual report is called the Gratitude Report.  What an amazing display of generosity - instead of grandstanding about how great their organization is, they put the spotlight on their supporters.  That is generosity at its finest.  Give credit freely and lavishly - it feels good and it all comes back to you, really.

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My four year old knows bad marketing

My four year old just started Montessori school, and she is an angel at school.  But then she comes home, regresses to age two, raises hell, and generally brings me to my knees.  I’m told this is normal as a child adjusts to their first full-day schooling experience.  It’s either that or evidence of my poor parenting skills. 

This week I have realized there were some marketing parallels in the behavior I see.  This post is about making lemonade from a four-year-old lemon.

Yes, my four-year-old child knows bad marketing.  Here are three rules of bad marketing courtesy of her:

1. If you want to say something, yell it from your current location, even if your mother is on another floor of the house.  This is what I call “come to me” marketing.  Bad marketing is putting your message out there and expecting people to come to hear it.  Good marketing is going to where people are (mentally, physically, temporally) and delivering the message directly to them.

2. Get someone’s attention, but fail to deliver a compelling message.  “Mom. Mom.  Mom.  Mom.”  “Yes, sweetie?”  Then forget what you had to say or make something up.  Bad marketing is all about bad messages.  Good marketing is about getting attention AND good messaging.

3. Throw a tantrum to get attention.  Show how dire things are by kicking and screaming because the Hello Kitty stickers are missing.  Bad marketers make their appeals apocalyptic and scare away the audience.  Good marketers show how bad can become good.  They are inspirational and aspirational.

So there you have it.

Oh, and a bonus: A free copy of Robin Hood to the first person to offer parenting advice as a comment on this post.

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Video: the what, why and how for nonprofits

Photo credit: tychay, flickr

Nancy Schwartz of Getting Attention fame is hosting an excellent carnival this week on video.  Click here to read about:

-Whether video is worth it
-How to use it effectively
-Tips for good video
-Examples of who is doing it well

 

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Fundraising help for you

First, thanks to Gayle Roberts for this great blog carnival on the future of fundraising.  Worth a read!

Second, I’m holding a free Nonprofit 911 call at Network for Good this Thursday.  Details below!

It’s fundraising season.  Are you ready with a message that will motivate your supporters like never before?  If not, don’t panic–-just join our next Nonprofit 911 call, when we’ll help you master the art of the irresistible call to action. 

Katya Andresen, VP of Marketing at Network for Good, will discuss steps you can take to get more donations, volunteers and advocates this Fall.  Katya will also provide examples of two nonprofits that have used these steps – and Network for Good’s online fundraising services – to great effect. Then she’ll take your questions about all that’s troubling you – whether it’s online fundraising, branding or marketing.

Click here to register today for this free training call.

Third, you can listen to Network for Good’s last Nonprofit 911 call starring Mark Rovner on how to fix a bad website here.

PS: Another just came in.  Check out this great case study of what worked for Save Darfur’s fundraising campaign from M+R.

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Marketing mistakes to avoid via video

In honor of the nonprofit consultants’ carnival, I’m posting via video today!  Click to play.

Video thumbnail. Click to play
Click To Play

So how did I do this?

I followed the easy, step-by-step instructions here at freevlog.  You, too, can do it!

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Friday Freebies

  • Fri, September 07 2007
  • Filed under: Fun stuff

Here are three ways to drum up some extra cash and resources!

1. Register to win a free website makeover by HotPress Web.

2. Win $10,000 for your cause at Razoo by creating a group presence and recruiting 100 people to join the group. Do that, and you’re eligible for the prize—details here. 

3. Win a matching grant of up to $10,000 by fundraising with a badge/widget at Six Degrees.  (Full disclosure: I work at Network for Good, which runs Six Degrees.)

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One (repeated) message sticks

There’s an old workshop trick I’ve seen a few times where a marketing expert takes three tennis balls and throws them at some poor soul in the audience.  The person usually catches none.  Then the expert throws one, and the same person catches it.  The point?  Bombard someone with three things and they can’t handle it.  Stick to one thing - one message - and they are more likely to receive the missive.

Like this post, the trick is not original but it bears repetition, because we tend to forget it.

The most successful website home pages, brochures, ads, viral campaigns, etc. all HAVE ONLY ONE MESSAGE. 

Remember: one message per communication.  Say that message a couple of times and ways, but stick to it and it only.

The book Made to Stick makes this point and celebrates simplicity.  Right on, Heath brothers.

Yesterday’s study in the Washington Post adds an interesting nuance by showing how repetition plays into message retention, according to researchers at the University of Michigan and elsewhere.

The federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention recently issued a flier to combat myths about the flu vaccine. It recited various commonly held views and labeled them either “true” or “false.” Among those identified as false were statements such as “The side effects are worse than the flu” and “Only older people need flu vaccine.”  When University of Michigan social psychologist Norbert Schwarz had volunteers read the CDC flier, however, he found that within 30 minutes, older people misremembered 28 percent of the false statements as true. Three days later, they remembered 40 percent of the myths as factual…

The research also highlights the disturbing reality that once an idea has been implanted in people’s minds, it can be difficult to dislodge. Denials inherently require repeating the bad information, which may be one reason they can paradoxically reinforce it.  Indeed, repetition seems to be a key culprit. Things that are repeated often become more accessible in memory, and one of the brain’s subconscious rules of thumb is that easily recalled things are true.

DO NOT convey information that’s not key to your single message - or god forbid, that’s wrong or a “myth”.  Keep focused on the single right message and people will be more likely to catch it - and recall it.

 

 

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On love, attachment and raising $$$

The Washington Post today reports that “exacting donors are reshaping college giving.”  The article cites a new generation of college donors that are “savvy, activist and willing to stop giving if they don’t like the way their money is being used.”

Alumni now are far more likely to give to specific projects rather than the operating funds that keep universities running and to expect detailed reports on how the money is spent. Some ask to meet the students who win the scholarships, select the professors who get the chair, scrutinize financial reports, weigh competing construction bids, choose the paintings for the gallery walls.

I agree, but this is not news, and this desire for involvement doesn’t just apply to academia.  Donors usually give because they are emotionally involved, and with those feelings comes a desire for:

-Personal attachment to a cause
-Tangible, clear results because of their support
-A sense something changed for the better because of them - that they left a good mark

Alumni want their money to go to what they love (or loved) about their alma mater.  People feel deeply emotional about their colleges and universities (just look in the stands at a home game), and they have very clear ideas about how those places should remain or change.  Anyone working for a college or university should see this as a positive, not a negative, and communicate accordingly. 

And this goes for the rest of us, too.  People ultimately will give when they feel something for our cause.  We should return the love with the care we would give to any valued relationship.  Honor the attachment.  Show its effect.  Make it stronger.  And share how it’s made you better.  It works with your significant other, and it works with your donors, too.

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You’ve got a reputation online

You have a reputation online.  What is it?  Find out.  You need to know what people are saying about you.  Then you need to join the conversation. 

I’ve already mentioned the 101 basics of monitoring the conversation—go to technorati.com and search for your organization and keywords.  Set up google alerts for you, your organization and your issues.  And for heaven’s sake, google yourself and your issue regularly.  (Here are some shortcuts that can improve your search results.)

If you’ve already done that, then you’re ready for this.  It’s a fantastic oldie but goodie resource from Marketing Pilgrim that’s intended for companies but works equally well for nonprofits or educational institutions.

The only thing I’d add is this: when people say bad things, don’t attack (or hire a lawyer) as your first reaction.  Listen.  Acknowledge.  Discuss.  Don’t be defensive.  Ask questions.  Answer questions.  Offer to set things right.  This usually works very well, unless you’re dealing with a crazy person—and there are some out there. 

Oh, and if you’re young and your online reputation extends to some embarassing old MySpace content, here’s a solution to that.

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Your “new” is not news

These are two common questions I hear:

How do I communicate to supporters about my new logo/brand?

How do I launch my new newsletter or website?

My answer is this: Your “new” is not “news.” You should not communicate what is new in your universe. You should communicate what matters to your constituents.

If you have a new logo or brand look-and-feel, that’s nice, but it doesn’t mean a thing to the outside world. What matters to the outside world is how they experience you—an experience that unfolds as the people that work for your cause answer the phone, help others, convey messages, provide services. Think about how to make that new brand come alive as an experience. In other words: show, don’t tell your brand.

If you have a new newsletter or website, figure out what is incredibly interesting IN that newsletter or website. Show what your audience members can they do that they could not before. Think like a person who writes coverlines for a magazine – what is the tantalizing content or promise that will make people want to open the magazine when they see it in the check-out lane? Or in your case, what will make them want to read that newsletter or go to that website? THAT is what you want to communicate, not simply the fact that you made a change.

 

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