everyone's here for the line dance class car No so today we're gonna be talking about effective donor messaging and that's very vague nonprofit marketing one of the things that happens is it's such a vague space that people don't even know what to do so we're gonna break down what kind of messaging do you need to get donors what does it look like and then how how do you do it what you will see is that their key themes to nonprofit marketing effectively that are going to be consistent and that's because it's best practices and that's because it works [Music] my name is Kelly Ghanian I am the founder of great HQ we provide creative solutions for nonprofits and small businesses the brand is more than just a logo right and it really is the visual representation of how you want someone to feel it's representing your agency and I know that sounds so abstract and like artsy fartsy like right but if you're not looking at something and getting any feeling out of it then your brand is not working for you okay a solid brand should set you apart should make you recognizable I don't know if you this might be something just to be cognizant of moving forward typically when I talk about branding for nonprofits and style guides I'm saying it because you have 20 different people creating things that are going out there's secretary there's a board president there are programming directors right and there's nothing consistent and for me I battled where people really like to be creative and I say with marketing creativity killed the cat like it really did like if you're a non-profit and you're trying to DIY it and you're trying to have people be creative like the whole goal of branding is so it's recognizable and representative so as soon as you add all this creativity in different fonts and different colors and really different even like graphics you're losing that recognizability and I hope two months from now after you like my Facebook page and something shows up you can see if that's going through your newsfeed that that's me because everything looks the same and you'll think of this experience right here because it's all connected that's your goal with branding is no matter where you show up it's consistent and you're trying to evoke the same feel for branding which will be need to be used for every single donor messaging and connect you to your program includes a tagline a mission or vision and includes your tone slash boys so if you have multiple people if one person wrote your website copy and another person is doing your amuse letters and another person is doing your social media right then it's not consistent and your your voice is part of your brand I'll throw you some video on everything because I think it's important so that's gonna be part of branding to use the video three to five colors up to three fonts your own stock photos that we'll talk about later and consistency so those are the things that altogether show your brand but remember your brand is all about communicating the feeling or experience people get when they work with you and I think for nonprofits taking those same risks is important I talked about if you would have seen me a year ago my branding did not match right I fell forward and I have a sweet picture of me like this like that's not reflective of me there was a disconnect between what my brand name look like and the experience people had with me so when I went through my rebrand last April that was like a very intentional decision I made is to make sure this was the most reflective of the experience people have and people probably think I'm verbal assertive number is driven and then in my space compared to everyone else especially in downstate Illinois I am very cutting edge rights I'm pushing towards things that people aren't necessarily pushing towards like brand even messages about cohesiveness so typically their words they're from your mission statement or from maybe even more like a vision statement that are words that you should be repeating over and over and over again in all of your marketing so just at a time where for two minutes write down as many words as you can and then circle the ones that are most reflective and then when you're creating a deal reports Facebook post whatever this should be right in front your computer and you should use those words using those words over and over again will help with brain inconsistency but I'll also get people to know what you're really about like what you are especially for donors is not a service is you provide its the feeling and support you create so it is those abstract things I don't care how many square feet you have I don't care how many sorry okay how many kids you serve I you know I care about for that one kid what does it feel like what is the quality of service anyone producing any marketing whether the donor program [Music] internal I also say internal marketing sometimes the most difficult to like stuff internal communications should all be done only using your brand fonts and colors attraction marketing a donor messaging I'm not trying to sell them anything now or in that moment right attraction marketing can be to retain or get new like I then it's okay if you don't have donors right then it's important to start attracting them this is very different than how people traditionally think about fundraising whether it be direct solicitation for funds whether it be crowdfunding whether it be a special event right so for example and this is donor messaging someone attending event is a potential donor it should be and you want the tentative back you want to get as much information as possible then you want to redirect for the next ask okay so for example you have a fundraising event instead of saying hey we're selling tickets you've got a week left to sell your tickets did you get your ticket yet okay instead of that being your marketing plan for the fundraiser video of a local celebrity do even one of the things that it's gonna be happy with the fundraiser and then set the and is the and this is happening at the we're staying here at the Decatur craft beer festival right but that's the and not the primary right attraction marketing for that could be highlighting something really cool that's happening really it's happening highlighting one of the clients that benefits from the services of that fundraiser is supporting right and then saying you can support people like Jimmy by purchasing a ticket for only through a very specific story moment picture picture telling story telling are you going to really get to this is meaningful you can say we provide meaningful services but if you show don't tell right but the story that the services are meaningful or the event will be fun through something super specific you're gonna reach your target audience one thing you can do to help your board staff if you're a large team you really need to kind of engage everyone to do donor messaging right it's not just you because you're the development person doing donor messaging anyone that has any face contact with anyone should be doing donor messaging and the biggest failing I see is that people will ask I can't do that well I don't know I don't know what to talk about and then sometimes you'll hear the board say will you equip us with an elevator speech can you give us a 30 second thing we can tell people only through that person's specific why that I'll communicate to the person right across from them what what it's really about why they some donor should support it that's gonna be much better than your board president getting really stoic can say we've been in the community since 1986 where we continue to serve blah blah blah blah if he starts with let me tell you about the time I first walked in the door here and I was waiting for a meeting and met Michael right like I don't even know where that story's going from there but that's gonna bring someone in that donor message so much more than this grandiose thing but this is something I would equip board and staff with if you have any time if you like lunch and learns if you have maybe even like an executive director that's like no that's not my thing where you have people doing it the wrong way walk them through that organic process right we just talked about attraction marketing you guys came up we should be doing stories and then if you had them spend a couple minutes talking to each other about why they decide to become involved why they enjoy working there they're gonna tell those specific stories and then you say there you go you did just just did donor engagement that's what it's all about it's not about knowing all the stats i empower them to be ambassadors for your agency an elevator pitch right people always try to use elevator pitches of what should we be saying to represent our agency like as long as they know the name of the organization know a tagline it should be specific to that