Creating relevant content for your target audience is an important part of your overall nonprofit marketing strategy. These slides discuss painless, realistic ways to start the content creation process through strategic planning.

1. Painless Content Planning
for Nonprofits

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Introduction
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Michelle Givens
Managing Director, Image in a Box
● Mother and wife
● Marketing Strategist
● Social media advertiser
● Web designer

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1. Be strategic, set goals
2. Get help, build a team
3. Be consistent, create a process
4. Find gems, audit existing content
5. Brainstorm, generate topic ideas
6. Organize it, build out your plan
Agenda
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BE STRATEGIC, SET GOALS

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● When - Before you start content planning
● Why - Measure success of your content marketing
efforts
● What - Short-term and long-term goals
● How - Collect the correct metrics and analyze often
When, Why, What, & How
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Make your goals SMART
● Specific - Describe exact numbers, sources, responsible parties, etc.
● Measurable - Explain the exact results you’re expecting and when you are
expecting to see them.
● Attainable - Make sure your goals are challenging but realistic.
● Relevant - Create goals that are relevant to your organization’s growth.
● Timely - Give yourself an adequate amount of time to see results.
Goal-Setting Best Practice
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● Increase online donations - Increase the monthly donation rate of website
from 2% to 3% by EOY 2018 through new success story documentary series
● Build awareness of cause - Reach 200,000 individuals with Facebook Ads
promoting blog content by EOQ3
● Retain volunteers - Decrease volunteer turnover rate from 50% to 25% by
EOY2020
● Increase event attendance - Increase online event registration driven by
website from 7% to 10% by next event date
Examples
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GET HELP, BUILD A TEAM

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● Team members outside of the marketing team
● Advocates of your cause
● Guests from your industry
● Volunteers
● Professional writing help
● Don’t forget backups
Create a Team with Limited Resources
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● Set realistic posting schedules
● Provide enough time for authors
● Clearly communicate assignment, responsible
author, and deadlines
● Cycle through authors regularly
Tips to Keep Your Team Happy
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BE CONSISTENT, CREATE A
PROCESS

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Common steps in a content creation process
● Outlining content
● Writing posts or creating content (videos, eBooks, etc.)
● Editing content
● Publishing on website
● Publishing on social media
Develop Your Content Process
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● Assign the roles you identified in your content
process
● Clearly communicate the duties of each role
● Distribute the roles as equally as makes sense
Assign Your Team
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FIND GEMS, AUDIT
EXISTING CONTENT

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● When to audit your content
○ Before generating content ideas
○ At least annually after that
● Why content audits are important
○ Saves time and money
○ Identifies opportunities
Content Audits: When & Why
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● Record all content assets in an spreadsheet
○ Content title
○ Content format
○ Donor’s journey stage
○ Donor persona
○ Performance
○ Location of asset
Catalog Your Content
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● Plan to post and share all finished assets
● Identify gaps in your donor’s journey
● Determine what content did best
● Identify content that can be recycled
● Identify content that can be republished
Review Available Content
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BRAINSTORM, GENERATE
TOPIC IDEAS

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● Donor persona issues
● Determine what your website visitors are searching
for
● Review your content audit
● See what other nonprofits or direct competitors are
doing
Ideas to Brainstorm on Your Own
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● Host a meeting to go over any of the previous idea
generation techniques
● Play a word association game
● Conduct a braindump session
Ideas to Brainstorm with a Team
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ORGANIZE IT, BUILD OUT
YOUR PLAN

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Visualize and Share Your Plan
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CONNECT WITH ME
Michelle Givens
(256) 886-8269 x403
mgivens@imageinabox.com
facebook.com/imageinabox
@imageinabox