How to Generate and Organize Content for Your Blog

This month we’ve made our way around the revolving door that is content marketing. If you haven’t had a chance to review Kristi’s take on email marketing, or our other posts on storytelling, trends in content marketing, or social media’s role in content marketing, then give those a rundown.

Among topics in the inescapable tide of content marketing is the importance of blogging. Blogging is the “meat and potatoes” of the internet right now and, if it’s not already, it should be an important tool in your marketing tool belt. 

Blogging builds your audience (in our case, Signifers), brand image, and increases your visibility on the internet. It’s also a very easy and practical way to show off your expertise. But don’t take our word for it—talk to our friend SEO. “Who’s SEO?”, you may ask. Well it’s not a “who,” but rather, a “what.” SEO stands for Search Engine Optimization. 

In layman’s terms, SEO is your visibility and popularity to followers, fans, and partners online. This is how you get to sit at the big kid’s table of websites and gain a following on the interwebs. Blogging plays a far more crucial role in you getting the attention you deserve than we sometimes like to believe.

Tech guru Larry Kim says, “If you’ve done any SEO at all, you’ve probably noticed that the stories that rank well tend to have high social share counts.”

Blog Consistently: Start with Objectives in Mind

Search engines like Google and Bing use algorithms that discover analytics about your website. The more recurring visits, frequency of clicks, length of visits, and perpetual content (like blogs and social media) that these algorithms discover, the more likely it is that your website will be placed in an optimal position on search engines (hear: the coveted front page). Therefore, blog consistently. And, of course, make sure the content is good!

Soooo then, how do you blog consistently? To do this well, it begins with organization. If you want to blog well, you must plan well. 

You can’t assemble a car without the engine. You can’t construct a skyscraper without the frame. And you can’t create a phone without a silicon chip. Each of these objects has a core element—an piece that it can’t operate without. And each design is planned carefully around this centerpiece, knowing full well that the screen wouldn’t light up without the chip, the building tower go up without a frame, or the car fire up without an engine.

In the same way, you should create objectives and goals for your content. Start with a broad goal in mind and then move into the specifics required to accomplish it.

Objectives should be succinct, specific, and inform everything else. For example: 

• Increase monthly sales by 5% in 90 days through increased blogging content about products

• Increase email sign-ups by 150 in 60 days through increased exposure on your blog

Objectives exist as the frame for the overall picture. By setting clear objectives, you have a directed vision of where you’re going. Otherwise, it might lead others to believe that there is no consistency, thought pattern, or organization in your company’s writing. However, objectives require specific content. Starting from your objectives, first assess content that you have currently and then generate new ideas or improvements.

Auditing Previous Blogs: A Plan for Improvement

Last week, our other intern, Megan, suggested conducting a simple audit of all of your social media platforms. Through this process you can use an easy analysis—like SWOT (strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats)—and revamp the existing content on your website. You have to know where you’ve been to know where you’re going.

In the same way you can analyze and improve Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter, you can evaluate the current content on your blog. Take an hour or so to study your websites analytics. (Google Analytics is a great, free tool!) See which content performed best, what is now off-brand and may now need to be removed, and what can be updated and reused. Also, take note of what content should’ve been included, but wasn’t, what’s new with your nonprofit or social enterprise that should be discussed. You can certainly do a more in-depth audit, but that’s probably the quickest way to evaluate your current and previous edits. 

So, now, how do you generate new content?

Moving Past Writer’s Block: Here’s What to Blog About

In her guest post,  Ask The Experts: Content Marketing 101, Jennifer Garrett addressed the issue of content oriented writer’s block. Yes, there’s a solution to the cry, “I don’t know what to blog about!” 

Currently, the content that is the most valuable online is the content that tells a story and intersects with your audience. However, you also need to make them take an action as a result of reading your stellar content. This could be signing up for your email list, purchasing a product, registering for an event, or making a donation. Remember, it’s a mutually-beneficial relationship. So, start with your end goal and make a list of ideas that both aid that goal and serve your audience. 

Here are just a few types of blog post examples: 

• Surveys

• Feedback or answers to customer service questions

• Holiday-oriented content

• Transcript or summary of your podcast episodes

• Product or service spotlight

• Successes or updates

• Year-end giving campaign

• Tell people about what problem you solve and give examples

• Confronting objections people may have to your work

• Questions that prompt ideas or actions

• Guest posts

• Updates to old posts (revive if outdated and repost; from your audit)

• Upcoming events

• Partnership or sponsor highlights

• Grants or awards won

• Member or staff profiles

• Insights into your culture

• Your organization’s history

• Mention influencers or celebrities that recommend you

• Milestone celebrations

(Want 80 more idea? Click here.)

Also check out this previous post on 12 Questions That Inspire Content Creation.

After establishing each objective and writing a list of topics, create specific content to support it. For the example of “Increasing monthly sales by 5% in 90 days through increased blogging content about products,” you might create a month-long blogging series on popular products your company sells. So, if your social enterprises sells jewelry to fight human trafficking, talk about your cause and how the product will aid in that process. By talking about what you know, you will become an authority in that topic, and people will follow you and come back to your blog to read more about subjects that interest them.

Plot and Plan Ahead

Plotting out blog content six or 12 months in advance can seem like a tall order. However, there are a variety of tools to help aid and hone your marketing skills and consistency.
Google Sheets or Excel are easy to use, often recommended, and even utilized by a lot of pros. A simple Excel doc is even what we use here at Signify. It has simple headers for the date, topic, the action we want people to take as a result of reading, if a supplemental piece is being created for the post (like a checklist), relevant holidays to tie-in, and notes. And here’s an example that’s broken down by the team at Edgar.

By organizing your content, you’re creating a strategy for your organization. You’re telling yourself and your team what’s important to talk about right now, and in the future. It’s relevant and actionable. Creating a professional editorial calendar will also aid in this process.

I prefer to use Google Calendar or a computer’s calendar to amplify the benefits of an Excel sheet. Google Sheets are nice, but it’s additionally helpful to have your deadlines and purposed content stored in a calendar somewhere so you can see it visually and even add reminders. The combination of Google Sheets and Google Calendar can be a powerful planning tool. There are plenty of how-to’s on the internet for merging Google Sheets with Google Calendar. Take a look at this example. As always, the idea is to find a system that works for you, and that you can stick with.

Maintaining Frequency in Your Blog Posts

But what about frequency? We recommend blogging a minimum of once per month. But remember, this is a minimum, not ideal. But start something, and build on it. Create the consistency for yourself and your readers. This gives them an expectation of when they’ll see new content from you, and allows them to eagerly anticipate what you’ll be talking about next. A by-product of this is that you’ll start sticking to a schedule, when it might have previously been easy to let it slide. Plus, Google’s algorithm loves frequently updated content!

You may also be asking yourself when you should post? After researching the best times to post and surveying analytics on your website or blog, you might realize that Wednesday and Tuesday mornings are great times to post because your audience is online around that time. These analytics vary by audience, demographic, and region. Research your audience a little bit, look for the right times to post, and then maintain a consistent schedule. 

This research can be done through your website analytics, social media analytics, and even reading experts online. But don’t get too hung up on the analytics portion if that seems overwhelming. (Totally get it!) We’d rather you get started than put off regular blogging for another month or two because you don’t feel like you have all the information.

While you may have some topics that need to post at certain times, like sales or giving campaigns, you’ll also have gaps on your calendar to fill in, or loads of ideas you aren’t sure what to do with. Don’t let those ideas past or go to waste! Be sure to capture them so you can fill in your calendar as needed. You definitely want to have a reservoir of topics to choose from so the supply doesn’t run dry. 

Helpful Tools For the Planning Process

Here are a few tools to help you jot down those notes as well as plan your content: 

• Word doc - See, it doesn’t have to be fancy! You can just keep those “extra” ideas here for safekeeping.

• Evernote (or Microsoft OneNote) - Not necessarily the best platforms for specific date planning, but can be helpful for simply jotting down ideas. Kristi uses Evernote, and loves it.

• Asana.com - Good for planning specific deadlines and tasks, and delegating to specific employees or yourself. We use this here at Signify.

• Monday.com - Stripped down planning software

Through consistency and effectiveness in your planning, you can ensure greater success for your blog and begin to implement a strong content marketing strategy. It will begin to feel more intentional to you, and that feeling will also translate to your readers. That blog doesn’t need to stay bare! 

This practical approach of generating ongoing content can increase your company’s visibility, which is exactly what you’re looking for because that results in more sales or donations. And that’s why content marketing is so important.

Read the other posts in this series:

• Content Marketing 101

• How Screenwriting Can Help You Better Communicate Your Brand's Story

• What (and Why) You Should Be Emailing Your List

• Building Better Content: How to Improve on Social Media

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Michael Griffith Banks is a graduate of the University of Georgia with a degree in Public Relations and a minor in Spanish. He’s throughly involved with UGA’s Office of Admissions, having served as an Orientation Leader for the University.

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Building Better Content: How to Improve on Social Media

We’re continuing our theme of content marketing for the month, and this week we’re focusing on one teensy, tiny thing (joking, it’s huge): social media! Love it or hate, it it’s here to stay! So, we might as well learn our way around it and benefit from it.

Social media marketing is a huge part of content marketing. Why? Because you can quickly and easily use social media platforms to advertise and share content to your target audiences.

Over 70% of Americans are using social media! Not to mention pretty much everywhere else in the world. These platforms are massive and they literally help you reach millions of people. This is where you need to be spreading your message and promoting your business or organization, and you need to do it right.

The content you share on social media has the ability to attract your target audience and turn them into loyal customers or supporters. That’s why this is so important. It’s also the perfect opportunity to interact with your audience, whether it’s answering questions, addressing concerns, or just showing your appreciation!

Listening to your audience and understanding what they like and need will help you create more engaging and effective social media content. In turn, you'll improve your content marketing strategies and grow your nonprofit or social enterprise. But how? Let’s break down social media content marketing and the components you need to maximize your business exposure, easily.

Your first step: conduct a content audit on all of your current social media platforms.

This is your starting point to building a better social media presence. You need to evaluate what you have already done, assess your strengths and your weaknesses, and determine how you can improve. A simple content audit will allow you to see what posts have performed best and what topics your audience likes most, eliminate posts that are outdated or no longer relevant, locate gaps in your content, and generate new ideas. The goal is to create better content and increase traffic.

This doesn’t have to take long, only an hour or so! It depends largely on how long your social history is, and how in-depth you’d like to go. Just sort through your social media profiles and evaluate what you’ve posted. Most social media platforms, like Facebook and Instagram, also have really helpful post and profile analytics, and data on business pages that you can take advantage of. These usually show you how posts are doing in terms of likes, reach, engagement, etc.

It’s also important to look at how often you are posting. If you have a social media profile linked on your website that you rarely if ever touch, it’s probably a good idea to remove it! You don’t necessarily have to delete it, but you don’t want to promote something if your last post was four months ago….or let’s be honest, four years ago. So, let it go!

Developing a simple content plan for your social media profiles will also save you time and stress.

After you conduct your audit, we also recommend starting some sort of spreadsheet for current and future social media posts, if you haven’t already. Or a calendar! Here’s a good example from Curata. This is a more broad, long-term plan setup for content ideas, but it’s still good starting point.

This will help keep you organized and serve as a great reference tool should you ever need to go back and quickly and easily find a post. To go more in depth, I recommend creating a spreadsheet for each platform and then listing the date of the post, the content, and any links or outside sources you included. It doesn’t have to be super complicated, however, you can also add analytics later such as how many people were reached, the number of likes, etc. Knowing any of this information will make future audits easier, too!

Laying all your content out in a spreadsheet will help you see what items, events, holidays, etc., your organization needs to promote at a glance. Then you can fill in any gaps with more day-to-day, behind the scenes, or fun posts that also fit with your brand. Here’s another simple example of an Instagram plan for a service-based business.

To help develop your plan, ask yourself a few questions. What are your goals? Is it to get the viewer to visit your website? Do you want to gain more email subscribers? Do you need more donations, or more sales? What do you want the overall tone of your profile to be? Funny and lighthearted? Serious and issue-oriented? What kind of content does your audience want? Is it mainly photos, text, or videos (I’d definitely recommend using them all.)?

These questions will also help you generate content ideas. Figure out the answers and let that drive your content creation. Brainstorm ideas and get them in writing, then develop them further.

If you’re still stuck on what kind of content to post, here are some ideas:

• Guest takeovers: Have someone on your staff or that you know talk about a relevant topic to your business/organization, something they are an expert in, or if they are an influencer, they can draw new fans to you with their perspective on your work.

• How-to posts: Share helpful tips and advice with your audience.

• Behind-the-scenes: Give your audience a look into the background of your business or nonprofit. This makes you more personable and approachable, too!

• Do a Q&A session live on Facebook, Twitter, or on an Instagram Story. Be sure to engage with audience!

• Create visuals like infographics to demonstrate how your business or nonprofit is making a change. Quotes are always popular, too.

• Video is enormously popular right now, whether it’s live or recorded. Talk about your mission, show off your work, introduce your team, promote your events...the possibilities are endless!

• Reuse and recycle: Are there previous pieces of content like blogs, videos, interviews, podcasts, etc., that you haven’t promoted in a long time? Or maybe they only lived on your website and never made it to social? See what you already have available that should still the light of day again.

• Conduct a poll: This is another great way to interact with your audience and get their feedback. Facebook and Instagram Stories offer built-in polls you can use, making it super easy.

• Show your viewers what a day in the life looks like for you or for another key member of your nonprofit or social enterprise. You can do this via photos, video, or story!

• Share your favorites: This could include books, podcasts, movies, products, another business...anything you think your audience will like or benefit from! Give some recommendations!

It’s a good idea to mix evergreen and timely content. Evergreen content is content that stays fresh and relevant for a long period of time. Like an evergreen tree, it never dies. Timely content is content revolved around more short-term situations that won’t be relevant in a few months. For example, a holiday, event, fundraiser, promotion, etc., would all be considered timely content.

Both types of content are important. Timely content shows what you are actively doing and evergreen content will always be useful. You can continue to repost and repurpose it. A good rule of thumb here is the 80/20 rule. Eighty of your content is evergreen, 20% is timely.

Speaking of time...

Consistency is key in social media content.

You have to make sure you can stay consistent in developing and putting out content on social media. If you don’t, people will forget you or won’t even bother following you. You have to stay on their minds and in their feeds.

I know this may seem daunting and overwhelming—there are so many platforms to keep up with! However, I think it’s better to consistently keep up with just a few, strong platforms than to try to keep up with all of them, spreading yourself too thin, and then end up neglecting some. So, pick a few that work for you and your audience and make them your babies.

The most used social media sites right now are Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn, and Pinterest. These are the four I would recommend keeping up with and building a presence on. Familiarize yourself with these platforms and what they can do for you and your business. Here’s a quick guide.

You also need to determine where your specific target audience hangs out the most, though. That may differ from business to business. Try to see where your audience congregates and then make those platforms your top priority.

In terms of how many times a day or week you should post and when, this also varies by platform.

According to the Content Marketing Institute, posting on Facebook once or twice a day, monitoring Twitter all day, and spending time each day on LinkedIn is the best.

Studies also show that at a minimum you should post three times a week to Facebook. Once a day is optimal, but you can build. Three times a day on Twitter is the minimum, 15 is optimal, and 30 is maximum. You want to post about three pins a day to Pinterest, twice to once a week on LinkedIn, and post once to three times a day on Instagram. Again, you can always start at the minimum and build up from there once you get the hang of it. Find what works for you!

As far as times of day goes, here is a good article on the best days and times to post to each social media site. I would also highly recommend setting up a social media calendar or using a scheduling tool like Buffer, Smarterqueue, or Hootsuite.

These tools will make your life so much easier. You just write your social media post, add an image or video, schedule a day and time, assign it to a profile, and you’re done! No more worries, it’ll just automatically post to your profile when you scheduled it to. Here’s more on that.

See, social media isn’t so scary anymore, is it? You just have to determine your audience, find what works best for the both of you, and then get organized. Once you start brainstorming and getting the hang of things, you’ll be surprised how quickly ideas flow!

But, again, the point here isn’t to overwhelm you. It’s to help you evaluate what you’ve done so far, make a plan for the future, and start posting great content consistently. Your consistency may be slow right now, and that’s fine. But creating a schedule and plan to follow will help you and your followers.

Social media content marketing: check. Come back next week to learn more about maximizing your blog!

Read the other posts in this series:

• Content Marketing 101

• How Screenwriting Can Help You Better Communicate Your Brand's Story

• What (and Why) You Should Be Emailing Your List

• How to Generate and Organize Content for Your Blog

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Megan Westbrook holds a B.A. in journalism with a focus in public relations and a minor in Spanish from Georgia State University. An aspiring writer, her interests reside in blogging, social media, content creation, design, and photography. She is also a passionate social justice advocate and interested in nonprofit or cause-focused work. Megan is currently a receptionist at Servcorp in Atlanta, Georgia. 

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What (and Why) You Should Be Emailing Your List

We've been talking all things content marketing this month, and today's subject is a biggie. Everyone wants to talk social media all the time, but it's not the most important thing when it comes to engaging with your current donors and customers. That's right I said it—social media is NOT the most important thing. Breathe that in, people.

Don't get me wrong, social media is an important (and unavoidable) part of marketing, especially when it comes to finding new prospects, but it shouldn’t be your top priority, and it isn’t even what your donors or customers prefer. I'd rather you stop focusing on social media, and start focusing on your email list. 

I've had many, many conversations with friends and clients about this topic. I get some slow head-nodding, blank eyes, puzzled looks, and then a question or two usually follows. Something along the lines of, "Why is email marketing so important?" or "Ok, but what should I send to my email list?" I usually also hear that people do send emails to their fans and supporters, but it's been a few...months.

Sending emails just sorta happens when they get around to it. Maybe they'd planned to send out an email blast, but there was yet another fire to put out. Or, they'll email again when they have something "important" to say. 

Any of this sound familiar?

I'm here today to tell you what and why you should be emailing your list. Because it's vital to the health of your organization. Yep, it's that big of a deal. Whether you're concerned about content marketing for your nonprofit or social enterprise, or not, email needs to move up on your priority list.

WHY EMAIL MARKETING IS IMPORTANT

Though social media is the shiny object of the marketing world, email marketing should be the staple. It's true that nothing will ever beat in-person conversations; those should always be the first option. But for electronic or online communication, email should be your focus.

Why? You "own" your list. We've already seen a handful of algorithm changes on Facebook this year alone, and they're all making it more difficult for your business to get seen by your fans and followers. That's great for us as individuals who want to see more pics of our friends kids, pets, vacations, or last night's dinner. Not so great from a marketing standpoint.

And as things change again, and they will, you'll be further and further removed from your audience, unless you are paying to get in front of them. However, with an email address, you land directly in their inbox. Whatever you need to communicate to them is front-and-center. They don't have to go hunting for it, and they don't have to wait to just see it occasionally, if the internet powers that be, decide today's the day to show them.

Plus, if one of those nifty social networks goes away tomorrow, or decides to remove businesses entirely, you have no way to reach those people. Poof! They're gone. But you know what you do have? That's right, your email list!

You also have more real estate in emails to get your message across than on social media, and emails still have the highest conversion rates as well. Two, more very good reasons!

Oh, and if you're slightly panicked about neglecting your social media, here's my solution.

(Side note: I recommend setting a reminder to download your list a few times per year so you never lose it either. Unfortunately, nothing is guaranteed!)

WHAT TYPES OF EMAILS YOU SHOULD SEND TO YOUR LIST?

Okay, now that you understand why you should be making more use of your email list, you might be stuck on what to send. Besides a lack of time, this is the issue I hear most.

So, what should you email to your list? The good news is that the options are pretty limitless! 

Here are just a few examples:

• Program/product/service updates

• New hires, job openings, or internship opportunities

• Recent blog posts

• Behind-the-scenes details

• Thoughts from the founder or staffers

• Links and resources your audience would find helpful

• Tips and tricks

• Surveys

• Needs list (ex: resources a nonprofit might need to further their mission)

• Staff or recipient profiles

• Holiday announcements or celebrations

• Photos or videos of people using your product/service

• Testimonials and stories

• End of year impact reports

• Recent press/media

(Want 85 more ideas? Click here!)

Think about it: These people willingly gave you their email. That means they want to hear from you! And they want to hear from you more than a couple of times per year... So, don't neglect sending just because you don't have any "big announcements." 

I also recommend keeping a list somewhere of topics that would be good for your emails, even if it means they need to wait a while. You don't want to lose any good ideas! I use Evernote, since it's always handy, but you can use Google Docs or Sheets, a Word doc, a sticky on your computer, or whatever is a good fit.

To make things even easier on yourself, you can even set up a template for your regular email newsletters so that all you have to do is just drop in the new content each time. This is exactly what I do with Special Features. I have a formula that I follow of specific things I want to communicate to my audience. Each section has a purpose. Doesn't mean that it'll stay that way forever, but right now, it works for me.

A FEW TIPS ON FORMATTING YOUR EMAILS

Photos and graphics, or no photos and graphics? Headers or no headers? Long or short?

The truth is that I've seen emails of all shapes and sizes get the job done. Some are beautiful and some are plain. So, whether you have yours laid out by a professional graphic designer or not is your call. What works with your brand and your voice? That choice is up to you.

Here's what I will stress, however: It needs to be easy to read on laptops, tablets, and phones. (A LOT of people are reading your emails on their phones these days!) That may sound completely intuitive, and like I don't need to say it, but trust me, I do. I have seen some emails that likely have great content, but they are so hard to look at and read that I just hit delete. I'm sure you've done the same.

So, what's the cure? Well, a lot of the advice we've been giving over the past few months for websites and blogs carries over here, too. 

Namely:

• Write is short paragraphs of one to three sentences. If you're reading anything on a phone, do you want to just stare at a wall of text? Answer: Nope.

• Use headers where needed for clarity and changing topics, especially if the email is long. People are skimmers, whether we like it or not. Don't fight it.

• Let white space be your friend.

• Leave the jargon at the office. Keep the language easy to understand.

• Give clear calls to action (telling people what you want them to do), and make it easy for them to do it.

• Make it about the reader as well as your organization. Make the content relatable, and let them feel a part of your work.

• Go back to your brand standards. All your fonts and photos should match your brand, or be extremely complementary if, for example, you have a really uncommon font. But make sure everything looks like goes together—and matches your brand. Watch out for sizes, spacing, and keep those headers in check, too. Tip: Look at it like a blog post. Get all matchy, matchy.

If you think that you do want to include graphics, but aren't good at design, have a graphic designer create templates that you can use over and over, just replacing text and photos as needed. This is what I did.

I had my designers create a standard template for my monthly newsletter, a couple variations for different categories of opt-ins, and a really generic one for simple announcements. Now, anytime I need to create a new email blast, I just choose the right template and switch out the info and graphics—presto! Now, I don't have to reinvent the wheel every time. (Hint: This also makes coming up with your content easier because you know what "boxes" to fill in!)

Your formatting is just as valuable as your content, so don't skip this step.

WHEN SHOULD YOU EMAIL YOUR LIST?

As with pretty much everything else, there are no concrete, black and white answers. Sometimes that's a good thing because you may feel bad that you can't keep up with "standards." However, sometimes that's bad because you don't have a guaranteed blueprint to follow for success. What works for some may not work for others.

But, here's what I tell my clients: I'd like you to email your list at least monthly. I guarantee you've got something to share each and every month. If you can email more frequently with smaller updates throughout the month, do it! But if you wait more than a month, you risk being forgotten.

Remember, we're all out of sight, out of mind creatures. So, if you aren't talking to your list, you'd better believe someone else is!

I'd also like you to figure out a consistency or frequency that you can stick to. This is an effort to make sure it happens, and also helps people expect when to hear from you. Both are uber important.

For example, in an ideal world, I'd email my list a couple of times per month with small updates and information that will be helpful to them. But as a solopreneur, I've got a lot on my plate. So, for now, Special Features goes out once per month. Specifically, the first Thursday of the month. I even have a reminder in Asana to help keep me on task. One particularly busy month, I worked late and finally hit send about 10:00 p.m., because come h*ll or high water, that thing was going out on the first Thursday of the month! It's a promise I made to myself and my tribe.

Others I know send emails every Friday, or every other Wednesday. So, make the decision of when you're going press the magic button, and commit to it.

To make this easier to understand, here are some great email guidelines for nonprofits.

THE NUMBER ONE EMAIL MARKETING MISTAKE

One of the biggest problems in not emailing your list very often is that you only tend to email them when you need something. This is a big no, no.

It takes time to build the "know, like, and trust" factor with your audience. This is what leads them to action.

Like real life, this is a relationship to be nurtured. So, how would you like it if you had a friend that only talked to you when they wanted you to buy something or donate to their cause? Ewwww. I imagine they'd move off your friend list pretty quickly!

Yet, this is what I see nonprofits and social enterprises doing again and again. They get busy, and only email their fans and followers when it's convenient for them. As a result, donations flounder and sales fumble.

The result? Organizations are left thinking email marketing doesn't work. So, once again, they put it off.

But the lesson should be to change the strategy. Begin working on the relationship with your audience regularly and gradually, rather than using it part of the backup plan.

EMAIL MARKETING AS A STRATEGY

Here are Signify, we're big on strategy. Yes, it's good to be sending those emails, writing those blog posts, and connecting on social media, but it becomes much more effective when there's a strategy behind it.

Other than, "because I have to," WHY are you sending the email?

Do you need to sell a product, drive donations, announce a new program, or promote an event? All of these are pretty big "asks" and will usually require more than one email. A series of emails primes them to take action. This gives them all the information or motivation they need to make the decision. And this requires planning. You'll need to figure out ahead of time what what to say and when to say it.

Often, once you lay out on a calendar or spreadsheet all the things you absolutely need to say in a year, you'll see how fast space actually fills up. Then you can plug in other types of emails such as the above examples.

Of course, the unexpected will come up, and that's fine! Nothing wrong with a special announcement now and again.

If you find it overwhelming to think about a year's worth of emails, start with six months, or a quarter, or heck, even a month. But it's time to get intentional. Email marketing is too important to ignore or leave to chance.

What questions do you have?

Read the other posts in this series:

• Content Marketing 101

• How Screenwriting Can Help You Better Communicate Your Brand's Story

• Building Better Content: How to Improve on Social Media

• How to Generate and Organize Content for Your Blog

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I'm Kristi Porter, and I started Signify to provide writing, consulting and strategy services to nonprofits and for-profit organizations with a social mission, primarily through copywriting, marketing, and business communications. I believe that cause-focused organizations like yours are the future of business. You're proof that companies can both make money and do good. And I'm here to help you get noticed and grow. When you succeed, we all win.

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How Screenwriting Can Help You Better Communicate Your Brand’s Story

Today's post is by my friend and former co-worker, Hudson Phillips. Though he's continuing our series on content marketing, he's bringing us a whole, new slant on the topic that you might not have heard before. You see, Hudson's a filmmaker.

While you may not be making movies about your nonprofit or social enterprise anytime soon, you do need to learn to tell the story of your organization in a compelling manner. And a great way to share your story isn't just once a year at a big, annual event. It's over and over again, in small ways, on your website, blog, emails, and social media. This is the cornerstone of your content marketing, and the thing that makes you utterly unique.

So, grab some popcorn and chocolate covered almonds (or substitute your personal fav), and learn to how screenwriting can help you better communicate your brand's story. 

When we get cut off in traffic and storm into work ready to complain about it, we become expert storytellers. We establish the setting, we build the tension, and we arrive at the resolution. So when it comes to telling the story of our brand, why does it get so complicated?

The problem, I think, lies in knowing TOO MUCH. The more details that are swirling around in your head, the more difficult it becomes to hone in on the most important parts of your story. When telling your cut-off-in-traffic epic, do you go into the details of what color the “villain’s” car was? Do you go into your “back story” about styling your hair differently that morning? No. Because you have a point to get across (probably something like, “Can you believe that guy!”) and only the details that help further that point matter.

I wear a lot of hats between a marketing day job, a screenwriting gig by night, and running my own writing organization. But what surprises and thrills me is how often these worlds cross over. All of the above jobs require storytelling, and one of the greatest things I did as a marketer was start to apply my knowledge as a screenwriter.

The one key skill of a screenwriter over, say, a novelist, is screenwriters have to be brief. While a novelist can tell a story over hundreds of pages and a dozen hours, screenwriters have about an hour and a half (or 100 pages of script) to tell a full story. This requires some tips and tricks to stay on task. We don’t have the time or space to veer off into tangents.

That’s why when I sit down to write a script, I start with a logline. A logline is one or two sentences that sum up your story. Think of it as how you would quickly describe a movie you just saw to a friend.

The point of a logline is to better understand the story you want to tell. It becomes your story compass. When you start to get bogged down in all the details, your logline is what helps you find “north.”

A great logline covers three things: WHO the story is about, what their GOAL is, and what OBSTACLES they face along the way.

For instance, the logline for the film Jurassic Park might be: “A rag-tag group of scientists struggle to escape a remote island park whose main attractions—genetically restored dinosaurs—have been set loose by a power failure.”

For Indiana Jones, the logline could be: “A swashbuckling archeologist seeks to find the lost Ark of the Covenant before the Nazis can use its supernatural power to take over the world.”

You may have a tough time translating the word “swashbuckling” to your own company’s logline. I get it. So how do you apply this to your own organization? Start by asking three questions:

1. WHO is your story about?

The hero of your story is not you—it’s your clients, customers, or donors. They are the ones on a journey, and it’s your job to help them realize their goal. (And hopefully you’ve got the expertise because you’ve been on the journey, survived, and come back to tell about it.) Really try to hone in on your target audience and make it personal and unique. (Hint: your hero is not “everyone”—not even “everyone with money”). Think back to when you were at their stage in the journey and empathize with that moment to best understand them.

For my writing organization, ScriptBlast, it’s not just an organization for writers, it’s an organization for struggling writers who are learning how to navigate the rollercoaster of rejection and failure that all writers face. And I can best understand where these writers are coming from because I’ve been there, too.

2. What is their GOAL?

What do your donors/customers/clients want? Where do they want to be five years from now? What do their “before” and “after” pictures look like? Hopefully your organization has a clear path of getting your clients to their goal. (If not, you might want to add that service!)

The goal for any amateur writer is to become a professional writer. The problem is, unfortunately, most amateurs give up after their first taste of rejection! ScriptBlast exists in order to help writers get over these bumps through empathy, encouragement, and resources to help them a long the way.

3. What are the OBSTACLES standing in their way?

What is the biggest struggle for your audience? What’s getting in the way of their goals? How are you helping them overcome it? These are the kinds of answers that come only from experience. What expertise do you offer and how can you empathize with them?

At ScriptBlast, we recognize that failure and rejection are a regular part of a writer’s life. They get bad feedback, they get turned down by an agent or a manger, they have their film deal fall through, maybe they even have their movie made, but it turns out terribly and not what they envisioned. The obstacles are never-ending for a writer and if they don’t learn how to navigate it early on, they’ll burn out quickly.

So . . . the logline for ScriptBlast might be: We give struggling screenwriters the motivation and resources they need to become professional, working writers as they face the emotional ups and downs of failure and rejection.

Okay, now that you know how to create a compelling logline, what exactly do you do with it? Do you just post it above your desk and hope for the best, or is it something you can actually use in your daily grind?

Here are three, practical uses:

1. A logline gives you a clear path for your website.

Struggling with writing marketing copy for your landing page or home page? Cut and paste your logline! It's a perfect hook that tells your audience exactly what you do and what problem you can help them solve.

2. A logline gives you a checklist for social media.

When you’re creating weekly content like a blog or social media posts, your logline acts as a guide. Before scheduling out your posts, you can ask yourself “does this support my logline or take away from it?” A logline helps keep all of your content focused and your messaging clear.

3. A logline gives you an elevator pitch for investors.

You’re probably already familiar with the term elevator pitch—reducing the mission of your company to a short enough time-span that it can be explained in a brief, elevator ride. A logline gives you a script for your elevator pitch. Memorize it. Have it ready to go next time you happen upon an investor or potential client/customer/donor and need to get your story across before the instrumental version of The Girl from Ipanema finishes.

Now, take a moment to write your own logline. I’d love to see examples in the comments below!

Read the other posts in this series:

• Content Marketing 101

• What (and Why) You Should Be Emailing Your List

• Building Better Content: How to Improve on Social Media

• How to Generate and Organize Content for Your Blog

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Hudson Phillips is a designer, screenwriter, and producer living in Atlanta, Ga. His first produced feature film, This World Alone, will be released in 2018. As founder of the organization ScriptBlast, he cultivates community and creates resources to help screenwriters navigate their careers. He also produces and co-hosts the podcast Four Friends Fight About Film.

ScriptBlast.com

Facebook.com/groups/ScriptBlast

@hudsonphillips

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PIN THIS POST FOR LATER:

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I'm Kristi Porter, and I started Signify to provide writing, consulting and strategy services to nonprofits and for-profit organizations with a social mission, primarily through copywriting, marketing, and business communications. I believe that cause-focused organizations like yours are the future of business. You're proof that companies can both make money and do good. And I'm here to help you get noticed and grow. When you succeed, we all win.

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