1. Digital Strategy for Nonprofits
Sustaining the Care
Preparing today. Protecting tomorrow.
Digital Strategy for Nonprofits
Ted Sherwood, Jr.
Sherwood Consulting

2. Agenda Overview of Digital Strategy Website Optimization
Marketing
Paid Advertising & Social Media
Q&A

3. Digital Strategy
Overview

4. What is a Digital Strategy?
A plan for how you use and evaluate technology
Focused on your broader organizational goals
Internal and external components

5. Components of a Digital Strategy
Internal
Operations
Automation
Non-profit grants & free resources
External
Website
Social media
Digital marketing

6. Our Focus Today Highest impact strategies for growth
Website optimization
marketing
Paid advertising & social media

7. Actionable Outcomes
Website optimization - Take a critical eye to your own site to make positive changes in content and design
marketing - Send your first campaign or automate your existing s
Paid advertising & social media - Set up your first paid ads or get your ads paid for by available grants.

8. Website Optimization
1st strategy

9. Why Does Your Website Matter?
Solves a problem for your audience
Establishes credibility and trust
Serves as a digital storefront
Helps achieve your organizational goals

10. Key Points Design for your user
Have a goal (align it with your audience)
Tell your story
Use video
Pay attention to small details
Optimize performance

11. Design for Your User

12. Define Your Goal Rooted in your audience’s needs
Clearly communicates a next step
Make it easy to achieve
Balance frequent visibility

13. Tell Your Story What do you do? Why were you formed?
What are your long-term goals?
How can the community help you get there?

14. Use Video Video conveys emotion
Excellent tool for talking about mission
Doubles as marketing content

15. Pay Attention to Small Details
Visibility
Font Choice
Cömpåtißilîty

16. Example - Button Choice

17. Example - Typography
Hierarchy, tracking, leading

18. Example - Typography

19. + 40% 7% Optimize Performance Losing Conversions after 3 seconds
per additional second +

20. Abandonment vs. Load Time

21. Of Internet Traffic is on Mobile Devices
Support Mobile
55%
Of Internet Traffic is on Mobile Devices

22. Key Metrics Site visitors Bounce Rate Pages per session
Average session duration
Conversions

23. Action Steps Install tools on your site to track behavior
Suggestions: Inspectlet, Hotjar, FullStory, Mouseflow
Ask someone to use your site while you observe them
Ask them what they think your mission is after reviewing your site
Clarify your call-to-action on each page
Include in the top right corner

24. Action Steps Check site compatibility using Chrome developer tools
Check site speed
Install Google Analytics

25. Marketing
2nd Strategy

26. Why Does Email Matter? Connects you directly with your audience
Delivers timely information
Keeps you top-of-mind with donors and partners
Helps achieve your organizational goals
is still one of the most efficient marketing tools available to businesses and nonprofits alike
For every $1 spent on marketing, the average return is $44.25
Src: Expert marketing study

27. Average ROI for email marketing
Marketing ROI
44 to 1
Average ROI for marketing

28. Key Points
Content
Design
Grow Your List
Frequency
Key Metrics

29. Content Process What is the key takeaway for your audience?
Why does this message matter to them?
What should they do next?

30. Content Ideas New leadership & team members
Goal progress & achievement (or missed)
Open job positions
Experiential stories from team members
Year-in-review
Relevant market trend news
Opinions on current events
Resources available
New donor series
Organizational milestones
Ask the audience about ideas

31. Content Recommendations
Tailor your message and send selectively
Include multiple links to your next action
Images, logo, button, within text
Personalize (in-bulk) when available
First name in subject line and greeting
Create a simple tone guide
Make it easy to unsubscribe

32. Design
Limit HTML
Build a simple template
Stay consistent

33. Example
25% lift for the one on the left

34. Grow Your List
Start with people you know: Donors, partners, volunteers
Build systems to onboard new contacts: New donors, event attendees, volunteers
Signup on website should be easy and the value clear
Always ask first
Let potential subscribers know what to expect
Respect unsubscribe requests

35. Frequency Recommendation: 1-2 emails per month for broad list
More frequently to small groups for specific events
Balance timely s with pre-planned
Create pre-planned s in batches
Schedule & plan for timely s
Send a re-engagement every ~6 months
Segment to tailor your message and match expectations

36. Key Metrics Open rate Click-through-rate Conversion rate
Unsubscribe rate
Suggestion: Interact directly with people who read and click often

37. Action Steps Set up a bulk email program
Suggestions: Mailchimp, ActiveCampaign
Create a list of content ideas for your organization
Capture the idea, key takeaway, why this matters, next action
Send an to your contacts asking if you can include them on your list
Make it easy to subscribe and be explicit about what they can expect
Double opt-in

38. Action Steps Start a system for adding new contacts to your list
Make a list of opportunities to collect online and offline
Use Zapier to auto-upload contacts from various tools
Schedule time this month to batch several s

39. Paid Advertising & Social Media
3rd strategy

40. Why Do Paid Ads & Social Media Matter?
Connect where your audience pays attention
Expand your reach
Deliver your message and mission to new audiences
Helps achieve your organizational goals

41. Key Points Paid vs. Organic Channels How Often to Post
Paid Advertising
Advertising Grants

42. Paid vs. Organic Paid Organic Existing audience New audience
People searching
Organic
Your audience

43. Channels Facebook YouTube Google AdWords Engage your existing audience
Get the word out
YouTube
Google AdWords
Find people looking for you
Get the word out - Hey, we’ve got stuff going on (events, volunteer opprtunities) but is also facilitating sharing
From an ad perspective - I want to let people in my community know what we are doing

44. Picking Channels Where does your audience live?
Focus on optimizing fewer channels
You don’t need to be everywhere
Match the tone of your organization

45. How Often to Post
Arbitrary Consistency - Pick a number and stick with it
3-4 posts per week, for example
Just-in-time - As things happen
“We’re alive” posts per month
Dormant - 1 post per 2-3 months
Organic only

46. Paid Advertising What are you trying to accomplish?
Who are you trying to reach?
Why does your goal matter to them?
What should they do next?
Ad strategies - Searchers, fishing, awareness

47. Ad Ideas Recruit new donors Share news and progress Recruit volunteers
Engage the community
Show up on map searches
Look for partners
Find patients or families who are searching Google
Ask the audience about ideas

48. Advertising Grants Google offers up to $10,000 per month
Sign up at

49. Action Steps
Look at social analytics to see if current posts are being seen
Apply for Google Adwords grant

50. Questions? Email me for slides ted@tjsconsult.com