041 – Best content marketing tips for non-profits with Abby Wood

Episode Transcription

David: Welcome to the Non-Profit Digital Success Podcast. I’m your host David, and in this episode I’m talking with my friend Abby wood. Abby is a content strategist that’s been helping companies connect with their audiences online for the last 10 years, founder of The Content Lab, Abby and her team have worked with over 300 organizations on their website content needs providing everything from website text to monthly blogs and email marketing.

How’s it going, Abby?

Abby: Good, thanks! How are you?

David: I am great. I’m very excited to have you on the show today. We’re talking about content and importance of content. And behind me, I’ve got a content calendar that we use here at my agency. So I’m super excited for people that are listening to the Non-Profit Digital Success Podcast, to understand how content can actually intertwine with their digital marketing strategies. Yeah. So starting with that, how is it that people can make the most of their content online?

Abby: So I would definitely say repurpose as much as possible. So kind of, you know, we all know that content takes forever to write usually, you know, especially if you’re doing it in house, you’ve got 1,001 things on your to-do list and content is usually somewhere around the bottom and just like, “oh, I need to create a blog post, but I have 1,001 other things to do first”. So try and get the most out of each thing that you’re doing. So kind of, you know, with an average blog post, you can take that and turn it in into email marketing newsletter kinda thing. You can also take little sections out of it and turn it into social updates. Yeah. You can pretty much use it for as much as possible.

So definitely don’t be afraid to kind of repurpose. I mean, you know, we’ve all heard the phrase, it takes about eight interactions before somebody will actually convert into either donating or volunteering time or whatever it is that you’re looking to do, so the more they see that message the better. And the less time it takes you to do it as well.

David: It’s all about the know, like, trust factor, right?

The more interactions you have with people over time, the more they understand what you do, they believe in what you do, they build up a relationship with you or your organization.

And then they wanna have some kind of interaction with you. And I think that that really speaks volumes.

Abby: Absolutely, yeah. And kinda, you know, the more people get to know you and know your organization, you know, the easier it is to get them to convert. And I know converting just sounds like, oh, you know, buying or something like that, it’s such a weird term to use, but yeah, that’s, you know, that’s our ultimate goal and kind, the more they see the more they like you, the more they, you know, get a good feel for why you do what you do and who you do it for the easier it’s gonna be to convince them to either donate to you or kind of, you know, become a board member or whatever it is you’re looking to do.

David: Yeah. It’s really key that non-profits think about how they’re reaching out to the community and the people that they interact with, or maybe, you know, even just couch surfers that are there flipping through their phone in the Facebook feed or Twitter, or, you know, TikTok or whatever it happens to be, but how they perceive you, how they perceive your organization, the messaging that it’s all, you know, on point that it matches your mission and your goals and the vision of your organization. And over time that might turn into donors. It might not, it might turn into people even being a brand ambassador, even if it’s just as simple as sharing an article or liking that will get you more eyes on it because the search and the social media algorithms will take advantage of that. And as you get more likes, it’ll become more popular and it’ll show it to more people.

Abby: Absolutely. I think it’s important to remember that as well, not every piece of content that you’re creating has to, you know, bring in thousands upon thousands of revenue and, you know, donations and stuff. A lot of it is just kind of interaction and, and bringing that human element in.

So kind of a big part for non-profits is just providing that human connection, which, you know, there’s, there’s a lot of non-profits out there all struggling for attention from the same amount of people. So, you know, if you can somehow, you know, convey your unique story and, you know, connect with someone on a deeper level, a more emotional level, then they’re much more likely to kind of be interested in what you’re doing and really believe in your mission as much as you do.

David: Do you have any tips for people that have published a blog or a news release or an article of some kind as to what they might wanna think about in terms of breaking that into different pieces?

Abby: Yeah. So I guess, so with, with your average blog post, you know, you can definitely, if you have a talented graphic designer on hand or, you know, you have a digital agency that helps you out, you can definitely turn that into a video. So you could have like a little like section of it that could be turned into a video. So like, you know, you text over like – stock videos aren’t great, but sometimes they’re needed, you know, if you don’t have your own videos on hand, stock photos are great, you know, just to have something, but you can do that.

You can, as I said, kind of email marketing, you know, you can send it out as an e-blast and be like, “Hey, check out our latest blog post”. Infographics, huge. So especially if you’re targeting people on social media, you know, infographics stand out, especially if you have your own research or something like that, it’s a great way of getting more brand awareness because people will share stuff that’s interesting, funny, which sometimes isn’t suitable for non-profits. It depends on the type of type of non-profit you are, but you know, something that, again goes back to that human connection.

So, you know, are they finding out something really interest interesting and, you know, life changing or, you know, is it entertaining? Is it funny? And the, you know, with videos and infographics, you can take a section of a blog post or, you know, a research piece or whatever it is you have, and just turn that into something visually appealing, because as much I’m a copywriter by nature. So as much as I wish everybody read, not a lot of people do. So if you can kind of, you know, grab their attention with, you know, bright colors and, you know, beautiful photography or videography or whatever it is, you can definitely kind of drive traffic back to your blog with that, or just, you know, kind of direct them back to the website to try and kind of convert them there.

David: So taking the blog or the news item, I think if you look at it, maybe paragraph by paragraph and go, all right, what’s the main point in this and then create another piece of content for social from that. And I think you’ll be able to find from any piece of content easily, you’ll be able to get four or five additional pieces of potential social content from that.

Abby: Absolutely. And, you know, kind of, you don’t even have to rewrite it. If you’re stuck for time, for sure, you know, take a paragraph out of a blog post. If it’s got something really insightful, really engaging, just take the, the paragraph outta the blog post and just pop it in as a social update and, you know, direct people to the rest of the blog, like, “oh, you know, does this sound good? Then read more here”, that kind of stuff. So, yeah, it’s all about kind of streamlining content creation because you know, it does, it can take hours out of your daily.

This is what I do full time. So, you know, it’s a long, long, long thing to have to do, especially if you have other things on your plate, but, you know, trying to kind of cut down the amount of effort to create content and, and repurposing is everything, especially for non-profits, just, yeah, cut out a paragraph of a blog post, pop it up as like a Facebook update or an Instagram update or whatever it is. And there you go, you know, you can, you can create three or four social updates from one blog post and kind of, you know, obviously you wouldn’t post them day after day, but I mean, if you posted one of them, you know, every other week or once a month, you know, driving traffic back to that one blog post, then you’ve, you know, say if you had four news updates for a month, you’ve got, you know, a day of content from each there.

David: Do any of these systems care about, I guess the cadence and the frequency that people are posting on? Like what kind of scheduling should people be thinking about in terms of ongoing content?

Abby: Yeah, sure. So the more you update your website, the more Google loves it, so Google in, you know, it’s all mightiness, you know, it has its little trackers, keeps an eye on kind of how frequent you update your website. So say if you are at the very, very least, you want to be posting a blog post or a news event or something like that on your website, at least once a month, that’s a bare minimum kinda. I always recommend to companies and organizations and non-profits and everything at least once a month, I mean, most non-profits now that kind of we’re, we’re easing out of lockdown, everything kind of, you know, we’re back up and running more in person events. So, you know, kind of one a week should be, you know, should be good, but Google absolutely loves it.

And that will in turn, help your ranking on Google. So kind of, you know, the little SEO checklist that we all have of, you know, “we need to be doing this on site, we need to be doing that”. Yeah. Even just like posting, “this is what happened at this event, or this is an event that’s upcoming” or, you know, “this is new research that’s been released” or anything like that will count as an update in Google’s eyes.

So yeah, once a week would be absolutely fantastic, if you can’t manage that, once a month minimum. In terms of social stuff, it really does depend on kind of the platform that you’re on. So for instance Instagram is more heavy use. So kind of, you know, posts and feeds are constantly updated. You know, if you post once a day on Instagram, it’s more than likely gonna get lost in the huge amount of, you know, feed updates that people get. Same with kind of Instagram stories, you wanna be doing that, you know, at least once a day. It’s a lot of effort to keep up with social media, not gonna lie, but yeah, so like Instagram, you’re looking at a couple of times a day just to stay relevant Facebook at least once a day.

Like these are kind of like daily tasks, which is where kinda the content repurposing comes in handy, you know, instead of having to write something extensive every single day, you know, kind of schedule things in advance or kind of batch things up. So, you know, you wanna kind of write a month’s worth of updates and then kind of, you know, if you have something urgent that comes in or, you know, like a, a brand new news, you know, item that comes in add it in on top, but yeah, that’s, that was a very long explanation, but yeah, at least once a day for most social media stuff.

David: That’s great. And in terms of the length of articles, you know, I, I believe that at minimum you should be looking at like around 500 words, 600 words, that type of length. I had somebody on another podcast and they’re like, no, it should be a minimum of 1200 words. What’s your take on that?

Abby: I think it’s all personal perception, to be honest with you, like, you read different things from, you know, Google updates and everything, and, you know, everyone’s got a different opinion on it. Me personally, I don’t do anything under a thousand words for a blog post. And I mean, that, that wouldn’t be kind of your, you run of the mill event updates. So I mean like an event update could be 500 words kind of, you know, what was involved, where it happened, you know, kinda what were the outcomes, that kinda thing.

Whereas kinda, if you’re looking to do a blog post to rank on Google on like a specific subject you want at least a thousand, you know, the guest that said 1200, hundred percent, you know, Google loves anything between like 1000 and 3000 for the blog post. Once you get over the three thousand word threshold, you in form content, which is more cornerstone pieces. And although they do rank very well on Google, they do take a long time to write. If, you know, if writing isn’t your forte, it can take days to kind of write like 10,000 words on one blog post. So yeah, I think kind of at least a thousand words, if you look into rank on Google for something, and if you are just kinda updating news and stuff, at least 500.

David: That’s great. That’s great. And you know, the longer the content, it’ll be easier to find something to split into other social pieces and other engagement pieces that you might be able to leverage in your favor as a non-profit. So let’s talk about, I guess, the substance of the content, what can organizations do to connect with donors and volunteers or potential donors and volunteers?

Abby: So I guess there’s this kind of stereotype of storytelling being the best selling point, and it is, you know, people connect with stories. So, I mean, you know, if you are looking to really emotionally connect with someone, you know, focus on the human stories behind what you do. So, you know, whether it’s kind of reforesting an area in Africa or whether it’s, you know, helping, you know, kind of local traders get more business or whatever it is that, that you focus on, focus on the people behind kinda what you do. So, you know, it is very good to go into the details of exactly, you know, how you help people for sure. But the emotional connection is kind of your main selling point. From a copywriting perspective when you’re writing try and always kind of address the, the reader.

So instead of being like, “we do this and we’re fantastic and, you know, hire us and do this and donate now” and all this kinda stuff, focus on kind of the end benefit for the person reading it. So if they’re donating their time kind, you know, focus on how they’re helping the situation and rather than being like, “oh, you’ll help us, you know, kind of make us even greater”, but you know, kind of, you’ll be helping to say if, you know, if it’s a woman’s refuge, you know, you are helping vulnerable women in society get back on their feet or, you know, that kinda thing. So always focus on like the deeper end benefits of kind what you’re trying to write about. So rather than just being like we’re offering a bake sale, it’s like, you know, this is what we’re hoping to achieve with bike sale kinda thing.

David: And I talk about that so many times on this podcast, and even in, in meetings with prospective clients and current clients and past clients, you wanna try to evoke some kind of emotion and that’s what’s gonna drive people to care about your organization, right. If you’re just talking about “we’re the best at providing shoes to third world countries” or right. Why is that important? Why should anybody care about that? Why is this a problem? And if you can get to the heart of that, that’s gonna really help create that emotional connection, which in turn over a long period of time, as you’ve said before, you know, there’s the seven or eight interactions before somebody will want to do anything, right. Creating that relationship and making it heartfelt and genuine, I think is a really key piece.

Abby: I think tricky line to walk with fundraising and volunteering and stuff. It’s very tricky to kind of make that emotional connection, but not come across as manipulative. We’ve all seen the adverts and stuff where it’s like that’s a little bit too much on, you know, kind of the, the scale of, you know, yeah. So it’s a tricky kind of line, the way I always approach non-profit copywriting is to try and see the positives in every situation. So although the, you know, kind of, if you’re dealing with a very kind of difficult situation, you know, definitely try and highlight the positives, the positive outcomes, because, and that’s a big thing about kind of the emotional connection with readers as well. If they feel like something is too negative, they’ll just tune out because we all know the news is full of bad news now, you know, and it’s just like, they’ve just had enough. So kind of, if you can put a positive light, you know, kind a good spin on things, then people are more likely to listen and to listen longer.

David: I think that’s very true, right. You don’t wanna see, I remember very distinctly, I don’t remember which organization it was, but in the 90s there were commercials of, you know, starving children that were like, you could see their bones. There was like, no muscle tone, there was nothing, right. And just like for $1 a day, I think that’s what it was, $1 a day you could feed a family or whatever it happened to be.

There’s only so much of that that people can take. And it’s a hard thing to see. It’s a hard thing to talk about. And I agree with what you said completely. Find the positive on it, talk about, you know, how you’re impacting and why this is such a great idea and, you know, really get to the bottom of it.

Abby: Yeah. I think that’s a very good kind of approach for, you know, the human stories behind it as well. You can do, like before and after, you know, kind of like, this is the situation this person was in before, here it is after we’ve helped them, you know, kind of, you know, achieve whatever or, you know, get healthier or whatever it is that you guys specialize in. And going back to the TV ads there, kind of, I was back in the UK for Christmas.

And I dunno what it’s like over in Canada, but every single Christmas, every single advert is a charity and cause it’s Christmas and people are very charitable and it’s just like, it’s like eight minutes nonstop of horrific imagery just on your TV, and you’re like, “oh my god, this is Christmas”. Like, I just feel bad, you know, it doesn’t make want to donate, doesn’t make me wanna volunteer. It just makes me feel bad. And think a lot of people, I think the media being the way it is, we’re very much saturated with horrible imagery. And I think it doesn’t work the way it used to, that a lot of charities used to kind approach their fundraising. I think, yeah, I think it’s time to put a more positive spin on things, for sure.

David: Yeah. The last couple of years with, and then all the other things that have been going on around in the world, let’s try to have some positivity out there, right. To make people smile and feel good about what they’re doing. And I think that that goes a long way. The saying is right, you attract more flies with honey.

Abby: Yes. A hundred percent, a hundred percent. It is true.

David: So we’ve been talking about content and taking long form content or medium form content and splitting it and chunking it up and posting on social. And so this is a little bit of a loaded question, but what channels should non-profits think about pushing content out on

Abby: It entirely depends on their audience, which is just like people listening, gonna be like, “well, that’s helpful, thank you”. So it depends on your audience and it depends on where they hang out online. So I never recommend somebody to post on absolutely every single social platform because the people that use LinkedIn are not gonna be the same people that are using Twitter. They’re used for very different audiences and they’re used for different purposes.

So, you know, with Instagram, great, image-heavy kind of, a lot of people do fashion and beauty and travel and this kind of thing. It’s a great way of connecting with people if you are very visual. And if it’s a certain age group that you’re going for. So, you know, typically big stereotype is typically, you know, Instagram is kind of, you know, anywhere from like 18 to like 35, that kind of age range, same with like TikTok.

I’m 32. I don’t use TikTok. I know I’m probably like, you know, in the, you know, in the minority here, most people have TikTok, but you know, kinda, you wouldn’t typically kind of go on TikTok to try and kind of fundraise and that kinda thing. You may do, if you are kind of an organization for youth groups, hundred percent, you’re gonna find your audience on TikTok because kids love TikTok, teenagers love TikTok. If you’re more in the business space, kinda more professional space, LinkedIn. You know, it’s all about knowing your target audience and where they hang out. But yeah, it’s kind of, it depends on who you’re helping. So that doesn’t really help, you know, anyone listening. But – {laughs}

David: I think it does. I think it provides a little bit of clarity. It’s important for organizations to know who their primary and secondary markets are, the demographics and the psychographics about what people care about that are connected in some way to their organization and knowing, “okay, this is where they spend their time”.

Chances are LinkedIn is probably a really great space, depending on like the audience you’re going after. If they’re really highly visual, a cultural arts center, right. Being on Instagram, Tik Tok, if it’s like dance arts or if you have artists doing a residency and you want to film them doing whatever it is that they’re working on. I think there’s certainly great opportunities, but knowing, okay, here’s your, your primary person that you’re going after. Here’s what they care about, here’s where they hang out and going after those specific platforms that they’ll be on is important because you can save yourself hours of time.

If your audience isn’t hanging out on Facebook, but you’re in there spending hours and hours a month posting on Facebook, updating on Facebook, potentially advertising in Facebook and spending money on that. You know, is it the best spend of your time?

Abby: This is it. I think you’ve kinda hit the nail on the head. It’s, you know, it’s like going in an empty pond, you know, if there’s nobody there that’s interested, don’t be spending money on Facebook ads, you know, it’s kind of, it’s where are you gonna get the most bang for your buck almost, you know? And I hate that phrase, but, you know, it’s, you know, are your users hanging out on Twitter? You know, if they’re into arts and culture, then possibly, you know, it’s, you know, but are you gonna find, you know, like serious kind of business people, you know, looking for networking opportunities? You’re not gonna usually find them on Twitter. You might prove me wrong now, but you know, it’s just kind of, yeah. I wouldn’t be worried about updating like six profiles every single day, focus on one or two, you know, and where you get the most interactions and just, yeah. Save your time for something else.

David: You know, and potentially connecting with an influencer that might have a care for your cause. I had earlier on another episode, we talked about influencer marketing. If you find an influencer, if your organization is trying to cure cancer and you’re trying to raise awareness about that, I’m sure there’s hundreds and hundreds of celebrities or A-list, B list that you can connect with to potentially help spread your message. They might wanna be paid. Yes, no, I don’t know. It doesn’t really matter, but you know, for the sake of what we’re talking about, if you go where their audience is and they care about curing brain cancer, let’s say, if you can get them to mention you that’ll pay off in dividends.

Abby: Absolutely. Influencer marketing is huge, especially with certain age groups as well. You know, certain influencers, you know, they’re called influencers for a reason. They have big sway with spending power and, you know, kind of woman or manpower and everything. It’s like if an influencer says, “Hey, this is a great company to work with or a great product to buy” or whatever it is, their followers will just follow them. That’s exactly what it is. So, yeah, and like you say, some of them are paid, some of them aren’t, you know, it’s just how it works, but if you can find the right one with the right audience, you can achieve huge, huge brand awareness. So yeah, definitely consider it.

David: I think a lot of non-profits do this is they have their specialty, their niche, their niche, however you wanna pronounce it, they focus on one or two very kind of specific things, right? Whether it’s geriatrics or childcare or whatever it happens to be, but in any given space, there’s probably a couple hundred non-profits globally that have similar goals, ambitions, etcetera. How can one organization differentiate themselves from another, in the same kind of space?

Abby: There’s always something, there’s always something that makes you unique. And sometimes that’s very difficult to figure out, I’m not gonna lie, but I know it’s in a completely different kinda example, but for instance, we have a few clients here that are shoe shops, and I know this is completely kind of out the wheelhouse of non-profits and stuff, but yeah. So we’re, we’re based in Ireland, we’re a very small island and there are a certain number of people here that will buy shoes. And there are a certain number of shoe shops.

Now we have, I’d say, four shoe shop clients at the moment. They all sell exactly the same brands. They all sell them for exactly the same price, you know, and somehow you’ve gotta figure out how to differentiate them. So kind of one of them is they’ve been a family business, you know, the last four generations have run this shoe shop. So that is to differentiate for them. That’s how you kind of position all of your marketing towards that family business. And it’s a very personal service and stuff.

And we have another one that is, you know, it’s all about kind of keeping up with the latest releases and, you know, kind of, they give free freebies away, you know, with every order, that kind of thing. It’s about figuring out exactly what makes you unique as a non-profit. And I know kind of, you know, like, “oh, how many non-profits do this thing?” There is always something that makes you unique. And even if you don’t think there is, ask some of your volunteers, what makes you unique? You know, kind of, it could literally be, you know, that you have a family atmosphere of volunteers that, you know, generally care about, you know, what you’re doing. It could be that you have, you know, more volunteers across the entire country that services the whole country compared to, if you just have like three or four local non-profits that do exactly the same as you/ There are so many differentiators. It’s all about kind of just, yeah, figuring out exactly what it is, but there’s always something,

David: It could be the location, maybe nobody else in your city, your state, your province, your territory, wherever you are, maybe nobody else is doing it. Maybe they’re across on the other side of the country, or maybe they’re, you know, a 20-minute drive away, and you live closer to the denser population.

Abby: Yeah. A hundred percent location is huge. You know, if it’s all local people that are helping, they know the people that are affected in your area, you know, kind of its local localities are a big kinda differentiator for sure.

David: I think a lot of what we’ve been talking about ultimately are pieces that could get pulled into a marketing strategy, a content marketing strategy, what is a good non-profit content marketing strategy look like?

Abby: I think it’s, it’s a robust content strategy. It’s not focused on solely one area. So, you know, like if you’re looking for a content strategy for a non-profit, you wouldn’t just be blogging, you’d be creating different touchpoints across different platforms for wherever your audience is hanging out. So, as we said, a couple of times already, you’re looking at seven to eight different touchpoints and the more platforms you’re on. And I don’t mean just like social media platforms. I mean, you know, your website, you know, Google and Facebook ads, if that’s, you know, what works for you kinda email marketing, you know, podcasts like this, you know, kind of, if there’s anywhere where you can just kind of get in front of your audience in a number of different ways and just get your, your face out there, get your name out there, get your brand out there. It’s definitely a better content strategy for sure. You don’t want to put all of your eggs in one basket, for sure.

David: I think a lot of it also comes down to brand recognition, right? So letting people know who you are, what you do and why they need to care about you. And I think that certainly helps a long way and, you know, really understanding and living and believing in your mission, vision, value statement. It sounds a little corny, but really like driving that message through all of your content and always relating that back to what it is that you do will help further your mission.

Abby: Absolutely, yeah. And I think as long as you’re bringing it into all of your messaging and kind of all of your touch points and everything, no matter where somebody meets your brand, whether it’s online or in person at an event, or a podcast or the local radio or whatever it is, they’re going to know who you are, what you do and why you do it, which is, you know, the biggest point that you could possibly hope to get across.

David: Yeah. And I think, you know, this conversation, we could probably talk for hours about, you know, what makes really great content and, you know, start brainstorming different kinds of content and that type of thing. But, you know, like I’ve picked up some really great tidbits from this, Abby. You’re always so wonderful to chat with, maybe we’ll have you on another episode. Yeah, but during our pre-show, we were talking about something special that you kind of launched earlier this year. So why don’t you tell us about what that is?

Abby: Yeah, sure. So I came to realize that not everybody has the budget for a professional copywriter and, you know, writing website copy is incredibly difficult. There’s no two ways around that, if you’re not trained in it or have, you know, a decade of experience, it can be tricky. So what I’ve done is I’ve created a pack, which is a few templates and a few guidelines on how to write your own website copy, basically. So this could be used for either a relaunch of an old website or a completely new website, but it has the homepage, the about page, services page kind of, you know, like mission statements, that kind of thing. And it’s all in one bundle. So you can buy the package and then go ahead and write your own website copy afterwards.

David: That’s amazing. How can anybody get that?

Abby: So if you head over to contentgoodies.com, it is available for purchase online, and it is a set of Google Doc templates and then a set of PDF guidelines as well. And you can reuse it as much as you like, and, you know, it’s all kinda editable and, you know, you can brand it out to your own brand guidelines.

David: Awesome. So that’s contentgoodies.com. And if anybody wants to reach out to you in connect with you, what should they do?

Abby: You can head over to my website, which is thecontentlab.ie. It’s dot IE because we’re in Ireland, head over there and fill in the contact form or get my email address there, and yeah, happy to chat and help whenever’s needed.

David: Thanks so much, Abby. I hope everybody that’s been listening to this episode have been able to pick up some really great tips and tricks and insight. I think this was really great. And to everybody listening, if you want any of the links or resources that Abby talked about, just head over to wowdigital.com/podcast. Find this episode, we’re gonna have links in the transcription and all of that in the show notes page. And until then, until our next episode, keep on being successful.

Abby: Thanks so much guys.