113 – AI and Branding for Non-Profits with Lou Kotsinis

Episode Transcription

David Pisarek: Today, we’re diving into effective digital marketing strategies for non-profits with Lou Kotsinis. He’s the founder and CEO of BCS Interactive, the digital agency focused exclusively on non-profit and education sectors. Since 2011, Lou and his team have empowered non-profits across the country to craft authentic stories, build impactful connections, and grow their causes with a current focus on leveraging digital marketing fundamentals to cultivate a strong and loyal supporter base.

Lou, that was a bit of a mouthful. Thank you so much for joining us on the show today. How’s your day going so far?

Lou Kotsinis: It’s going great, David. Great to be here. And by the way, when we say across the country, we’re talking about the US as much as I love Canada, we do not have any Canadian clients right now, although our social media strategist is in Toronto.

David Pisarek: Alrighty. Very good. Okay, so let’s jump in. Let’s talk about marketing dollars. I believe that organizations, for-profit, not-for-profit or whatever the organization, should spend about 10% of their operating budget on marketing. That would be paid ads. That would be in hiring people with social content. That would be on hiring folks like you or me to help them with web and digital media and that type of stuff. What are your thoughts on that?

Lou Kotsinis: You know, we don’t really have a set percentage that we recommend clients spend on. For us, we’re marketers, so we want people to market, so the more they can spend on advertising, the better. I mean, it just comes down to pure logic.

If an organization doesn’t spend anything, it will get zero exposure. And maybe by word of mouth, they can grow. If the other organization or another organization spends 20, 30% of their budget on marketing, by definition, they can’t not grow. So just by using those very kinds of bare metrics, our recommendation is always the more the merrier.

We both know in the non-profit world, that’s not feasible, right? So what we advise clients in general is that when it comes to their marketing dollars, rather than chase the hot new thing, whether that’s this year AI or TikTok or whatever the industry is telling you to invest in, we think the best spend of those marketing dollars whether it’s 10, 20 or 30% is really on the core fundamentals, the core principles and processes that are going to pay dividends years down the line, right? And the organizations we’ve seen that are succeeding in marketing and overall donor growth and retention are the ones that are able to do that.

Lou Kotsinis: So, you know, we can get in-depth in terms of what that is, but it comes down to three core components, and I realize I’m kind of over answering your question here, I hope you don’t mind, but we can build off of that.

So, you know, in terms of fundamentals, at the end of the day, David, you’re a marketer, so you know where I’m going here, it comes down to story.

Number one is: call it story, call it brand. At the end of the day, donors want to know who they’re giving to. They want to connect with a mission in a very deep way. They want to see impact for the dollars they’re putting out there. Here I’m talking about things like thinking about your messaging, your overall storyline, your positioning, and yes, of course, your physical logo. But that comes after the fact. You have to have your story in place. If you’re able to do that properly and cultivate it over time, that’s really going to feed the rest of your marketing.

You’re working on looking at your story. And then, for a non-profit, we’re also looking at their website, which is, you know, ironic because the website has transformed over the last 10, 15 years.

Lou Kotsinis: It’s not the end-all, be-all except for non-profits, because this is the main conveyor of that story that we’re just talking about. Right. So, irrespective of what happens with search and what happens with technology, people are still going to seek you out, they’re going to find you somewhere, and that’s going to be your website. So, its story, its website.

And the third fundamental thing to think about, of course, is social media because it’s just so omnipresent and a great way to build a community. And that word community is key there.

I don’t know in terms of strict percentages, you know, we don’t have a cut and dry model, but the money that you do have, invest first in those fundamentals and then we can always talk about the fun things that are coming down the pipe.

David Pisarek: Yeah, I love that approach. And you’re talking about these different components.

A brand isn’t just your logo, a brand isn’t just your primary, secondary colors or the fonts you’re using. It’s the tone, the style, and the essence of the organization.

How does that actually come through? Everything that you do, what is the story that you’re telling and being able to talk about the impact you’re having. You want to connect emotionally with people because that is going to get them to care about your organization. They’ll take some kind of action. Maybe it’s read another page, maybe it’s share an article, maybe it’s subscribe to your newsletter. Maybe it’s become a volunteer. Maybe it’s make a $5, $10, $50.000 donation. You need to talk about the impact you’re having. And that is a huge part of the brand of a non-profit or a charity.

Lou Kotsinis: 100%.

You know, one way to look at it, if you know, a non-profit leader doesn’t appreciate that on its face values. If you think of a for-profit organization and a product you are going to buy, whether, I don’t know, off the top, I’d say a computer or even a car, you’re not really too concerned about, you know, how are they changing the world? What is the story behind this? You want to find the best possible price, the best possible dealer. So that’s a different approach than what a non-profit needs to do, right?

By definition, non-profits are trying to change the world. There is a human story there.The story should kind of infuse everything that you’re doing. And that’s frankly one of the reasons we got into this particular sector. Because, by definition, non-profit organizations have this beautiful human story that we are able to tap into and then kind of build from there.

So sometimes, and I’ve posted about this on LinkedIn, I think sometimes a lot of really worthy non-profits have kind of, for lack of a better term, like a self issues of self esteem, right? They feel, oh well, we’re not non-profit and you know, we’re not as powerful as this brand and we’re too small. But you have a great marketing asset in that narrative. So I encourage them to lean into that and build on it for marketing success.

David Pisarek: I think there’s a little bit of impostor syndrome. How could we possibly do and be as out there as, like, Red Bull? If you see an organization, for-profit, not-for-profit, you’re maybe just starting up, or you’re thinking of starting a non-profit or charity, find somebody that you aspire to be like. And then go: how can we make that happen? It’s not a we can’t make it happen. How can we make it happen? But here’s a little bit of psychology for everybody. You want to frame things in a positive way because that will affect the outcome that you’re going to have on whatever happens to be. So, all right, I guess that’s a bit of a side note.

Lou Kotsinis: It’s totally relevant. And if I can build on that, you know, as you’re aspiring to these other organizations that you see, I think you’ll agree with me. It’s also very important to think about your ideal prospect, right? Your ideal donor.

You know, they’re coming. They wake up in the morning saying: I have this need, this urgency. Something happened in my family, and I want to give to this particular cause or whatever it might be, or they believe in the environment, or whatever it is they want to do. They’re actually. They’re out there waiting for you, right? They’re seeking you out. So you think about that donor. Get to know them both in a qualitative and a quantitative way. That’s a fancy way of saying, you know, talk to them to understand what motivates them. Also, look at the data that you’re collecting on your websites and on your social media to paint a Persona of who this individual is.

So to your point, while they’re aspiring to be these different organizations, who is it that they’re looking to satisfy? And what messaging can we put in place to reach that individual?

Lou Kotsinis: And with patience and consistency over time, that’s how we’ve seen organizations become successful. If they’re aiming in that direction.

David Pisarek: I’d encourage everybody to obviously finish listening to this episode, but check out episode 16 of the podcast because I talk about psychographics and why non-profits should care about psychographics. That will help you figure out the whole persona thing that Lou is referring to and talking about here.

So let’s jump back into marketing mode here. So we’ve got our amazing website working for us. I like to tell our clients, think of your website as a marketer that is working for you 24/7 – 365 days a year. It’s out there. It’s promoting you. It’s talking about you. AI is definitely, to your point, here to stay. We’ve been leveraging AI for about three and a half to four years in my agency. Really, really early adopters. We are seeing shifts with AI where people, they’re still using Google. Google is very much the search giant, but they’re going into these AI platforms and doing search there. Why? Because they don’t see ads in there. They’re just getting the straight information and content without even needing to visit the website. So it’s siphoning, it’s pulling, it’s learning, and it’s grabbing that information and pushing it into the AI results.

David Pisarek: So I’m curious, what role do you see that AI can help play from a marketing standpoint for non-profits and charities?

Lou Kotsinis: Sure. So first of all, we should put aside what it can do to society because that is something we need to be concerned about. But from a marketing standpoint, I see it as a net positive because think about the experience, David. Like I like using Claude. That’s my platform. Some people like ChatGPT or Perplexity; there are a bunch of others out there, but Claude.ai is the one I go to.

So, think about how those experiences compare to your traditional Google experience. You search for something on Google, you’re waiting for your series of websites, you pick the best website, and then you kind of have to keep going down that path. What AI has done for us is that it distills the answer that we are looking for. So you probably find the best answer to what you’re searching for, and then, the additional beauty is that you can start to have a conversation with this platform to get additional context. So if you can get found on these platforms, it’s really a wonderful thing. So you know, what we advise clients is: what has worked for you to be found on Google? Yes, keep doing that.

Lou Kotsinis: But now, remember you just mentioned that these platforms that they learn and they’re pulling in data from all different kinds of sources, this is going to compel a non-profit to build out its brand across all those channels we spoke about. Because it’s not just pulling from the web now. They’re looking at social media. They’re looking at all different kinds of, to use a technical term, what they call data sets. So, we’re telling clients to put out a lot of content in the areas that you’re strong in, such as white papers and case studies. If you’re doing video presentations, put those on YouTube. So that’s how I feel it’s going to benefit non-profits. If they can, over time, make sure they’re building their brand comprehensively.

That will increase the chances that you’re showing up on these platforms. And while you’re doing that, you’re also improving your organization because you’re touching all of those brand points and making them better along the way. It’s a lot of work and I can see how some organizations would see it as scary, but you know, this is where we’re going as a society, and I think, all of us, myself included, really have to get on board with that.

David Pisarek: It’s one of these technological revolutions that has come into play, and I think Covid really kind of ramped that up and started speeding it up. I think we were probably 8 to 10 years away before COVID. And here we are, we’re like AI is really just a toddler if we think about it. The human, it’s just right at the beginning, starting to learn all kinds of stuff and whatnot and understanding how we can leverage that, but also understanding what it actually knows about us right now.

So I’d love everybody to go to Perplexity and do a search on your organization. If you’re a leader in your organization, do a search on your own name, see what it actually knows about you, and then dig in a little bit. Spend five minutes, that’s all you’ve got to do. Start with five minutes, block off a bit of time in your calendar and just go and do a search and see what it actually knows about you. Take a look and run a search, like how many organizations in the northwest U.S. help children and have school supplies. Whatever your organization does, do a search on that.

David Pisarek: Ask it to make a list. Are you on that list? There’s a lot of work to be done for organizations, and yes, it can be a little bit scary, but it’s important work to be doing so that you can figure out how to grow in that way, because that’s what people are leaning towards. Like, I’ve got ChatGPT on my phone. I could actually have a voice conversation with it. It’s really cool. It’s a little bit weird. AI has been around for a long time. The Google devices, the Alexa devices, the series of the world, those are essentially AI models. So don’t be too scared of this.

Lou Kotsinis: I want to build on what you said, which is an excellent point about how to use Perplexity. So, for those of your listeners who don’t know, Perplexity is basically an AI-enabled search engine. You’ll see similarities to Google in the sense that when you type in a search query, it’s going to give credit to the different websites that it pulled from. So you’ll have different sites to look at. A great exercise that we advise clients, which you just mentioned here, is, you know, if you go to Google and type in your organization’s name, I don’t know, Canadian Cancer Fund, I don’t know, I’m just making one up off the top of my head. You will probably see your website come up, which is great. Right? But you know, your website, if you type that same search into perplexity, you’re going to see a summary of all of what that platform has learned about you on one page. So it’s a great way to see how the world views you from the point of AI and it’s a great way to then assess, wait a second, this is not where we’re focused anymore. This is not how we want to say certain things.

Lou Kotsinis: And this is why I love using AI tools because they can streamline your marketing. It’s a great way to get a snapshot of what your brand is all about.

David Pisarek: Absolutely. So we think about digital marketing and non-profits. Are there any fundamental pieces that you think these non-profits should be thinking about or moving forward with?

Lou Kotsinis: Sure. So yeah, we kind of opened with that.

I can’t emphasize enough how, you know, story and brand and positioning are really the cornerstone of everything that you’re doing. So it’s a matter of continually doing it. It’s not a one-and-done thing. Because the audience changes, the marketplace changes, technology changes. Are you meeting your prospective donors and constituents where they are in this day and age? So looking at the story is number one again. We spoke about the website and we spoke about social media being those channels.

Another one I would add to that, which is kind of an add-on to all of this, is email marketing because that’s your opportunity to have a really solid, almost one-on-one conversation with your audience. Now, as you’ve got these fundamentals in place at that point, as God willing, more budget comes your way and more staff is able to dedicate time to different marketing initiatives. Hopefully, the board is behind you as well, too. Then you can start to do some really interesting things like, you know, paid social media ads, search engine marketing, and of course starting to dabble in AI as well.

Lou Kotsinis: So those are really just to reiterate, those core fundamentals are the ones we spoke about in the beginning.

David Pisarek: Okay, so we’ve got these fundamental pieces. I love that you talked about email. In a recent episode, we talked about email, segmentation, and tagging people, as well as the right way to build automations and pieces like that. So I don’t want to kind of like dive into there. But I’m super glad that you mentioned that because it is a big part of it because you get directly into somebody’s face when you connect into their email, they actually have to go delete or I mean, I go into a little bit of a panic mode whenever I see my sister’s phone because there’s like 89,000 unread emails on the little mail icon there.

David Pisarek: But it just kind of sits there. But you’re still there, right? You’re trying to be present with them. So fundamentals. Awesome. Super clear. Successful non-profits versus average ones or low average ones. Right. What do you see as the thing that separates really successful ones from average?

Lou Kotsinis: Yeah, sure. Well, from a marketing standpoint, you know, I can’t speak to their fundraising or their overall strategy. There are a few common elements that we see in all of our clients that really take off, you know, versus those that kind of just hold the course.

So, the first thing is that they take marketing seriously, from the top down. It’s not just an afterthought; it’s not something they will do when they have the time or when they come across the money. They’ve made marketing, and that brand I spoke about is critical to their success. So that starts at the executive and the board level. They believe in it.

Secondly, they do what we just said, which is they focus on the fundamentals. You and I are both old enough to remember the ALS ice bucket challenge. It’s not one of these where, okay, well this year we’re just going to throw a bunch of money at this, and we want to go viral, but it doesn’t work that way. Right. They understand that it’s a long-term game, a consistency game, and patience.

Then lastly, this ties into the first point, which is that they are willing to dedicate the time and the financial resources to make it work. And again, we’re not talking about being spent threats here. We’re not talking about putting an inordinate amount of money into it. But they realize that to build out their infrastructure and to gain exposure, they do have to put some money into this. It’s an overall mindset, really, that is comprised of these three things.

David Pisarek: Obviously.

A big part of non-profits is human capital. You need people, whether it’s volunteers, interns, full-time staff, or part-time staff, to actually make everything run. And then you’ve got other folks like you and I, we can come in as consultants, give you direction, do the deliverables for you to save you the time.

So, having said that, what is your opinion on how non-profits can address the staffing needs or capacity concerns with regards to actually creating the marketing, planning, and strategy and then actually delivering on it?

Lou Kotsinis: And that’s a big challenge in the industry, right? David? I just, you know, budget is one thing, but the thing that we hear, you know, more and more often is, okay, well, you’ve given us this great strategy, we just don’t have the staff to implement it. It’s a capacity thing.

I would approach that this way: So, first of all, you have to define what it is that you’re trying to achieve, right? Like set your goals up, make them as concrete as possible, and then start to assess, well, where do we need the help? What channels are we in that we know we can be successful in? Do we have an amazing Facebook presence? And this is where we’re getting a lot of our funding coming through? Do we have thousands of people coming to our website because we have a blog? That really is answering all of their questions, or deciding or understanding where your audience is and then narrowing it down to that, so that way you’re not trying to be everything to everyone. Then, it goes back to that mindset again. Right. I think an executive director, in particular, needs to work with their board to understand that this needs to be a commitment.

Lou Kotsinis: And then you start with available funding. So, if you’re a smaller organization and don’t have the capacity in-house, you can start to look out to agencies like, you know, yours or mine, for example. If that becomes cost-prohibitive, then you work your way down. Well, maybe we can speak to a freelancer using a tool like Upwork, where you can find a qualified freelancer in that particular area that you need to focus on.

If it’s cost-prohibitive, then you start looking towards the volunteer realm. Now with that, of course, you have to be cautious. You have to find people who are qualified and who are committed to marketing the mission. But I would take that top-down approach. And again, board involvement is very important here. If they’re not going to fund what you’re looking to do, then they have to pitch in to help find that volunteer or find that, you know, that freelancer that’s going to assist. One last thing I want to mention here, and I think you probably have some experience here, is that you can also start to look at AI to assist with some of these tasks that we’re talking about here.

I’m not talking about replacing humans, I’m not talking about having AI write your content, and you put that content on your website. But I am talking about having AI do things that usually a production person would do or you would waste time doing, such as looking at proper subject headings for emails, improving your social media posts, helping you as you’re writing a blog topic to research a particular topic that you don’t understand. So I actually wrote a post on this a while back that I think helped quite a few people. But you know, this is what we want to start leaning into AI as an assistant, and it is not necessarily something that will replace humanity.

David Pisarek: We use AI, and we recommend it to our clients as well. We say to even go back to the very, very basics, and you can leverage it to help you with brainstorming. We need to run a charity campaign of some kind, blah, blah, blah. This is kind of what we do. Give me 25 different ideas for a three-hour campaign, right? You’ll get things like a car wash or a library fundraiser or whatever. You can use it in that way. And you’re not going to get perfection out of AI, right? What you will get is maybe 60, 70% of the way there. And then that’s where the human comes in to go, okay, this is right. This isn’t right. Refine it. Put another query in or prompt. In the AI world, it’s called a prompt, and it gets what you want out of it to help save you some time. You can sit down for an hour with five, six, and seven of your colleagues in your department and brainstorm. And AI can probably do that with just one person going back and forth with it to develop a few really great ideas. And it might not be totally fleshed out, but it’s a starting point.

Lou Kotsinis: Yeah, 100%.

One of the areas I just mentioned that I love using AI for is that I write a lot, you know, I regularly blog, and sometimes you want to explain a technical topic or you yourself want to get some knowledge on a particular area. In the past, I’d spend hours chasing down different websites, then comparing the two answers to see if that made sense. This is really what AI is for, right? You can type in that particular topic, and it’s like speaking to a college professor, but like the smartest college professor you’ve ever met in your life who happens also to be polite and responds really quick, right?

That’s the way I use AI, but, and you know, again, we’re really just at the cusp of what these things can do. I mean, you likened it to being an infant. It’s kind of an infant that’s growing 100 years in a minute. It’s growing very rapidly. So it’s, you know, I encourage people not to be intimidated by it and to learn as much as they can and go on these platforms and experiment. And you’ll see that the way you can use this for your organization is going to become apparent over time.

David Pisarek: Awesome. Lou, thank you so much for your insights today. They’ve been incredibly valuable. I hope our listeners can take something away from this conversation and do something with it to help enhance their digital efforts.

I like to put our guests in a hot seat right at the end. So let’s see if you’re ready for it. If you were to give whoever’s listening to this a challenge to do in the next one or two days after listening to this episode or even immediately after this episode, what would that challenge be?

Lou Kotsinis: Sure, it would be to reach out to 1, 2, or 3 of your best donors or best prospects or people that you think represent your audience and ask them: What do you think of us? Are we getting our messaging across properly? What can we do to satisfy you? Where should we be? So it’s one thing to do with a lot of subtopics to it, but I just can’t emphasize this enough. Get to know your key audience and understand what they want to see. And are you meeting that need online that’s going to feed everything you do?

David Pisarek: Absolutely love it, Lou. If anybody wants to get in touch with you, what do they need to do?

Lou Kotsinis: Sure, they can find me on LinkedIn. Lou Kotsinis, you know, that’ll hopefully be in the link. They can also sign up for our monthly blog as well, by going to our website, bcsinteractive.com, scroll down to the bottom, and there’s a sign-up there. We post once a month on topics just like this. Non-profit Digital marketing.

David Pisarek: Amazing. Amazing. Thanks again so much for joining in, Lou. It’s been enlightening having you here on the Non-profit Digital Success Podcast.

Everybody listening, if you’re looking for any of the links or the resources or Lou’s LinkedIn profile, head over to our podcast page at nonprofitdigitalsuccess.com, check out this episode for all the details. We’ve got the show notes there.

And until next time, keep on being successful!