Messaging Archives - Page 22 of 27 - Claxon Communication

5 Last Minute Tips to Get People to GiveBIG

May 1, 2012 by Erica Barnhart

Get them to GiveBIG! If you’re in throes of planning for GiveBIG, you’re probably wondering how someone could NOT know it’s GiveBIG tomorrow?!

Because they have a lot going on.

AND even if they know it’s GiveBIG, they may not have decided whether they’re going to give to you. Bear in mind they’ve been asked by a lot of non profits to give.

If you’re sending out a Day Of email (which you should), here are 5 tips to up your open rate–a critical step on GiveBIG day:

Put the most important information at the beginning of your subject line: It’s now or not until next year. Make it happen today. Right now. Stat!
Stand out: Again, lots of donors getting lots of email on a busy, busy day. That’s the scenario. Make them laugh. Make them pause. Shock them. Delight them. Make them see how they can play a Big Role on the Big Day. Don’t simply say it’s GiveBIG. That’s expected and they’ll read it a bunch of time. Say it in a way that’ll make them notice YOUR email.
Keep it short: 40-50 characters max. This also goes for the content of your email. This isn’t a ‘getting to know you’ moment. It’s a ‘get on it’ moment. Quickly remind them why they should give and then get out of their way and let them do it.
Use ‘You‘: By using ‘you’, you help people see how they fit in. Sure, it’s about all of us and you’ll be tempted to use ‘we’. In the subject line, it’s all about the ‘you’.
One Call to Action (CTA): Don’t distract with other Calls to Action. In your follow up email (which, of course, you will also send), give them other ways to engage. On May 2, it’s GiveBIG or go home.

Good luck tomorrow!

Will you DTO for GiveBIG?

April 17, 2012 by Erica Barnhart

At this morning’s Claxon Forum we talked a lot about the Seattle Foundation’s GiveBIG, which is coming up on May 2. GiveBig is a “one-day, online charitable giving event to inspire people to give generously to nonprofit organizations who make our region a healthier and more vital place to live.” There’s a pool of funds allocated to “stretch” gifts made that day.

As a result, it’s a flurry of donor outreach around here! Donors are getting emails, letters, tweets, postcards, and Facebook posts about this opportunity from organizations they know and love.

Problem is: most donors (myself included) know and love a lot of organizations. It’s one day. How will we decide which non profit(s) to support?!

Based on the organizations and donors I talked to last year, decisions were based on 1) a really good just-in-time final reminder and/or 2) an organization’s ability to stand out during the lead up to the big day.

This could be a really good time to DTO–Do The Opposite. Switch up your messaging. Try something new. Grab them by the proverbial lapels and get their attention! In a case like this, a little DTO could go a long way.

If you’re planning to participate in GiveBIG, how will you stand out? If you’re in another part of the world, is it time to DTO?

Although this won’t work for everyone, TeamRead’s unconventional approach with Mr. GiveBIG Chicken was a big success last year. We’ll see how he fares this year!

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SYc3W64T-7s&feature=youtu.be[/youtube]

Elevator pitch – Door opener or Deal closer?

April 13, 2012 by Erica Barnhart

Earlier this week, I made the case for having a good Elevator Pitch. But let’s be honest: creating an elevator pitches can be stress-inducing. It doesn’t need to be! Watch this short video for tips on how your nonprofit can open more doors with a simple elevator pitch.

Elevator pitch – Door opener or Deal closer? from Claxon Marketing on Vimeo.

Death of the Elevator Pitch?

April 10, 2012 by Erica Barnhart

Dan Roam, Blah, Blah, Blah, book — Are you blah, blah, blah'ing?

Last week at the Nonprofit Technology Conference (#12NTC), Dan Roam showed how non profits could draw their way to communications success.

He gave new meaning to “show and tell”!

In Roam’s new book, Blah, Blah, Blah, he posits that the person–or organization–who can best describe a problem is in the best position to solve it. This should give us all pause. Consider how much time we spend trying to fix things vs. making sure we’ve clearly identified the most important things to be fixed…makes you want to bust out a marker and hit the whiteboard.

Here’s my beef: Sauntering on up to a whiteboard, or whipping out a napkin with pictures on it, isn’t a practical substitute in certain instances.

Envision with me, if you will, the following: You’re at the airport waiting for your flight. You strike up a conversation with another waylayed traveler. After awhile, your new-found companion asks: “What do you do?”

There’s no whiteboard to be found and passing him or her a napkin that shows what you do would be downright awkward!

Let me be clear: the case Roam makes is that we need to get our visual and verbal minds back in balance. He’s advocating that we flex our visual mind muscles more than our verbal muscles for a spell to get them in shape. Our verbal mind has been honed, shaped and forged through years of school and testing. Our visual mind, not so much. (At no point on any standardized test are we graded on our ability to draw an answer to a problem, right?)

I agree 100% that using our visual mind to better define problems yields superior results to relying solely on words.

That doesn’t mean you stop fine-tuning your elevator pitch.

Here’s what I’d recommend: Use the visual grammar that Roam teaches in his book to define the problem you’re tackling. Then do the word+picture combo to articulate your unique approach to solving the problem. Then come up with a word only version you can use next time you’re stuck at the airport or a cocktail party or networking event or…you get the point.

Do we overuse words? Yes. Are we often sloppy with our words? Yes. Are they still useful? Yes.

If you’re intrigued by visual thinking, read Roam’s book. See how you can apply it to your mission, your work, your cause.

Word of the Week: Channels

March 28, 2012 by Erica Barnhart

Last week, I did a guest blog post over on NPower NW’s blog. It gives you a specific approach for keeping all your communications channels aligned called the “Hub and Spoke Model.”

We tend to think about one channel at a time. When updating Facebook, we think about Facebook. When posting on Pinterest, we’re all about Pinterest. And when we’re prepping the next newsletters, that newsletter rules our life—who cares about those other channels?! If you don’t take time to align them, they quickly get out of alignment and, just like you’re car, everything goes wonky.

Read the NPower post to learn how to get and keep your channels in sync—donors, supporters, volunteers and fans like well-aligned channels so it’s worth it.

If you want to see what a lean, mean non-profit channel machine looks like, check out these organizations’ well-aligned channels (oh la la!):

Grist: Website, Facebook, Twitter
Humane Society of the United States: Website, Facebook, Twitter
LiveStrong: Website, Facebook, Twitter

Word of the Week: Perspective

March 19, 2012 by Erica Barnhart

Young woman or old woman?

This image is a classic. I can only see a young woman. Many can only see an old woman. Some can see both. It’s all a matter of perspective.

Perspective comes out most strongly in the words we choese and the images we use. The two are often paired. In those instances, you get a perspective double whammy.

To get a little perspective on perspective, look at PAWS and ASPCA. Two non-profits who care deeply about animals. Two very different perspectives on how to convey that love.

What’s your organizational perspective? Your version of upbeat might be a potential donor’s version of a total buzz kill. Good to know which one will resonate.

This week, we’ll look at what perspective means for your brand and messaging. We’ll juxtapose some perspectives (a la the example above) and take a fun poll on the Guilt-Potential Perspective Continuum!

On your (editorial) mark, get set, go!

March 15, 2012 by Erica Barnhart

editing, editing marks, punctuation, grammar — Speed up your editing with these marks!

Many of us put on our “Editor hat” now and then, but few of us are professional, full-time editors. This guest post is from the two editing pros who make up Tandem Editing. They share their tips being efficient, effective editors.

**************

Daylight Saving Time. One less hour (or so it seems) to get your words out the door. We’ve all been there—an hour away from deadline but not nearly done. We were delighted when Erica asked us to suggest a few editing tips for making the most of the time you have.

Editorial Triage

When you’re one hour away from Go, it’s time to focus your writing and editing on the absolute most important details:

Spell all names correctly—and the same way each time. Organization name. Program name. Executive director, board chair, major donors, foundation funders. No really, look them up. If there’s a single mistake you don’t want to make, this is it.
Give good directions. Verify every street, email, and website address in your copy. If you’re announcing an event, check the time and date info. Present? Accurate? Visible?
Double-check your facts: Don’t confuse your readers or make them doubt your research. Search all numbers, dollar amounts, years of past events, and make sure they present a consistent story.
Search for your personal list of most likely pitfalls. If you work for public health, pubicpublic safety, or public schools, make a note to do a find-and-replace. Don’t rely on autocorrect to save you. (It won’t.)
Take a look at “the look”—it’s too late to change your mind about fonts and colors, but does anything look weird? Is the logo at the top the most recent version?

Two Sets of Eyes

Your single best strategy is to find someone, or more than one someone, to be your second set of eyes. Print out several copies of your final text—ask one colleague to read only the names and another to read only the numbers. Print a copy at 75% and another at 200%—ask someone with a fresh set of eyes to scan it and circle anything that looks strange.

After you’ve entered all the changes (one by one, carefully), run one final spellcheck, take a deep breath, and Go.

The Calm After the Storm

Don’t let your editorial triage go to waste! After your deadline is met and your text is sent to print or posted online, make yourself a cheat sheet that includes verified names, addresses, and numbers for your organization and all its programs, plus your personal pitfalls list. This is the beginning of an editorial stylesheet, which can be an excellent resource for your organization. Here’s a link to a nifty template.

Connie Chaplan and Kyra Freestar are Tandem Editing LLC: One point of contact; two sets of eyes. Editing and consulting for the non-profit community. www.tandemediting.com

Photo credit: Ms. Daniel’s website for her 4th grade class at Lead Mine Elementary. Proving you’re never too young to start editing!

Word of the Week: Efficiency

March 12, 2012 by Erica Barnhart

daylight savings, time savings, time management — Daylight Savings has us springing forward!

We sprang forward over the weekend.

Upside: More post-work rays of sunshine. Wuhoo!

Downside: You “lose” an hour. Boo hoo.

As if you had an hour to spare–ha! No way. Not with your to-do list, right?

That’s why this week we’re focusing on how to be efficient and get some time back.

This month’s Claxonette (our free monthly e-newsletter) comes out tomorrow. It’s got tips and inspiration for efficiently taking your messaging from yawn to yippee. If you’re not already a subscriber, sign-up here.

Then later in the week, we’ll have a guest post from the duo at Tandem Editing. They’ll share their top tips for being an efficient editor.

My time-saving tip for you: Write your to-do list for the next day at the end of the day. It sets you up to instantly dig in rather than trying to remember where you left off the night before. Sounds silly but it works!

The Consistently Compelling Seattle Aquarium: How Do They Do It?

March 8, 2012 by Erica Barnhart

Being consistently compelling is key when it comes to creating a lasting connection with your supporters. It’s what makes good brands great. It helps you stand out from the crowd and keep you at the forefront of people’s minds. It’s also really hard—especially when you have so many audiences and channels to juggle!

That’s why we wanted to interview Marsha Savery, Director of Marketing for the Seattle Aquarium. Whether it’s a billboard on the side of the road or an octopus in a glass tank, the Seattle Aquarium is consistently compelling no matter the setting. We were lucky enough to get Marsha’s tips on how they work their magic.

Octopus Week 2011 — © Seattle Aquarium 2011

Be able to clearly describe your brand: Marsha describes the Seattle Aquarium’s brand as clean, consistent, family friendly and professional. The graphics are very strong and vary according to the Aquariums’ three main audiences: families in the tri-county region with children under twelve, volunteers and donors.
Have a common thread: The Director has the final say on visuals, which for families are tailored to be fun, vibrant artwork. Graphics for volunteers are photographs of the ocean and fish, and those geared towards donors are photos of the ocean, children and marine wildlife. The thread that keeps the visuals consistent is the Aquarium’s message of preserving marine wildlife, which is embedded in all they do.
Have one conductor: Many people create content throughout the organization, but when it comes down to it, Marsha manages to make sure it all works in concert—social media, web content, billboard graphics, etc. The message never gets diluted because she keeps all the pieces working together. Even advertising done by an outside agency, as for the Aquarium’s summer outdoor ads, is managed solely by her.

Marsha’s biggest piece of advice–especially for smaller non-profits–is to have well-designed materials and messages!

She recommends reevaluating your organization’s messaging, including the graphics, as well as your logo. For the materials, preferably have them done by a marketing or graphics professional. While organizations are often pressed for money, having a pro craft your materials will go a long way to helping your image.

“I think non-profits should find someone they trust who can give them advice on how to present themselves in a polished manner. It’s so important to look like you’ve got your act together so somebody may help fund you. And graphics can do that.”

Marsha isn’t alone in being a fan of a strong logo. A Child’s Right felt so strongly about it that they have a full-time designer on staff, something the Chronicle of Philanthropy picked up on in their recent article on the organization.

Thanks to Marsha for telling us how we can all be consistently compelling!

Consistency isn’t boring!

March 7, 2012 by Erica Barnhart

Being consistent doesn’t mean being boring. In this short video, you’ll learn the two reasons you should nurture consistency, and hear about an organization that consistently hits the mark (Kaboom!) and one that had a consistency hiccup (Seattle Symphony).

[vimeo]http://vimeo.com/38113385[/vimeo]