"MARKETING: CREATING THE BASIC TOOLKIT TO

PROMOTE YOUR PROGRAM" WEBINAR

~ APRIL 20, 2010 ~

CAROLYN PHILLIPS: Hello, everyone. We're so glad

that you're with us, and we appreciate you spending this

time.

We love doing these webinars, and especially about

exciting topics, ones that can help you grow your program

and all of us get the word out about what we're doing.

And so I'm going to turn the mic over to Liz, who

is the Pass It On Center training and outreach and

development coordinator. She does all kinds of things,

wears all kinds of hats here.

And so she's going to walk us through just an

introduction of the webinar room, and we'll be moving

forward with the presentation in just a moment.

So, without further ado, Liz.

LIZ PERSAUD: Thank you, Carolyn, for that lovely

introduction.

Welcome, everyone. This is Liz with the Pass It On

Center. And Carolyn is right. I do wear many hats. But

today I'm wearing the hat of marketing coordinator.

We're actually very, very happy that we've got a

guest speaker, Jennifer Hefti, who's the director of

communications and community outreach with the Utah Council

for Citizen Diplomacy.

And Carolyn's actually going to do a little intro

on Jennifer and how we started our collaboration with her.

But before we get into that, I just wanted to do a

few logistics and housekeeping rules with this webinar

platform.

Over to the right, there are numerous different

ways that you can interact with us and with Jennifer, the

speaker for today.

Over to the right-hand side, you will see it says

"Public Chat." And you'll actually see a bunch of

different little conversations going on right now. Carolyn

just said "Welcome and hello." We did a few sound checks a

few moments ago.

Underneath the "Public Chat" box there's a blank

white box where you can actually type in your comments. If

you do not have a microphone and are unable to use a

microphone and speak your comment, you can just type in

your questions and your comments over there, and it will

pop up in the public chat.

Underneath the public chat you'll actually see a

list of the moderators in the room: Carolyn, myself.

We've actually got Sharon Meek with us.

Sharon and her group actually work webinars. So in

about three to four weeks, we will have the webinar as well

as the transcript and the PowerPoint up on the Pass It On

Center website.

And then underneath "Moderators" you'll see a

participant list. You can actually communicate with an

individual participant by right clicking on their name and

sending them a private message. And then also you can go

under "Options and Accessibility," and you can make the

screen bigger if you're using multiple different

accessibility tools as well, too.

You can also go in and record the webinar yourself

if you just go up to the top file, different menus, and

look under "Recording," and it says "Recording Start and

Stop."

Just wanted to remind y'all before we jump into

this that we again will have the transcription and the

recording of everything of this webinar up on the Pass It

On Center website underneath the "Webinars" section.

And also that we are offering free CEUs. So feel

free to jump on the Pass It On Center website, and you'll

be able to see on the home page how to access that.

They are through the AAC Institute, so you can also

go directly to aacinstitute.org and click on their CEU page

and register for CEUs and get all that information taken

care of.

So I think that's everything. And I'm going to

pass this on to Carolyn to introduce Jennifer.

CAROLYN PHILLIPS: Thank you so much, Liz. Really

appreciate that. It's always good to have you walk us

through how to do these things. Appreciate you doing that.

Also appreciate you coordinating this.

Liz actually does quite a bit of marketing for the

Pass It On Center and for Tools For Life, has got some

great ideas of innovative approaches.

And so I appreciate you pulling this together. So

thank you.

We were first introduced to Jennifer Hefti when we

were out in Utah in Salt Lake City pulling together the

Western States Symposium.

There was a group of representatives from states

that got together to look at assistive technology reuse and

to learn together about what everyone is doing in the

western states and also how can we work closer together and

what do we need to move things forward out there.

It was a very successful meeting, and we are going

to have a webinar about that meeting so that we can share

with everyone what we learned and what we gathered and next

steps.

But one of the gems that came out of that was

meeting Jennifer. Jennifer does not work in the field of

disability, nor in the field of assistive technology. She

wears a whole different hat, working with the Utah Council

for Citizens Diplomacy. But she actually has a lot of

expertise when it comes to marketing.

And as she started to talk, I was like, "Yes, I

know this information. Oh, I know that information." And

then as she got further into her presentation, I was like,

"Wow, this is really good information."

And I learned so much from her presentation. And

she received great evaluation marks. And so we wanted to

take advantage of her knowledge and her expertise and share

it with everyone. So without further ado, I'm going to

turn this over to Jennifer.

And, Jennifer, so glad that you're with us, and

appreciate you spending your time with us and sharing your

information with us.

And if y'all do have questions, feel free to put

them in the public-chat area, and we will address those

questions.

So, Jennifer, take it away.

JENNIFER HEFTI: Thank you very much for your

lovely introduction and warm welcome.

It was a pleasure to present successful nonprofit

communication strategies at the symposium and to meet

people and representatives of these very noble

organizations.

I learned a lot about assistive technology reuse

and was actually introduced to our local program, the Utah

Assistive Technology Program, and was very delighted to

learn about what you do.

And hopefully today's presentation will help you

promote your program more effectively if you're not already

doing it. I have a number of learning objectives that I'd

like to cover today.

And, Liz, if you would like to rotate and lead me

to the next slide, that would be wonderful. Thank you.

I'd like to distinguish or describe what a

nonprofit program is. It's very different from a

for-profit program or an activity, and it's very important

for us to describe what a nonprofit program is today.

I'm also going to cover how to prepare and plan a

successful nonprofit program. And in that planning

process, we're going to describe and develop a program

framework, conduct market research and analysis, and we're

also going to discuss effective marketing tools and

program-evaluation processes to make sure that the program

is successful and effective.

I'm also going to share with you some resources

that I use very regularly and a bibliography so that you

can do further research and keep learning.

So today what is a nonprofit program? It's very

important to distinguish a nonprofit program from an

activity.

And, Liz, if you'd like to go to the next slide.

And I'm just waiting to get to the next slide. There we

go.

An activity from a program. An activity is a set

of events that, although they are or seem beneficial to the

community, are very loosely connected with the

organization.

An activity is something that an organization does,

but it is difficult to ascertain if the activity or the

event is truly needed by the community and/or is making any

substantive difference in the community.

By contrast, a nonprofit program is an integrated

set of services conducted to meet specific, verified

community needs by achieving certain specific benefits and

changes or outcomes among specific groups of clients in

that community.

It's integrated; it meets specific needs; it

achieves specific outcomes; and it serves specific groups

in that community.

I went on the Pass It On website just recently, and

I noticed that one of the activities that the Pass It On

Center is doing is collecting and shipping donated items to

Haiti as part of the disaster-relief efforts in that

country.

Now, that I would consider -- although it is

meeting a need and it is truly making a difference, it is

not an integrated activity or program within the

organization. It's something that Pass It On Center and

I'm sure a concerted number of nonprofit organizations

throughout the nation have been doing to help with the

relief efforts in Haiti.

A program, on the other hand, is, for example, the

equipment-lending program that so many of you have within

your organizations.

So it's very important to distinguish an activity

from a program. And this is for a number of reasons. The

way to assess whether your program is integrated, meets

specific needs, achieves specific benefits, and serves

specific groups is to ask yourself three questions. And

this is the Hedgehog Concept.

If you're unfamiliar with the Hedgehog Concept --

and, Liz, if you can go to the next slide -- the Hedgehog

Concept was developed by Jim Collins. So Jim Collins is a

student and a teacher of enduring great companies, how they

grow, how they attain superior performance, and how good

companies can become great. And that's the title of one of

his most famous books called "Good to Great."

The three questions you want to ask yourself when

you develop a program or if you have an established program

are: What are you passionate about; what you can be best

in the world at; and what drives your economic engine.

And I'm going to go through these three questions

that every representative and executive director and board

of a nonprofit organization should ask themselves when they

develop a new program or when they assess an established

program.

Passion. We all have passion. We're all in the

nonprofit sector for a reason. And the reason is because

we can make a sustainable, meaningful impact in our

communities.

But passion is not enough. Yes, it's understanding

what your organization stands for, its core values and why

it exists. And it's important to have passion for your

mission and your core purpose.

Best at. Understanding what your organization can

uniquely contribute to the people it touches better than

any other organization on the planet.

The organization I work for is the Utah Council for

Citizen Diplomacy. We are a private sector partner with

the U.S. Department of State. The U.S. Department of State

has a number of public-diplomacy programs, and one of them

is the International Visitor Leadership Program.

We ...(audio skip)... Utah for short-term

professional and cultural organizations. And this program,

we are the only organization in the State of Utah that can

actually do this program. So we are, in a sense, the best

at doing this program.

And, Liz, if you would mind going back to the

Hedgehog Concept. Thank you.

The third question or the third circle is the

resource engine. Understanding what best drives your

resource engine broken into three parts: time, money, and

brand.

Now, if the established program or the new program

meets the three circles -- belongs in those three circles,

you have found what Jim Collins called the Hedgehog.

And I have to continuously ask myself -- when we

are doing a program or when we are developing a new

program, I have to ask myself these three questions: Am I

passionate; yes or no? Am I the best at it; yes or no?

And is this going to drive the organization's economic

engine?

And I think that third circle, the resource circle,

is probably the most difficult to answer. But it's really

important to ask yourself those three questions right at

the get-go.

Of course, when you ask yourself those three

questions and you decide that this program or this idea

that you are trying to develop -- or it's an established

program -- you want to prepare a successful nonprofit

program. You don't want to prepare a program that's going

to find itself finding challenges and heading in the wrong

direction. You want to prepare a successful nonprofit

program.

And how do you define a successful nonprofit

program? Well, at its core it needs to contribute directly

to your organization's mission.

Next slide, please.

So the program should contribute to your

organization's mission. Your board members, executive

director, and other members of the leadership team must

carefully ask themselves if the program is really

appropriate to the mission of the organization.

My organization's mission is to promote global

understanding and respect between the people of Utah and

other nations. And so every program that we have or we are

going to develop needs to directly contribute to this

mission.

The Utah Assistive Technology Program's mission is

to get assistive technology into the hands of people who

need it. Again, their programs need to be directly related

to that mission and need to sustain it in a very effective

way.

Now, the question I'm asking you is what is your

mission? And how are your programs contributing to your

mission?

Next slide, please.

Once you decide that the program contributes

directly to your mission, you want to make sure that it

meets strategic goals. A lot of nonprofits -- I'd say

every nonprofit should have a strategic plan. And as part

of that strategic plan, you have goals.

Now, your nonprofit program needs to meet certain

goals. It needs to achieve one or more strategic goals.

One of our goals here in Utah is to help shape U.S.

foreign relations one handshake at a time. And so every

time I implement a program, deliver a service, or want to

develop a new program, I have to ask myself whether that

program is going to achieve one or more strategic goals.

Here in Utah, the Utah Assistive Technology

Program's goal, one of them, is to help people use

technology to be more independent in education, employment,

and community settings.

Again, I'm going to ask you: What is your goal?

What are your strategic goals within your organization, and

how are your programs achieving those goals?

When you prepare a nonprofit program, you want to

make sure that you do it as a team.

Next slide, please.

Because they set the strategic direction for a

nonprofit, board members should be highly involved in the

strategic and program planning processes of the nonprofit

program.

And I don't know if you are familiar with this, but

I hear a lot that boards are sometimes a curse or sometimes

really functional and helpful.

Again, it's important to get the board members

involved because they will give you feedback and input that

none other can and will probably be able to refer you to

the proper contacts or give you novel ideas or put you in

contact directly with stakeholders that you wouldn't be

able to be in touch with. So board members are an

important part of the program planning process.

Because they will probably implement the program,

staff members should determine how services will actually

be delivered in the program. So your staff is also an

integral part of the planning process.

And finally, because they will participate in the

program or use the service, members and key clients should

be involved to provide perspectives from the program user's

point of view.

So your board members and staff and key clients are

part of this team, and you should get them involved as

early in the program planning process as possible. We're

not talking about your entire membership or your entire

client base, but we're talking about a sample member base

and a sample client base.

Next slide, please.

Once you've prepared your nonprofit program, you

want to plan it in a very successful and effective way. In

order to do so, you want to develop a program framework. I

highly encourage it. You want to discuss outcomes, goals,

strategies, and objectives.

What are outcomes, and why do they come first?

Well, you've identified a need, and you want to develop a

program that will meet that need. But really what you want

to do is understand how your clients or your members will

benefit from participating in your program. So will it be

enhanced learning or better conditions?

You are in the business of assistive-technology

reuse. So one of the outcomes is to provide your clients,

your members, your participants with the means to be

successful, contributing members of society, regardless of

their disability. And so the outcome should be the first

part of your framework.

Goals. You want to establish goals. And this is

just a little play on words. You want to establish "SMART"

goals. They need to be specific, measurable, attainable --

and I would add agreed-upon; they need to be agreed-upon

among members of that team that you will have developed to

develop your program -- realistic, and time specific.

And I can't emphasize time enough. A lot of times

board members or staff members or volunteers have these

wonderful ideas; they think that the organization has the

time and the resources to do it. And you go with one idea,

and then it just disappears. No one really follows up with

it. Really set a time frame for this goal and make it

happen.

Strategies. Methods used to deliver the program

and achieve your goals.

And of course objectives. They are different from

outcomes. Objectives are specific, measurable milestones

along the way to achieving program goals.

And so these are the milestones that you will

discover and assess along the way that will enable you to

assess the success or not of the program. So outcomes,

goals, strategies, and objectives.

Developing a program framework is -- the foundation

is the basis to creating a successful nonprofit program.

Once you've developed your framework -- and next

slide, please -- you need to conduct -- and I highly

encourage it -- to conduct market research and analysis.

Research is kind of a scary word in the nonprofit

sector because research is often connotated -- or

pejoratively connotated because it involves a lot of

resources and funds that a lot of us don't really have.

We don't have the resources -- we barely have the

resources to have a staff. Some nonprofits are only

volunteer-based. So doing research is generally something

that nonprofits do not attempt to do.

Well, I encourage you to do it. You can do

cost-effective research. You can do inexpensive research.

And if you've never heard of Jacob Nielsen -- and I

will quote him at the end of this presentation -- Jacob

Nielsen is the guru for cost-effective, inexpensive

research. And he has a website. I think it's useit.com.

And he provides everyone with the tools to do inexpensive

research.

I'm going to describe two kinds of research:

primary and secondary research.

Primary research is research you conduct and create

yourself. There are two very cost-effective, inexpensive

ways to do that.

The first are online surveys. If you aren't

familiar with surveymonkey.com, please visit their website.

Creating a survey is free, and it's open to all. And I

think it's free up to 100 entries. After 100, you have to

pay a nominal fee. And I would emphasize "nominal" because

it's really nominal.

But creating an online survey is accessible to all.

It's quick and easy to assemble. It's anonymous. You can

have it be public, but sometimes you want to keep that

information private. And so I encourage surveys to be

anonymous.

Most often free, as I mentioned. And they do

provide immediate feedback and offer a wealth of

information that you can use to develop your program or

other reports that you will distribute to your board

members or to your constituencies in general.

So conducting online surveys is an easy way to get

immediate feedback and assess the need and the development

of your program.

Next slide, please.

Focus groups are also a very easy way to get fairly

immediate feedback. What is a focus group? Simply put,

it's a meeting. It's a means to gather verbal information

from your stakeholders.

So you want to get together maybe a friend of the

organization, a donor of the organization, a board member,

a staff member, a volunteer. Get those people together in

a room and conduct a simple meeting of minds.

It will help you do a better job. It will help

assess your constituencies' satisfaction with your

organization, your programs, and services.

If you are launching a new program, it will help

you assess the need for that program and how the program

should come about. And it will help you understand

people's preferences for different programs and services

that your organization prefers or, for example, means of

communications.

Here I gave you an example. Do your members prefer

receiving information online or in the mail? Simple

question, but a focus group can actually help you assess

those preferences and implement them.

Secondary research is research that others have

already published.

And next slide, please.

It's free, publicly available research. And if you

ask me, this is the best kind of research, and I think it's

research that a lot of us overlook.

Liz, if you don't mind, could you go to the next

slide. Thank you.

Secondary research, as I mentioned, is research you

do on the Internet through Google. And if I haven't said

this before, Google is your friend. So please conduct

Internet research with Google.

A lot of times I encourage people to do public or

university library research. Blogs are becoming a huge

wealth of information. Of course you have to defer and

treat the good from the bad. But blogs are becoming a real

resource for information.

Online bookmarking services such as Delicious. If

you don't know what an online bookmarking service is, it's

a database that a lot of nonprofits and corporate

organizations use to bookmark resources and references for

staff members, board members, or your constituency in

general. And so it's a way to not only collect but

distribute resources worldwide.

I highly encourage you to look into your own

community and identify your professional nonprofit

association. Here in Utah we have the Utah Nonprofits

Association. This association is an umbrella organization

for all nonprofits in the State of Utah, but it's also a

wealth of resource.

The organized webinars, they provide resources, and

they have a free management library. It's a wealth of

resource, and I really encourage you to look for your local

nonprofit association.

Of course you have the Society for Nonprofit

Organizations and the National Council of Nonprofits, which

are also more of a national resource, less localized, but

much more of a national resource. And I also highly

encourage you to take a look at those.

Next slide, please.

Once you've done your research and analyzed the

data, you want to do a number of steps to put and plan your

nonprofit program together. You want to draft a program

description. You want to decide who the program will

serve. You want to identify your competitors and also your

collaborators. And I'm going to start with drafting a

program description.

The program description is understanding the nature

of your program and services. Is it the arts? Is it the

social services? Is it the education? What is the nature

of your program or your services?

It's understanding the specific groups of clients

served by the service and the outcomes for them or other

benefits to them and then where they should go next if they

are interested in using the service.

You really need to be careful to describe the

program in terms of benefits to clients and not so much to

you. And that's really where you need to put yourself in

your clients' shoes and where a survey and a focus group

will really come in handy because you will have already

understood what your clients' needs are and how the program

will benefit them. So really describe the services in

terms of benefits to clients, not to you.

And I just included a short description of one of

our programs. We are an internationally oriented

organization. One of our programs is the International

Book Group. I've indicated that this group meets once a

month on Wednesdays at 7:00 p.m. at a local bookshop called

The King's English Bookshop.

So the nature of the program is an international

book group. It's not just any kind of book group. It's an

international book group. The specific groups of people

served are those who are interested in learning about other

countries, customs, and cultures through fiction and

non-fiction. The outcomes will be that you will learn

about other countries, customs, and cultures through

reading and participating in this book group.

And where they should go next if they're

interested. I've indicated how they should register, in

person at the bookshop or e-mail the book-group leader by

e-mailing her.

I've also included additional information that's

very important: registration procedures; and the benefits

of participating in this program, which here it's very

clear. If they are members of The King's English Bookshop

or of our organization, they receive a 10 percent discount

on their book purchase.

So really trying to draft a very specific program

description, it's important to remember the nature of your

program, specific groups served, outcomes, benefits to

clients, and what they should do if they're interested.

Next slide, please.

Once you've given your program a name and a basic

description, you will want to assess who your competitors

are. Now, a lot of people ask me, "Well, why are you

asking that question?" Nonprofits generally exist to serve

their communities. And one would think that, in this

spirit of service, all nonprofits should collaborate for

the common good.

Well, yes and no. We are a business, in a sense.

We are handled and managed as a business. We have clients.

We have programs and services. But we do have that

nonprofit, feel-good sense that we can collaborate with

other nonprofits. And that's the beauty of being part of a

nonprofit organization.

But nonprofits do compete for the attention and

participation and money of their clients. And in many

cases they compete for the same items from funders.

So the questions you really want to ask yourself --

and, Liz, will you mind going back to the previous slide,

please. The next slide. I'm so sorry. Liz, would you

please go forward, please. I'm so sorry. Go forward.

Next slide. Okay. Thank you.

You will want to assess what your client needs are

and the similarities and differences between your nonprofit

and other nonprofit organizations. You will also want to

assess your strengths and weaknesses and, if there is a

price attached to the program or the service, what the

price differential is.

And if there is competition, you want to plan how

to compete with the other nonprofit organizations. Are you

going to offer a better quality service, lower prices, more

support, easier access to the service? And all those

questions are really important.

Liz, would you mind going back to the previous

slide, please.

Before you assess who your competitors are -- and

I'm sorry. I skipped a slide, I just realized -- you want

to determine and identify who the program will serve.

There is no general public. That's just a

no-namer. And nonprofits who develop programs in the dark

for your average citizen are going to crash and burn.

That's pretty harsh, but you really need to determine who

the specific subset of the general public is and who you

will serve.

Now, one of the best pieces of advice I've ever

been given is to imagine three friends. Create three

imaginary friends. And those three friends are going to

help you develop a program for these three specific people.

And research shows that, if you can determine and

identify those three imaginary friends, you will have

covered 80 percent of your constituency. It's the 80/20

rule.

Now, for my organization, we are in the

international field. My three imaginary friends are people

who speak a foreign language, people who have travelled

abroad, and people who have studied international relations

and maybe political science. So those are three subsets of

my general public that I know I can target.

So the question is: Who are your three imaginary

friends, and who is that specific subset of the general

public? And I guarantee that you will cover 80 percent of

your constituency.

Liz, next slide.

I've already talked about your competitors. And

the beauty of being in the nonprofit sector is that you

have more collaborators than you have competitors.

Successful collaboration -- next slide, please.

Successful collaboration brings two or more

organizations together to work in synergy in an effort that

is more than the sum of its parts.

In this analysis I want you to consider who are

potential collaborators, if any. Maybe there are not, but

I highly doubt it. Sometimes it's better to do the program

by yourself.

But I want you to ask yourself: Who are potential

collaborators and what client needs might you collaborate

to meet? Another question: What resources might they

bring, and what could you bring?

I collaborate with a number or organizations here

in the State of Utah. I do so for a number of reasons. I

collaborate, for example, with the World Trade Center Utah,

an organization that deals with international trade.

I collaborate with them because they organize

events that have an international inclination. And so I

want to make sure that we work together to promote the

event to a greater constituency than just my own or just

the constituency and the members of the World Trade Center

Utah.

I also collaborate with other nonprofit

organizations or for-profit organizations or educational

institutions. I collaborate with them a lot when I have to

deal with the media. For example, I will ...(audio

skip)... at a specific college or university to gain

greater media exposure.

I am a one-man band with my nonprofit organization.

I have to gather and collect and aggregate as much media

exposure as possible. And if I partner with a greater

institution or a greater organization to achieve that, my

chances of actually getting media exposure and media hits

is greater.

And so collaborating with those key organizations

and institutions within your community is essential to the

success of your organization, the success of your program,

and the success of your marketing process.

Next slide, please.

Other helpful considerations will include the

program cost, if any. Unfortunately or fortunately, our

organization follows the PBS model or the NPR model. All

of our programs are free and open to all.

And we've decided that because we believe that

shaping foreign policy and international relations should

be the rights and responsibilities of every citizen,

regardless of their socioeconomic status. So all of our

programs are free and open to all.

But program cost is something that you will have to

decide if that's something you will want to attach to the

program, the service that you offer.

You will decide on a program name. And I can't

emphasize enough that the program name will have to be

carefully, carefully developed and has to be integral and

integrated to your organization and the organization's

mission.

And other legal considerations include copyrights,

trademarks, service marks, or patents. So all of these

considerations need to be assessed and discussed as part of

planning a successful nonprofit program.

The next part of this presentation I'm going to

focus mainly on marketing. And this is the bulk of the

presentation.

If you do have any questions, I'm happy to answer

them at this point.

I do see a question here from LaCandice working

with the AT Network. "Can collaborators also be your

organization's competitors?"

Now, that's a really good question. As I

mentioned, we do collaborate with the World Trade Center

Utah. They compete for the same funds as we do. We both

are -- during the legislative session, we are on the Hill

competing and advocating for very similar needs and for

very similar appropriations and funds.

So, yes, collaborators can be competitors. But

because the World Trade Center Utah is a nonprofit, and

because we are a nonprofit, we can overcome those maybe

tense or maybe differences for the better and the common

good. But sometimes it's better to keep the organizations

separate.

The World Trade Center deals very much with

international trade, with business. And we deal with civic

partnerships more than we deal with business partnerships.

And so we have very distinct missions and purposes and

goals.

And so deciding when and how you're going to

collaborate is very important. And likewise, deciding when

not to collaborate is even more important.

I think you do have to collaborate with

organizations that are very well-established in your

community.

I hear very often that nonprofits or small-budget

organizations will collaborate with other very small-budget

organizations that are not very well established and feed

off each other and not really do anything meaningful or

impactful in their communities.

So making sure that you partner with a strong,

established organization, whether it is nonprofit or

for-profit, I think is the way to go. And making sure that

you are not competing for the same target audience is also

very important.

I hope I've answered your question.

If there aren't any more questions, I will go into

the program marketing piece.

We've distinguished an activity from a program.

We've designed a program framework. And we've discussed

primary and secondary research.

The next step is to develop a strategic marketing

plan to clearly define the purpose of the program. All

organizations have a strategic plan. And within the

strategic plan, you are highly encouraged to develop a

strategic marketing plan.

The plan will set a time frame, identify the tools

that you'll use to promote the program, establish realistic

goals and ...(audio skip)... and determine your

organization's capacity for implementation.

A plan is not difficult to put together. When I

first started, I was very nervous about creating a plan. I

though it was supposed to be this grand master plan that I

would write once and then tuck into my folder and never

revisit.

Well, that's changed a lot. Plans are works in

progress, are documents that need to be revisited a lot.

And so this is a one-page "Street Smart" marketing plan

that you can use for your organization, for a program, for

a service. And I use it a lot.

It starts with a time frame. Now, I've indicated

here a 90-day-time-frame plan. This can be a 30-day, a

60-day, a 90-day plan. I highly recommend setting a time

frame though because it's important to keep to a specific

time frame and dates and a time line.

For an organization, I would recommend a 90-day

plan. For a program, maybe a 60- or 30-day plan would be

more appropriate.

You want to list all the tools in your marketing

toolkit. And I'll go over those a little later.

And set or identify three priorities in the next 90

days if it's a 90-day plan. If it's a 30-day plan, you

might want to set or identify one, two, or three

priorities, depending on how fast you want to put your

program together and deliver it.

You want to establish action steps. Each priority

will have an action step, a goal, a key message, and the

toolkit.

Finally, you'll want to review that plan and set

future priorities. And I'm going to give you a very

concrete example.

Three priorities, for example, for a new program

would be to, one, identify the need; two, define the target

audience; and three, draft a basic program name and

description. And those are the three priorities that

you're going to establish. And you're going to do those

and achieve those in the next 30 days, for example.

Future priorities would include, for example,

developing marketing materials, developing and maintaining

a professional Internet marketing presence, or developing a

social media marketing strategy. Those would be future

priorities, for example.

But this is a very workable, feasible, and

accessible "Street Smart" marketing plan, and I highly

recommend it for your organization, your program, or your

service.

Once you've developed that strategic marketing

plan, you will want to assess your communications

infrastructure.

Next slide, please.

What I mean by assessing your communications

infrastructure is literally go through your organization's

marketing toolkit and see what you have on hand.

Now, you will want to decide what is useful and

what isn't. A number of marketing tools include direct

mailing, for example, letters and post cards; websites or

blogs; and e-newsletters; annual reports; e-mails;

brochures; displays at events; posters, flyers, tablecloth,

table tents; PowerPoint presentations; partnerships with

other organizations; and online social networks.

I've invited you to list your tool. But it's

important to assess your communications infrastructure and

not reinvent the wheel. If something is already in place,

if you have a tool that you have, for example, an annual

report that has been very successful, has had positive

response, you will want to use that as part of your

communications toolkit and plan.

So really assess your communications

infrastructure. And once you have the list of all the

marketing tools, you will be better equipped to identify

the appropriate tool needed to promote your program.

And I think I have maybe a question. I think it's

Diana in Oklahoma.

Diana, it's all you. You can ask your question if

you'd like to ask a question.

...(audio skip)... social media, certain portals,

and your personal brand.

And, Liz, if you wouldn't mind going to the next

slide. Thank you.

As I said, these are your cost-effective marketing

tools.

Next slide, please.

I'm going to start with your website or your blog.

I don't think I need to tell you that nearly 80 percent of

Americans use the Internet. That's a huge, huge portion of

the population, if not a majority of the population. And

if you don't have a website, I would recommend creating a

blog.

Two very inexpensive -- I think free or inexpensive

blog publishing tools include Blogger, or blogspot.com, and

WordPress. So if you don't have an Internet presence,

please sign up to Blogger or WordPress and create your

website or your blog.

The importance of a website is that it's your shop

window. It's open 24/7. It's generally -- because 80

percent of Americans use the Internet and access

information through the Internet, it's a point of entry.

Because it's a point of entry, your website or your

blog needs to be professional, up-to-date. I don't know

how many websites I visit that have been updated in 2006 or

worse. So up-to-date.

It needs to include a calendar of events to promote

your programs and services and when those programs -- maybe

as part of the program you have an event, and you will make

sure that that event is part of that calendar.

And an online newsroom to make sure that, when you

do get media coverage of your program, that you can archive

that media hit or that article in your online newsroom.

The website or your blog is instrumental in

promoting your program. It will describe the nature of

your program, who it will serve, the potential outcomes and

benefits to your clients, and what actions should people

take if they are interested in participating in your

program.

So again, if you don't have a website, sign up for

blogspot.com or WordPress and get a blog up.

The next cost-effective marketing tool is e-mail

marketing.

Next slide, please.

The benefits of e-mail marketing are to use a

third-party e-mail marketing service that provide you with

user-friendly templates.

I'm a big fan of constantcontact.com. I know a lot

of nonprofit organizations use this e-mail marketing

service. But I've also heard that MailChimp is, for

example, a very effective way to send e-mails and

e-newsletters as well.

But I'm going to talk about Constant Contact

because that's the program that I use and that I'm most

familiar with.

So the benefits of e-mail marketing are to have

these third-party e-mail marketing services. They also

provide you with immediate feedback on how many people open

your e-mail or e-newsletter and how many people click

through.

And you can download those reports the day you send

the e-newsletter or the e-mail or a couple of days later.

If it's an e-newsletter, maybe people will be opening the

e-newsletter a little later in the day or during the

weekend.

And they provide you with a full document of data

explaining how many people opened the e-newsletter, how

many people clicked through, what articles were more

interesting than others, if they donated or not, how long

they stayed on the newsletter, et cetera. So really

important to feedback.

Another really important feature of Constant

Contact is that it allows you to create very exhaustive

contact distribution lists and assess how many bounce-backs

you've had. And so you can remediate those bounce-backs.

You can identify e-mails that are maybe not in use anymore

and eliminate them from your distribution list.

A lot of people ask me how many people actually do

open e-mails and newsletters. And I'm sure you know that

we're all bombarded by information with e-mails. I can't

keep abreast of all my e-mails.

But an average opening rate is between 15 and 27

percent. My e-mails go out, and they generally average 35

to 40 percent opening rate. So I consider that a

successful, effective e-mail or newsletter. But on

average, you would be happy with a 15 to 27 percent opening

rate.

And I can see I have a question: "How much does

Constant Contact cost?"

And that's a really good question. Thank you for

asking, Carolyn.

Constant Contact is targeted toward nonprofit

organizations. It does cost money to use this e-mail

marketing service, but it's very nominal. And they provide

substantive discounts for nonprofit organizations. So if

you can provide Constant Contact with your 501(c)3 proof,

they will give you a substantive discount.

If I'm correct, I think our organization pays

between $35 and $45 a month to use this service. And I use

it all the time.

I send two newsletters out every month. It's a

bimonthly e-newsletter. And we average three to five

events or programs a month. And for each event I will send

two stand-alone e-mails announcing the program or the

event, one as an announcement and the follow-up as a

reminder.

And so I average I'd say 12 to 15 e-mails a month.

So I think, for me at least, it's a huge benefit, and it's

highly effective, and I think it's cost-efficient.

I hope I've answered your question, Carolyn.

The trend, however, is that, according to the

eNonprofit Benchmarks Study in 2009, more people are

actually using alternative forms of communications, such as

Facebook, Twitter, to get their information. So we will

briefly go over this.

Social media I think should be part of its own

webinar, so I'm not going to go into it too much. But I

just wanted to make you aware that social media is of

course a huge part of marketing your program.

Next slide, please.

I have another question: "Do people have to

register with Constant Contact to get your e-newsletter?"

Yes, they do. So when you sign up as a member of

my organization, for example, I will add your e-mail

address to my contact distribution list within Constant

Contact.

But you can simply -- on our website,

utahdiplomacy.org, there's a link that takes you to the

newsletter, and you can register there. If you're just

interested in receiving the newsletter as opposed to

receiving information about our organization or the

benefits -- if you're not in Utah, the benefits might not

be interesting to you.

So if you're simply interested in receiving my

organization's newsletter, please visit our website, click

on the link, and register with Constant Contact. It's free

and open to all.

I hope I've answered your question, Carolyn.

How to get people to open -- as I mentioned, we

receive millions and millions of e-mails, and so how to get

people to open and read your e-mails does take a little bit

of effort.

The first thing is the "From" line. Because

nonprofits -- they do and they don't have staff retention.

So a lot of the times you'll have a person in charge of the

newsletter; that person will stay in her job or in his job

for say a year or two or three and then leave. That person

will leave with the credentials and the credibility that

you've sent out for three years through your newsletter.

So I highly recommend it being a general "from."

So the newsletter or the e-mail comes from the Utah Council

for Citizen Diplomacy as opposed to Jennifer Hefti.

But if it's an appeal, for example, we're sending

out an e-appeal, we're trying to get our constituency to

donate, for example; or if it's an important event -- for

example, we welcome a lot of ambassadors to Utah, and we

have very special meet-and-greets with ambassadors, and we

want to target specific donors and sponsors of our

organization as opposed to our general membership -- the

e-mail might come from a specific person, for example, my

executive director, Laura Dupuy.

So you really want to make sure you assess the

nature of the program, the event, and decide who it's going

to come from. As I said, the newsletter will come from the

Utah Council for Citizen Diplomacy because I may or may not

be in this position in the next three, five years. Who

knows.

The subject line also is very important. And there

are two ways to write an effective subject line. It can be

descriptive or proactive.

As I said, if you are inviting people to a lecture,

for example, you want it to be descriptive. Here I have an

example: Rebuilding diplomatic capacity; it's a lecture by

Ambassador Lyman on March 17th, 3:00 p.m.

And someone might say, "Well, this is a long

subject line." Well, you'd be surprised how many people

actually read the subject line before opening the e-mail.

I think a majority of us will read the subject line before

even opening the e-mail.

And so if that title is descriptive enough, it

might lead me to open that e-mail. So don't hesitate to be

as descriptive as possible.

Two other things. Don't use capital letters. I

didn't put it in the slide, but don't use capital letters.

And don't use too many exclamation points. That just comes

across as spam, and I highly discourage it.

Another way to get people to open your e-mails is

to include a proactive subject line. As I mentioned, we

send e-appeals, and we want people to take action when they

open this e-mail. And so the subject line might be "You

are invited to an event" or "Support the Utah Council for

Citizen Diplomacy."

So depends on the nature of the e-mail, the content

of the e-mail. So don't hesitate to be proactive when you

want your members, your constituency, your clients to take

action.

Always include a link to click if the newsletter is

not viewable and can be viewed in an html page online.

Use graphics, but I would say in moderation. A lot

of times people will use their smartphones to open an

e-newsletter, and sometimes the graphics won't download.

And it's nice, it's visual, but I would use them in

moderation.

Use your corporate colors to reinforce branding.

Our corporate colors are royal blue and beige, so the top

of my newsletter will have my logo and my corporate colors.

And I would recommend focusing intensely on the top

part of your newsletter. That's the size of your screen,

and that's what people will see first. And so if you want

important information to be conveyed, you want that

important information to be conveyed right at the top of

your newsletter.

The trick is when to send your newsletter or your

e-mail. Industry says that 10:00 a.m. is a good time to

send. People have sifted through their e-mails, they've

started their workday, and they might have greater chances

to open that e-mail or newsletter at 10:00 a.m. versus 8:00

a.m.

Another tip is to send it midweek. Mondays are not

a good day. You generally have staff meetings. You've

come back from a long weekend. You need to go through a

number of items that need immediate assistance. And so

Mondays are not good.

Tuesdays through Thursdays I think are good. And

Friday, of course you all know Fridays are probably not the

best time to send an e-mail asking people to participate in

a program or to take action. So I would recommend 10:00

a.m. and midweek, Tuesday through Thursday.

We've covered basic e-mail marketing.

The next thing I think that is important is to

optimize the promotion, to optimize the marketing process

of your program planning process.

You want to tell the story about your organization.

You want to share your program with a greater ...(audio

skip)... You want it to be public information. And in

order to do so, you want to get media coverage.

I'm in the field of public relations. I'm part of

the Public Relations Society of America here in Salt Lake.

And so I'm going to try to provide you with basic

information as to how to do basic public relations.

Although I do encourage nonprofits to get

third-party media coverage, as I mentioned, I also want to

emphasize that you can play an active role in the process

of collecting, reporting, analyzing, and disseminating news

and information.

I'm sure you're familiar with the concept of

citizen journalism. Everyone's talking about it. Everyone

has a blog. Everyone can write, apparently. However,

citizen journalism has drawn some criticism from

traditional media institutions such as the "New York Times"

because it often lacks objectivity, quality, and content.

So although this criticism shouldn't stop you from

writing and promoting your organization and programs and

services with your own words, I highly encourage you to

develop media relations to get third-party endorsements.

So, yes, be your own media. Be your own media

outlet. But remember that third-party endorsement will

give your organization or programs more credibility than

you will yourself.

Traditional media outlets include newspaper, radio,

TV. Online media outlets include online newspapers, forum,

and blogs. A lot of times people forget about grassroots

media outlets. Those include inserts, flyers, school

papers, more localized newspapers.

Here in the Salt Lake valley we have the Utah

Valley journals that are specific to each county and each

neighborhood. Here in Salt Lake I have the "Salt Lake

Valley Journal" or the "Sugar House Journal" that is

specific to my own community.

So don't forget those smaller, more localized media

outlets that can have a pretty, pretty large impact, given

the radius or the impact that you want to have in your

local community.

Next slide, please.

I do want to emphasize that, although we all want

to be published in the "New York Times" and the "Washington

Post" -- here locally I'm always trying to get published in

the "Salt Lake Tribune" or the "Deseret News," and I want

to be part of Fox 13. This is our Fox affiliate here in

Salt Lake City -- you do have to have a perspective.

And, Liz, if you wouldn't mind going to the

previous slide.

Perspective is really important. You probably --

oh, and I'm so sorry. Okay. Go back to the next one. I

apologize. I forgot.

You do want to build those media relations. And

I've capitalized the word "Relations" because we're really

talking about fostering, building, and maintaining those

medial relations.

How do you build those media relations? I've

written letters, I've e-mailed, and I've called editors,

journalists, and reporters. I've visited the newsroom.

And if you haven't done this before, I highly

encourage you to contact a journalist that has reported on

your organization or program before and ask him or her to

invite you to the newsroom and visit the newsroom.

I've had a number of opportunities to go to the

"Salt Lake Tribune" newsroom, and it's amazing to meet

reporters face to face. And it's so much easier, after

you've done that, to pick up the phone and say, "Hey, Mark,

I have this program going on. I have this event going on.

Would you be interested in covering us?"

And to have that face contact is highly effective

and very important. So visit your newsrooms.

Send editors, reporters, and journalists a press

kit.

I encourage you to hold a brown-bag lunch maybe

once a year. Invite journalists that are specific to your

field to a hosted lunch or a brown-bag lunch and educate

them about your organization, programs, and services.

I think a lot of reporters are bombarded with

information and don't take the time to be educated about

organizations and programs within their community. So

taking 45 minutes, an hour of their time, inviting them to

a hosted or brown-bag lunch and educating them about your

organization is highly effective.

And of course keeping regular contact with the

reporters. One way to keep regular contact is to comment

on journalists' or reporters' articles. Visit your local

newsroom or go online.

I go to the saltlaketrib.com, and I follow my

reporters. I identify when they've written, and I will

comment on their articles. And I will hopefully do that

obviously in a positive way. But you do want to keep

regular contact with your reporters.

Another great way is to send a thank you letter or

a thank you card or a thank you note after they've

published or covered your organization or program. And can

you remember the last time you've received a thank you

note?

Those thank you notes are so important. And so

when you do get published, when your organization or

program does get published, does get covered, send a thank

you note. It makes a world of difference.

And I have a question here from Carolyn and Liz:

"Does brown-bag mean they bring their own?"

Yes. Brown-bag would be they bring their own

lunch. Hosted lunch would be you provide a very

inexpensive or economical boxed lunch. So, yes. Brown-bag

lunch would be bring your own lunch.

Next slide, please.

And I'm sorry. I skipped a slide before. But I do

want to make sure that you understand that you have to have

perspective when you build those media relations.

Yes, you've met Mark that works in the community

news desk at the Salt Lake Tribune, but Mark has a lot, a

lot of information to report on. And your organization and

program might not be his focus this month. So you have to

have perspective.

If you cannot influence the media directly, who

can? Who is by your side to promote your program or

your organization?

Are your board members or board of trustees capable

of doing it? Do they have contacts that you don't have?

Can your members do it for you, volunteers, donors and

sponsors?

Do other organizations have a stronger

communications department? Can you partner with them to

get greater media exposure?

Think outside the box. I think partnering with

different organizations with their public relations team or

department of communications is really effective, so I

highly recommend it.

But, yes, the news media can only cover your

organization or program periodically. And so if you get

covered once a month or once every other month, consider it

a success.

Next slide, please.

To build effective media relations, you want to

create a media database. The best way to do that is to

understand who you are talking to, who your target media

audience is.

I am in the field of international relations, and I

work with a lot of international visitors, and I relate to

world affairs. So I'm going to talk to and listen and

follow reporters who are interested in those topics.

So read, listen, and watch what's going on around

you and identify reporters and journalists that have

similar interests or who will be likely to report about

your organization and programs.

Make a list of your local media outlets. And some

services will do that for you. They do cost, so I try to

stay away from them. But give that to an intern.

Every semester I have a communications intern, a PR

intern, and I give that intern the assignment to either

build or edit my media-contacts list. And she or he does

it, and it's a wonderful way to keep updated.

Because unfortunately, the trend is that a lot of

news reporters are getting laid off, unfortunately. And so

the distribution list is a living document, and you really

want to make sure you have an updated one.

When you do create that media-contacts database,

you want to have a number of entries: name, title. The

most important one I think is the department or what we

call the beat.

So as I said, I'm interested in international

relations, world affairs. I want to make sure that I

target the right journalist, the right reporter, who will

likely report on my news, on my organization, on my

program. So make sure that you're targeting the right

department and the right beat.

Include contact information and include follow-me

information, meaning are they on Twitter? Are they on

Facebook? And if they are, include that information and

follow them.

Next slide, please.

Building effective media relations is all about

telling your story and getting journalists and reporters

interested in your story.

How to do that in an effective way is to write an

effective news release. When you're about to launch a

program or you have a program in place but you want to

increase its visibility within the community, I highly

recommend writing a news release.

Describe the program in a way that resonates with

your mission, the values and needs of your audiences, and

is also interesting to journalists or newsworthy.

In that news release you want to include contact

information and answer the following questions: Who?

What? When? Where? And especially Why?

At the end of that news release, include

information about your organization.

If you want more information about the anatomy of a

news release, I highly recommend visiting

prtoolkit.prnewswire.com, and they will provide you with a

pdf, actually, of the anatomy of an effective news release.

And I use that all the time.

Writing an effective news release is important

because journalists and reporters will take approximately

five seconds to read the subject line of your e-mail. And

if that doesn't take them further, your news release won't

go anywhere.

So writing an effective subject line and then

including important, relevant, and newsworthy information

within the news release is really important.

What I tell nonprofits is that you all have a

story. You all have an interesting story. You're all

doing good in the communities that you live in. It's how

you tell that story. It's how you frame it. And a lot of

the times what we do is very visual.

I'm sure that you have wonderful success stories of

providing people with disabilities with the proper

assistive technologies to work, play, whatever it is. So

visually speaking, it's very compelling.

When you write a newsletter, you want to think of

that visual. You want to think of that picture, that image

of one of your clients using assistive technology. You

want to think of that photo. If you actually have a photo,

great. But you want to think of that visual.

Photo first, then headline. I can't tell you how

important it is to write an effective headline. A headline

is a sentence that will get your reporter or your

journalist to read further. And then your story.

As I said, a photo is worth a thousand words, so

keep that in mind. Again, put the right face on your

story. Show that the program or the organization or your

service meets a need and is at the center of the solution.

A lot of times news releases focus on the

suffering, focus on the sickness, focus on the disability,

focus on a number of sad things.

You don't want to focus on that too much. You want

to focus on how you, as an organization, you and your

program are making a difference. You want to be the

difference-maker. And you want your news release to tell

that story. So put the right face on your news release.

I often hear -- a lot of people ask me, "Well, how

often do you send a news release?" And I say, "Well, as

often as you have a legitimate reason to do so."

Yes, journalism reporters receive information every

day, and your news release might not make the pile, but it

doesn't matter. One out of ten written news releases will

work. So send it as long as you have a legitimate reason

to do so.

But, yes, you will alienate news reporters and

journalists if you send them every single day or every

single hour. So try to really think of why you're sending

a news release, and is it newsworthy. Always ask yourself

the question "Is it newsworthy?"

And you want to make sure that your news release is

relevant and interesting. One of the biggest challenges

for me -- because I deal with international relations, I

deal with world affairs -- is how to make stories relevant

to my constituency, to my local community.

Who cares about Africa? Who cares about African

entrepreneurs visiting Salt Lake to meet with their

professional counterparts? I really need to make sure that

I gain proximity within that newsletter. I need to make

sure that Africa or Ghana or Cote d'Ivoire or Gandia is

relevant to my constituency. I need to fill in that gap.

At the symposium I gave an example, and I'm going

to repeat it here. We had a delegation from Ukraine visit

Salt Lake City. I don't know how many people have visited

Ukraine. I don't know how many people were interested in

Ukraine. But I had to make it interesting.

The reason I had to make it interesting is because

they were meeting with our Salt Lake Real soccer team, our

soccer team and management, the soccer management team.

The reason they were coming here is because Salt Lake Real

actually just won the major league soccer championships in

2009, and we've recently built a state-of-the-art stadium.

And so Ukraine is actually organizing the 2012

European soccer championships. And so they were coming to

Salt Lake to see how here the local team had achieved such

an incredible objective to win the MLS cup and to get local

support to build a stadium.

So that's how I fill in the gap. Ukraine is

organizing the 2012 European soccer championship. Real

Salt Lake City is the champion of the MLS 2009 cup. And

that's how I tie it all together.

So make it relevant. Ukraine suddenly has

relevance here in Salt Lake City and how are Real Salt Lake

and the management team going to provide our Ukrainian

delegates with information to build an effective team and

get local support to build a state-of-the-art stadium. So

proximity is very, very important.

And here's a little saying: You know "The trend is

your friend." Make sure your newsletters are relevant and

trendy.

Next slide, please.

And I do have a question here: "Most news

organizations prohibit reporters from accepting gifts,

including meals, in the course of their work."

That's a very good point, Trish. And thank you

very much for bringing that up. And I think that's why a

brown-bag lunch is the way to go. So thank you for

bringing that up.

The way you want to distribute your press release

is first to call the reporter. A lot of the times we

overlook the potential in the power of a phone call. So

call the reporter, alert them to your program. Then pitch

it via e-mail and follow up by phone again.

So send your news release, and wait a couple of

days maybe if you have the time to wait. And then follow

up by phone. Say, "Hey, Mark, you know what? I sent you

information about this upcoming program. I'm wondering if

you are interested or a representative of your news

department or a colleague of yours is interested in

reporting on it."

And sometimes they'll be very kind and say, "You

know what? I'm really sorry. This is not going to make

it, but we'll try to cover you next time." And maybe they

just have forgotten about you and the program or the event,

and they'll say, "Oh, yes. Thank you for reminding me,"

and they will do that favor for you.

Also be kind and generous with your reporters.

Include support materials, including your logo and relevant

pictures with proper credits.

And don't forget proper credits. A lot of the

times people send photos without proper credits, and then

the news reporter has to call you back and say, "Hey, who

took the picture? Who's in the picture, and who took the

picture? " So don't forget to include proper credits.

And a tip at least I find really useful is to

upload your images to an online service such as Flickr, and

then include the link in your press release. So Flickr is

just a photo portal online -- an online photo portal.

So include, submit, upload your photos to

flickr.com. And then invite news reporters to visit Flickr

and access your pictures with the proper credits and use

the pictures that he or she finds more relevant than

others.

So next slide, please.

One of the ways that you can also gain media

exposure is to write an op-ed article. The opinion page

opposite the editorial page in most newspapers is ...(audio

skip)... overlooked marketing tool.

My executive director will write op-ed articles,

and I'll submit them. They do have very specific

guidelines as to how to submit op-ed articles.

But if you have someone within your organization

that is very knowledgeable about your organization, your

programs, and feels knowledgeable enough to promote or

write about the program, then use that as a tool to gain

media exposure.

The space has the potential to provide your

nonprofit organization, your program with four to six

publicity articles each year. And I think it has to be

under 700 words.

Next slide, please.

Another way to promote your program is to use

portals. What I mean by portals is a number of things.

First of all, public-service announcements.

501(c)3 organizations have the opportunity to submit

programs and events and services on TV, radio, et cetera.

And so do check out your local radio stations, your local

television broadcast channels, and try to submit

public-service announcements, PSAs as they're called.

They often allow you to upload a customized

description of your program and logo. So use

public-service announcements. They're free to nonprofit

organizations.

Other portals include online community calendars

and community boards. Online community calendars here in

Utah include NowPlayingUtah.com. Please check out your

local NPR and PBS affiliates. They all have community

calendars.

And don't forget community boards. Whenever I have

an event, I take the posters and the flyers that we've

published for the event, and I go around the coffee shops,

the libraries, the universities. I hit every single

Starbucks, and I put up the flyer for the upcoming program

or event. So don't hesitate to use those community boards.

Next slide, please.

I did mention social media. The only thing I'd

like to say about social media is that you want to

prioritize your social media tools. I've listed a number

here. There are a gazillion, gazillion social media tools.

I just participated in a whole day about social

media, and I didn't know half of the social media tools out

there.

But for programs I would highly recommend Facebook

and Twitter. Facebook because you could create a fan page

for your organization, and within that fan page you can

create a group, a group for each specific program or

service. So create a fan page and a group within that fan

page.

Twitter just because you want to advertise and

announce or remind people about your program and your

service or your event in 140 characters.

But when you do choose to go with social media and

use that as a promotion tool or marketing tool, make

priorities. Decide which tool will be more effective than

the other. Determine your policies and prioritize them and

master them. I think that's really important.

Marketing is a huge part of your program, but

really what you want to do is have an effective program

that will have results.

And next slide, please.

You want to make sure that you evaluate and track

your program in a very detailed way. You want to use this

information with data when you report back to your board or

when you are looking for funds or you want to make sure

that your constituency understands how effective and

successful your programs are.

So a few tips. Your website. I hope you have

usage statistics included in your website to monitor web

traffic and see where they click. If they've clicked on a

specific program more than others, you might decide that

that program is more successful than others.

If you don't have usage statistics, then insert a

realtime stats on your website. These include Google

Analytics. If you don't have Google Analytics on your

website, do it now. It's free. It's open to all. Ask

your IT representative to include it. And you can download

realtime statistics on web traffic. It's pretty amazing.

If you don't want to do Google Analytics, then do

whos.amung.us. It's also a way to track web traffic. I

have a whos.amung.us on our contact page just to see where

people are clicking from. It's a little map, and every

time someone clicks on our website or visits our website, a

little star pops up indicating where they're located.

E-mails, you want to make sure that you track the

open rate. If you don't use a third-party e-mail marketing

service, request a read receipt. I think Microsoft Outlook

you can opt for that. So request a read receipt. And if

you do use a third-party e-mail marketing service, such as

Constant Contact, you will get immediate reports.

Sign up to receive Google alerts so that, when you

are reported on, when you are covered, you get an alert

provided by Google, and it will take you directly to the

article published on your organizational program. And you

want to archive the media exposure, the media hits in your

online newsroom.

Of course program evaluation doesn't go without

participation, the number of clients that you've served or

participants for your program.

And of course the customer service: client

satisfaction, feedback, and retention.

When you've evaluated your program and you find it

successful, you want to make sure that you grow the program

credibility. And I'm going to finish with this.

I want to thank you for your patience because I'm

just barely over time.

Growing program credibility is extremely important.

And one way to do it is to realize how important you are in

affecting your program's success.

You can affect the way your organization, program,

and services are perceived. You can affect the message.

And when you deliver the program, you really need to think

about your personal brand.

And of course I've said it time and time again.

You really want to make sure to always say thank you.

I love this quote by Steve Cebalt, a nonprofit

consultant. He says, "Be the model every day of what your

nonprofit stands for, both on paper and in person." We

could add both on e-mail and in person.

So you have the passion, but make sure that you are

always professional, polite, and cordial, civil. It will

incite people to want to be involved with your

organization, to want to participate and increase

participation retention.

The last slide is a few resources that I'd like to

share with you that I've given you throughout the

presentation. Constantcontact.com, of course. Marketing

Profs is one.

Jacob Nielsen, useit.com. He's the usability guru

and provides you with really important, cost-effective and

inexpensive research tools and methods.

Of course the Public Relations Society of America,

prsa.org. I love the nonprofit marketing guide, Kivi's

Blog, nonprofitmarketingguide.com. Kivi Leroux, I think

her name is, is a fantastic nonprofit consultant. She

provides a lot of information free to nonprofits.

And she organizes webinars as well. I think

they're $35 per webinar. Very, very inexpensive for the

quality of the webinar. So I highly recommend visiting

nonprofitmarketingguide.com.

Nonprofit PR Forum. Authenticity Consulting.

And one thing I've just discovered is the

managementhelp.org website. It's a free management

library. It's resources for nonprofit organizations, and I

highly recommend you visit these.

And this is just a few resources and books, whether

they're print or online, that I would recommend you read if

you found this presentation interesting.

Again, I want to thank Liz and Carolyn for giving

me the opportunity to present today.

And I want to thank you for participating, for

listening in. I am sorry I did go a little bit over time,

but I hope the information was relevant, and I hope that

you'll be able to use it, because that's the whole point,

is to use this information.

With that, I'm always available online. My e-mail

address, contact information is available on this

presentation. And with that, I will maybe answer a few

more questions if there are. But with that, I thank you,

and have a wonderful day.

CAROLYN PHILLIPS: ...(audio skip)... We really

appreciate your sharing information and your wealth of

knowledge. Once again, great job.

And I'll make sure that I let Heather know how much

we appreciate you since she's the one who found you for us.

And here's Liz.

LIZ PERSAUD: And we're getting tons of great

feedback. Folks are saying "Excellent webinar," "Thank

you. Great job." "Thank you. Great Stuff."

Just to reiterate, Pass It On Center, we are

offering free CEUs for this webinar, all of our webinars,

and you can visit the AAC Institute for more information or

just click directly from the Pass It On Center website.

And again, this webinar will be archived. So we'll

have the audio, the transcription, and the PowerPoint up as

well too.

We'll go ahead and go to the next slide, which has

Jennifer's contact information.

So again, Jennifer, thank you so much.

Thank you, everyone, for joining us. If you have

any questions or need anything, contact us at the Pass It

On Center. We're here for you.

And until next time, y'all have a wonderful day.

Thank you.

CAROLYN PHILLIPS: Excellent. Thank you, Liz.

We did want to let you know that we are going to be

doing another webinar on social media. That's going to be

in September. And so look for that announcement. We have

many webinars between now and then. But just wanted to

raise your awareness that we'll be doing another one in

September.

And, Jennifer, I wouldn't be surprised if we get

back in touch with you to help us out with that one too.

So I know Liz has got quite a bit going on with our

social media. She's doing a great job with that. And if

any of you are on Facebook and are not a friend of us,

please become, yes, our friend. Friend us, and we will

friend you back.

So anyway, y'all take care.

And thanks, as always. We appreciate your time and

interest. Take care.