4 Methods for Understanding What Your Customers and Donors Really Think

Consumers and donors today have the world at their fingertips. They’re able to conduct their own research on organizations and products, and are faced with a wide variety of options to choose from. If you want to stand out from the crowd—and attract your ideal donors and customers—you need to have a deep understanding of your audience, their behavior, and why they make the decisions they do. 

Basically, you need to have a good grasp of why they would choose to support you rather than another nonprofit or social enterprise.

But how?
Two words! Market research. 

You may have heard this term thrown around before, but what is it really? Market research is a way of gathering information to better understand your target audience and what they want. Using a few proven techniques, you can gain valuable insight into your audience and get direct feedback from them about their interest in your organization.

No more guessing or assuming!

When done intentionally, market research can help you gain more support for your cause, reach a bigger audience, improve the experience of your current customers or donors, and build a stronger overall marketing strategy for your nonprofit or social impact company. 

So, let’s get into the nitty gritty of how to understand what your customers and donors really think so you can reach more people for your cause! 

When To Use Market Research

You know you could probably benefit from learning more about what your donors and customers want. Who couldn’t? But where do you start? When is the right time for it? 

Maybe you’re thinking about launching a new product or service and you’re not sure how much support it would actually receive. Or, maybe you want to pivot and take your organization in a new direction, like if you’re a nonprofit wanting to start selling products or build a social enterprise. Knowing more about your audience will help you create services and products that people actually want.

Market research is also beneficial when you already have a product or service that’s not performing as well as you’d like, or your sales or donations have decreased lately. That’s a perfect time to reevaluate or troubleshoot your strategy.

Expanding your client or donor base is important, too! But you need to know as much as you can about them in order to successfully grow.

Market research is also just a great way to check in with your audience regularly. People change, and so do their priorities. This can help ensure that you’re still providing what they’re looking for. 

To illustrate some of the ideas above, let’s take my annual holiday giveaway as an example. I host this giveaway every year in order to hear directly from my clients and email subscribers about who they are, what they need, how they found me, and much more. It also allows me to collect information that helps me refine my current products and services (and website copy!) as well as gives me ideas for future products and services. And who doesn’t love free things? A win for both of us!

To sum it up: Market research is essential housekeeping for your organization, and should especially be implemented in any of these cases. It will help you stay relevant, in-touch, and even anticipate your audience’s needs.

Tips for Getting Started with Market Research

So you’re ready to better understand your audience, awesome! Here are a few tips that will help you define your goal and set you up for success.

• Determine the objective of your research: 

  What is your goal? What are you trying to achieve with this research? 

  Do you want to expand your audience, increase sales, get more donations, something else? Determining this objective will help you figure out what method of research will work best for you and what data you hope to collect.

• Define your target market: 

  The point of this research is to learn all you can about the people in your market, but you need to know who you’re talking to first. 

  Think about who you want to reach. Who is your message, product, or service for? Be as specific as possible when thinking about who you want to attract to your nonprofit or social enterprise.

• Look at the competition: 

  It’s equally as important to know who you’re up against! Look into other organizations like yours from the eyes of a donor or customer. What do you like? What do you not like? What are they doing well and what needs improvement? How do you compare? 

  This is a great way to hone in on your own unique position and create an even better experience for your customers or donors.

How To Better Understand Your Customers and Donors

With market research, you’re hearing straight from the source rather than relying on your own personal thoughts and biases, which is crucial. 

Here are four ways to conduct market research to gain valuable insights into your current audience or target market.

1. Interviews

   Interviews allow for one-on-one, face-to-face (virtually works, too) discussions with members of your target audience. This is a great method for digging deep and also allows for a natural flow of conversation. You can follow different threads of the conversation to gain more insight, and it’s good for reading non-verbal cues, too! This is great for really connecting with your audience and building a rapport, but be sure to ask targeted, direct questions that evoke thoughtful responses.

   Additionally, be sure to take really good notes, or when possible, record the interview so you can hear their exact words again later.

2. Online surveys

   Surveys are a quick, inexpensive, easy way to hear from people, and the most commonly used method. These can be delivered as an online questionnaire or via email. They don’t require the scheduling and time of an interview, but you also may not get as in-depth responses or be able to ask clarifying questions. You can, however, collect a lot of data very quickly with surveys, and it is generally pretty straightforward and easy to analyze. This is the easiest way for people to participate as well.

3. Focus groups

   Focus groups bring together a carefully curated group of people who fit the target market. A professional moderator leads a discussion and asks questions about the product, service, or organization and gains insight into how the group feels. However, focus groups can be expensive and also lead to errors in research. Dominance bias (when one participant influences the rest of the group) and moderator style bias (when different moderators’ styles influence the group in different ways) are two effects that can skew your data results.

4. Customer observation

   A less expensive alternative to focus groups, this allows you (or someone from your organization) to observe a member of your target audience interacting with your product, whether it be navigating your website or testing something more concrete. While you won’t be able to get into their head like with the other methods, observing people in their natural setting without the influence of others can allow you to get a sense of where they hit roadblocks, what they like, and how they use your product or service.

Before we move on, let’s talk about incentives for participating in your market research. Offering an incentive is a great way to increase participation. This could be a small discount, giveaway, or free access to a resource. People love to receive something in return for their time, and you’ll likely receive more feedback!  

Oftentimes, this does depend on the amount of work required to participate, the number of responses you want, and your relationship to the person. For example, a focus group or interview is more time consuming than filling out an online survey. And if your audience isn’t highly engaged, they may need an enticement in exchange for their time. It can, of course, just also be used as a nice gesture.

How to Choose the Best Format for Your Market Research

There are clearly pros and cons to each method of research, and you have to determine which one works best for you and for your needs at this time. This is largely dependent on who your target audience is and what your objective is. That’s why they’re so important to define!

If you’re a nonprofit wanting to drive more people to your cause and gain more donors, an online survey may suffice. That way, you can gauge what people think about your communications, the feelings your messaging evokes, and what programs people are most interested in. 

If you’re a social enterprise and you want to introduce a new product, an interview might be best. Having a conversation with someone may allow you to get deeper insight into how they feel about the product and if they would really spend their money on it. An online survey could allow you to see if someone is interested or not, but it may be harder to discern intention versus action, and it doesn’t give you the level of detail a face-to-face interview does.

A conversation I had recently is a great example of choosing your format. I was speaking with a nonprofit leader and she wanted to create a new revenue stream by introducing a subscription box of premium bath and body products. This was a completely new venture for them, so I suggested that she conduct some market research to find out if her audience would be interested in making the purchase.

This was going to be a LOT of additional work for them, so she needed to gather information on whether it would even be of interest to their current donor base, since that was who they would initially start selling to.

Additionally, I suggested that she conduct focus groups or one-on-one interviews rather than an online survey because her audience may think that it’s a great idea but may not be willing to make a premium purchase ($100+) in reality. They needed to have actual conversations with people to work through potential issues like these ahead of time.

Ultimately, you want to choose the method your audience will best respond to and that will get you to the answers you need.

Asking the Right Market Research Questions

The other challenge in determining how to conduct thorough market research is figuring out which questions to ask participants. Whether via an online questionnaire or an in-person interview/focus group, you need to ask questions that are not only open-ended (more than a yes or no), but will help you achieve your goals.

There are some base questions you should be asking, but you also need to assess what questions best fit the purpose of your research. Here are some ideas to get you started.

Gather background information:

• What are the demographics of your audience? 

  • Age, gender, race/ethnicity, location, employment, etc

• What are the psychographics?

  • Their ethics, values, personalities, attitudes, lifestyles, and interests

  • You can find some of this out with questions like, “What are your hobbies?”, “What causes do you regularly support?”, “What five adjectives describe you best?”

Learn about how they view your organization: 

• How did they find you?

• How would they describe your organization and what you do?

• Why do they think your work matters?

• What do they think you should offer in the future? 

  • You can also give them a few options and let them choose what they like best!

• What do they think the benefits of your organization are?

• Where did they find the most useful or valuable information?

Gain more insight into what they want:

• What challenges were they facing when they realized they needed this product/service?

• What made them interested in organizations like yours?

• How did they know something in this organization could help them?

• What made them want to get involved with your mission or use your products?

• How familiar are they with other options on the market?

• Where do they go to find more information/different options?

Asses the roadblocks:

• What issues are they facing with your product or service?

• What problems do they currently see?

• What problems do they think could arise?

• What did they dislike about your product/service/organization? 

• What would they find more helpful in the future/what areas do they think need improvement?

Evaluate the cost:

• If you’re offering a product, how much are they willing to spend on it?

• If you’re a nonprofit, how much are they willing to donate?

Note: Money questions may be tricky. My sales coach always says, “People buy with emotion and justify with logic.” So, just be prepared that you may not get the answers you want with these questions . . . or people’s actions may be very different from their intentions. It’s not bad to ask; just use it as a guide rather than gospel.

Notice that these are mostly open-ended questions. Asking open-ended questions helps you get deeper insights. You could also mix in numeric scale questions and vary the question structure. For example, the question could ask the user to rate their answer on a scale of 1-5, one being “Strongly Disagree” and five being “Strongly Agree.”

There are many examples of great questions here, but be careful in asking too many! You don’t want to overwhelm people or take more of their time than needed. Choose strategic questions from a few different categories that will best benefit the goal of your research.

Wrapping It All Up

Once you conduct your research and gather all your data, you’ll be left with a vast amount of helpful, insightful information to analyze and keep on hand. This process will likely uncover new patterns and trends you might not have fully noticed before. Not to mention give you a deeper understanding of your audience and how they respond to your mission.

After all is said and done, you can take your newfound knowledge and create an action plan to implement what you’ve learned. By conducting market research, you can not only better understand your current audience, but find new customers and donors that deeply resonate with your mission.

Moving forward, your services, products, and marketing will be more aligned with your ideal audience, making all your efforts more successful. In fact, your customers and donors may even think you’ve read their mind!

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I’m Kristi Porter, and I help cause-focused organizations understand and execute effective marketing campaigns so they can move from stressed to strategic. Your resources may be limited, but your potential isn’t. Whether you’re a nonprofit, social enterprise, or small business who wants to give back, I’ll show you how to have a bigger impact.

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This post was co-written by Kristi Porter and Megan Westbrook.

Building Better Content: How to Improve on Social Media

We’re continuing our theme of content marketing for the month, and this week we’re focusing on one teensy, tiny thing (joking, it’s huge): social media! Love it or hate, it it’s here to stay! So, we might as well learn our way around it and benefit from it.

Social media marketing is a huge part of content marketing. Why? Because you can quickly and easily use social media platforms to advertise and share content to your target audiences.

Over 70% of Americans are using social media! Not to mention pretty much everywhere else in the world. These platforms are massive and they literally help you reach millions of people. This is where you need to be spreading your message and promoting your business or organization, and you need to do it right.

The content you share on social media has the ability to attract your target audience and turn them into loyal customers or supporters. That’s why this is so important. It’s also the perfect opportunity to interact with your audience, whether it’s answering questions, addressing concerns, or just showing your appreciation!

Listening to your audience and understanding what they like and need will help you create more engaging and effective social media content. In turn, you'll improve your content marketing strategies and grow your nonprofit or social enterprise. But how? Let’s break down social media content marketing and the components you need to maximize your business exposure, easily.

Your first step: conduct a content audit on all of your current social media platforms.

This is your starting point to building a better social media presence. You need to evaluate what you have already done, assess your strengths and your weaknesses, and determine how you can improve. A simple content audit will allow you to see what posts have performed best and what topics your audience likes most, eliminate posts that are outdated or no longer relevant, locate gaps in your content, and generate new ideas. The goal is to create better content and increase traffic.

This doesn’t have to take long, only an hour or so! It depends largely on how long your social history is, and how in-depth you’d like to go. Just sort through your social media profiles and evaluate what you’ve posted. Most social media platforms, like Facebook and Instagram, also have really helpful post and profile analytics, and data on business pages that you can take advantage of. These usually show you how posts are doing in terms of likes, reach, engagement, etc.

It’s also important to look at how often you are posting. If you have a social media profile linked on your website that you rarely if ever touch, it’s probably a good idea to remove it! You don’t necessarily have to delete it, but you don’t want to promote something if your last post was four months ago….or let’s be honest, four years ago. So, let it go!

Developing a simple content plan for your social media profiles will also save you time and stress.

After you conduct your audit, we also recommend starting some sort of spreadsheet for current and future social media posts, if you haven’t already. Or a calendar! Here’s a good example from Curata. This is a more broad, long-term plan setup for content ideas, but it’s still good starting point.

This will help keep you organized and serve as a great reference tool should you ever need to go back and quickly and easily find a post. To go more in depth, I recommend creating a spreadsheet for each platform and then listing the date of the post, the content, and any links or outside sources you included. It doesn’t have to be super complicated, however, you can also add analytics later such as how many people were reached, the number of likes, etc. Knowing any of this information will make future audits easier, too!

Laying all your content out in a spreadsheet will help you see what items, events, holidays, etc., your organization needs to promote at a glance. Then you can fill in any gaps with more day-to-day, behind the scenes, or fun posts that also fit with your brand. Here’s another simple example of an Instagram plan for a service-based business.

To help develop your plan, ask yourself a few questions. What are your goals? Is it to get the viewer to visit your website? Do you want to gain more email subscribers? Do you need more donations, or more sales? What do you want the overall tone of your profile to be? Funny and lighthearted? Serious and issue-oriented? What kind of content does your audience want? Is it mainly photos, text, or videos (I’d definitely recommend using them all.)?

These questions will also help you generate content ideas. Figure out the answers and let that drive your content creation. Brainstorm ideas and get them in writing, then develop them further.

If you’re still stuck on what kind of content to post, here are some ideas:

• Guest takeovers: Have someone on your staff or that you know talk about a relevant topic to your business/organization, something they are an expert in, or if they are an influencer, they can draw new fans to you with their perspective on your work.

• How-to posts: Share helpful tips and advice with your audience.

• Behind-the-scenes: Give your audience a look into the background of your business or nonprofit. This makes you more personable and approachable, too!

• Do a Q&A session live on Facebook, Twitter, or on an Instagram Story. Be sure to engage with audience!

• Create visuals like infographics to demonstrate how your business or nonprofit is making a change. Quotes are always popular, too.

• Video is enormously popular right now, whether it’s live or recorded. Talk about your mission, show off your work, introduce your team, promote your events...the possibilities are endless!

• Reuse and recycle: Are there previous pieces of content like blogs, videos, interviews, podcasts, etc., that you haven’t promoted in a long time? Or maybe they only lived on your website and never made it to social? See what you already have available that should still the light of day again.

• Conduct a poll: This is another great way to interact with your audience and get their feedback. Facebook and Instagram Stories offer built-in polls you can use, making it super easy.

• Show your viewers what a day in the life looks like for you or for another key member of your nonprofit or social enterprise. You can do this via photos, video, or story!

• Share your favorites: This could include books, podcasts, movies, products, another business...anything you think your audience will like or benefit from! Give some recommendations!

It’s a good idea to mix evergreen and timely content. Evergreen content is content that stays fresh and relevant for a long period of time. Like an evergreen tree, it never dies. Timely content is content revolved around more short-term situations that won’t be relevant in a few months. For example, a holiday, event, fundraiser, promotion, etc., would all be considered timely content.

Both types of content are important. Timely content shows what you are actively doing and evergreen content will always be useful. You can continue to repost and repurpose it. A good rule of thumb here is the 80/20 rule. Eighty of your content is evergreen, 20% is timely.

Speaking of time...

Consistency is key in social media content.

You have to make sure you can stay consistent in developing and putting out content on social media. If you don’t, people will forget you or won’t even bother following you. You have to stay on their minds and in their feeds.

I know this may seem daunting and overwhelming—there are so many platforms to keep up with! However, I think it’s better to consistently keep up with just a few, strong platforms than to try to keep up with all of them, spreading yourself too thin, and then end up neglecting some. So, pick a few that work for you and your audience and make them your babies.

The most used social media sites right now are Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn, and Pinterest. These are the four I would recommend keeping up with and building a presence on. Familiarize yourself with these platforms and what they can do for you and your business. Here’s a quick guide.

You also need to determine where your specific target audience hangs out the most, though. That may differ from business to business. Try to see where your audience congregates and then make those platforms your top priority.

In terms of how many times a day or week you should post and when, this also varies by platform.

According to the Content Marketing Institute, posting on Facebook once or twice a day, monitoring Twitter all day, and spending time each day on LinkedIn is the best.

Studies also show that at a minimum you should post three times a week to Facebook. Once a day is optimal, but you can build. Three times a day on Twitter is the minimum, 15 is optimal, and 30 is maximum. You want to post about three pins a day to Pinterest, twice to once a week on LinkedIn, and post once to three times a day on Instagram. Again, you can always start at the minimum and build up from there once you get the hang of it. Find what works for you!

As far as times of day goes, here is a good article on the best days and times to post to each social media site. I would also highly recommend setting up a social media calendar or using a scheduling tool like Buffer, Smarterqueue, or Hootsuite.

These tools will make your life so much easier. You just write your social media post, add an image or video, schedule a day and time, assign it to a profile, and you’re done! No more worries, it’ll just automatically post to your profile when you scheduled it to. Here’s more on that.

See, social media isn’t so scary anymore, is it? You just have to determine your audience, find what works best for the both of you, and then get organized. Once you start brainstorming and getting the hang of things, you’ll be surprised how quickly ideas flow!

But, again, the point here isn’t to overwhelm you. It’s to help you evaluate what you’ve done so far, make a plan for the future, and start posting great content consistently. Your consistency may be slow right now, and that’s fine. But creating a schedule and plan to follow will help you and your followers.

Social media content marketing: check. Come back next week to learn more about maximizing your blog!

Read the other posts in this series:

• Content Marketing 101

• How Screenwriting Can Help You Better Communicate Your Brand's Story

• What (and Why) You Should Be Emailing Your List

• How to Generate and Organize Content for Your Blog

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Megan Westbrook holds a B.A. in journalism with a focus in public relations and a minor in Spanish from Georgia State University. An aspiring writer, her interests reside in blogging, social media, content creation, design, and photography. She is also a passionate social justice advocate and interested in nonprofit or cause-focused work. Megan is currently a receptionist at Servcorp in Atlanta, Georgia. 

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8 Launch Mistakes and How to Avoid Them

Every launch is a big deal. It takes your valuable time and resources, not to mention oodles of effort. So, whether it's the launch of a new website, a book, a campaign, an event, or a product, it needs to get the job done. After all, you don't have time to waste. You've got too much on your plate for missed opportunities.

But what happens when your nonprofit or social enterprise’s launch is just okay? Or maybe it's good, but it wasn't as good as you'd hoped. Or, sadly, what if it flops? (Even successful launches have room for improvement.)

No matter which of these situations you find yourself in, I've observed a number of reasons throughout my career in marketing, PR, and events that may be causing you to unconsciously sabotage your launches. I'll touch on eight launch mistakes to avoid here, but don't worry, I'll also show you how to fix them so that your next launch is your best yet.

By the way, before we get started, let’s define “launch,” in case this is a new term for you. I’m defining launch as anything new that you’re trying to accomplish and promote to your audience.

(PSST—This is part of a series on launches. View Part 2 and Part 3.)

1. Not Having a Launch Strategy

This is probably the biggest launch mistake that I see. From annual events to one-time launches, many nonprofits and social impact companies don't have an organized launch strategy in place. The launch or promotion is done because it's a certain time of year, or someone convinced you that it needs to be done, or your visionary leader had another great idea.

None of those are inherently bad reasons, but if you don't know how to integrate them into what you're doing, you'll never ensure success. 

I like to think of launches like a bridge because they should have connection points to your mission and programs on either side. How does what you’re already doing lead up to this point? How will this launch connect people to what you regularly do after it’s over? They should never "stand alone" because you'll either confuse your audience who could see this as an interruption or distraction, or not give them any reason to stay connected to you after.

Additionally, you need a plan. It's a bad idea to start each day with whatever task comes to mind, or to constantly tackle what seems urgent at the time. This means that nothing you do is building on each other, and you'll only ever feel scattered as you work on the launch. Yuck, no one wants that.

The Fix

While I don't have time to go into great detail here (and could talk about it for hours), the biggest and best action step I can give you is to ask yourself what you want attendees or participants to do after the launch.

Then make sure you communicate that to them and provide easy solutions to make it happen. Launches are short-term, and there's a lot of relationship that can happen after they're over. Having a strategy in place offers you the best chance at turning interest into engagement.

You can also check out my launch strategy guide, Promote With Purpose.

2. Not Changing Your Regular Promotion Schedule

It doesn't matter if your nonprofit or social enterprises consists of you sitting at your kitchen table or an army of staffers, interns, and volunteers—launches require a lot of extra effort. This means that whatever you normally do for your promotion and marketing schedule has to likely be dramatically stepped up for a short time.

Let's say you send a monthly newsletter, post on social media a few times per week, and write a blog twice per month. And you feel like that's already a challenge because of your other responsibilities. Here's the bad news: For a launch, you'll probably have to double that. Here's the good news: It doesn't have to be for long.

If you've been paying attention to social media, you know that those lovely, little things called algorithms are always changing. And this isn't always in your favor, sadly, especially without paying for it. So, you're going to have to fight harder for people's attention. And that means posting even more frequently.

And, unfortunately no, this doesn't mean that you just post about your launch a bunch more and call it a day. You need to increase your content marketing strategy so that you can "sell" more without annoying your audience. If you don't increase your promotion schedule, or you only post a bunch more about what you want people to do for you, like buy or donate, you run the risk of no one seeing your message, or even losing fans.

The Fix

Gear up, baby—it's go time! Make room in your calendar for the extra time you'll need to increase your promotional schedule. Or, even better, get help. And create a plan for what you're going to say and when, so that you're spreading out helpful, intriguing, or delightful content in between asking your audience to do something that benefits you.

3. Not Considering Your Audience

This may seem like an odd launch mistake to include, but it can easily happen when you've been doing the same event for a long time. In cases like these, we tend to do what we've always done, without giving it a lot of thought.

The problem here is that things can change over time. Maybe you hosted an event for people who knew your organization well, but now the people attend who don't know you as well, or at all. Maybe you launched an awareness campaign years ago, but the issue is widely known now. Or maybe your previous fundraising goals just won't cut it with the new programs you want to include in your budget, and you need to attract more people, or people with more money.

Without considering this aspect, you may be communicating incorrectly to your audience. Or you may even be drawing the wrong people.

The Fix:

Spend some time looking at the history of your launch, including examining the original purpose and those who have previously participated. Decide if it's still doing its job, or if changes need to be made. When we don't continue innovating or evolving, something that was once successful may become mediocre.

4. Having Too Many, or Unclear, Calls to Action

This one is super hard, and a launch mistake we’ve likely all made!

When you actually have the attention of potential customers or donors, you want to tell them all the things. You want them to buy or donate, join the email list, come to the next event, volunteer, and on, and on, and on. This is because there's so much to do—and it's all great!

But the more you give people to do, the less they're probably going to do it. (Here's some sciencey stuff to back me up.)

Even when you have someone's attention, you likely only have it for a short time. So, it's important to not overwhelm them. Additionally, you don't want to make participation hard. Always lower the "barrier to entry" for taking your next step. 

• Click a link to donate or buy.

• Download a freebie.

• Lend your name to the petition.

• Refer a friend.

• Share on social media.

• Register at this link.

These are all quick and easy examples. Unless it's your mom or a super fan, giving them too many options just means you'll lose their attention even faster—and you may not get it back.

On the other hand, maybe your calls to action are unclear. You avoid being super promotional and salesy, which I totally understand, but that could mean your audience doesn't actually know what you want them to do. You can space out the hard "asks" between some softer ones, or work up to it, but you need to leave no room for interpretation on the action step you want them to take.

The Fix

Reexamine your process, marketing, and communication. Ideally, make sure you're only asking them to do one, or maybe two things if they're really easy, and double-check that the language is crystal clear. Never make your audience guess.

5. Not Having All Hands on Deck

Launches often fall on the shoulders of a couple of people, and that's okay. Sometimes there aren't any alternatives. But if this is a major initiative at your organization, everyone needs to have a hand in promotion. 

Even at small nonprofits and social enterprises, people tend to leave the marketing and communication efforts to those working on the launch, as well as the official channels like the organization's email and social media. After all, everyone has more than enough to do already, right? But if you think this way, just consider all of the other promotional avenues you're missing out on. Everyone has different personal and professional networks they can talk to.

The Fix:

This post goes into more detail, but make it easy for people to talk about you. This includes internal and external relationships. Especially when we're referring to employees, stakeholders and boards, volunteers, interns, etc, everyone should be up-to-date on how they can help meet the launch goals.

And even if you're a solopreneur, you should make sure that you're talking about the launch on both your personal and professional channels anyway. These cross-promotional efforts can give you twice the reach.

6. Not Promoting During and After the Launch

It's easy to think that the end of the launch is the end of the project, but that shouldn't be the case. Instead, you should use that momentum for even greater results, both now and later.

I've worked on an untold number of events over the years, so this is where I see it happen most often. Too many people promote events before-hand, and then the day/night of, don't promote much at all, and even less after, unless it's just to slap a few photos up on Facebook or Instagram. This is a shame, because it's another opportunity to set up your next event or launch while you have people's attention.

For example, if you’re marketing an event, can you live Tweet, hop on Facebook Live, or post Instagram Stories during the event to give people who couldn't attend the chance to see what they missed, and make plans to be there in the future? Did you send out an email directly after the event to showcase highlights, and give links or a save the date for the next gathering? Have you considered sending a press release to local or national media that detailed what took place, and what will happen in the future, to get greater exposure?

And outside of events, this strategy works for other launches as well. And those examples aren't exclusive to in-person events. Let's go back to that first item in this post and think about "what's next" for those who attended/participated, as well as those who are sad to miss out. Using the bridge analogy again, you can lead people where you want them to go with your nonprofit or social impact company.

It could even simply include thank you notes, following up with large donors and sponsors, or even a survey. All of these are additional "touch points" that allow you to build a deeper relationship with fans and potential fans. This long-term approaches leads to greater sustainability. 

The Fix

You've probably heard that it's easier to go deeper with your current audience than it is to find new customers or donors, and that's absolutely true. You're already spending your time and energy on this launch, so don't make the mistake of not seizing every opportunity to nurture the relationship.

Think of ways you can continue building on the launch, both during and after, to capitalize on the effort you're already putting out. It will likely also make the next launch better.

7. Not Taking Time to Evaluate

There are undoubtedly tasks, projects, meetings, and obligations piling up while you're working on your launch. So, it's kind of a big relief when it's over. And you might take some time to celebrate, but it's short-lived because there's something else that requires your attention.

You go-getters may even schedule a follow-up meeting to assess what went right and what went wrong. That's excellent, but set aside enough time to give this evaluation the attention it deserves. An hour before lunch probably won't get the job done when everyone is more concerned with what type of sandwich they're ordering versus how next year could be better.

When you don't take the time to properly evaluate your launch, you're doomed to repeat the same mistakes. Heck, you may not even fully realize your launch mistakes. Ouch. This can lead to all kinds of problems, including spending money unnecessarily, which may be your biggest fear.

The Fix

Have people take notes before, during, and after the launch with their suggestions and observations. Also, have them jot down, and communicate, what went right. You need to be sure to celebrate the big and little things, too.

And don’t forget to schedule plenty of time for a recap meeting. As time passes, memories get cloudy, so this should happen soon after the launch. Finally, get clear on your action steps, and document them well for the next time.

8. Not Getting Extra Help

Um, have we talked about how much hard work it takes to pull off a launch? #understatement

Whether you're flying solo or have a support team, you may need additional help with your launch marketing. It can get overwhelming really fast, especially if you wear multiple hats.

I've heard too many stories that include words like, "I meant to do that, but I didn't have time," or, "Oh, I completely forgot," or even, "I have no idea how to do that." Yikes, that's not what you want from your launch experience! It matters too much.

If you know that you won't be able to do it all or don't have the necessary experience, don't be afraid to ask for help.

I realize it may cost more time or money, but let's face it—your BIG launch is at stake here. This is a short-term investment that could pay off big in the long run. Think about the potential ROI (return on investment).

The Fix

Not hard to figure this one out. You may have to be creative in your approach, but there is usually a solution not far away.

Think interns, volunteers, co-workers, bartering, and of course, hire if you need to. People like me are available to work on projects, meaning we won't stick around for office pizza parties if you don't want us to.

Your launch is really important, so do everything you can to make it a success.

(PSST—This is part of a series on launches. View Part 2 and Part 3. Ready to go to the next level? Check out my launch strategy guide, Promote With Purpose.)

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I'm Kristi Porter, and I started Signify to provide writing, consulting and strategy services to nonprofits and for-profit organizations with a social mission, primarily through copywriting, marketing and business communications. I believe that cause-focused organizations like yours are the future of business. You're proof that companies can both make money and do good. And I'm here to help you get noticed and grow. When you succeed, we all win.

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#Eclipse2017 Marketing Lessons

I don't know about where you live, but Atlanta had #Eclipse2017 fever for weeks—and we weren't even in the path of totality, where the sun would be completely blocked by the moon. But there were apps, websites, news coverage, and huge shortages on ISO-certified glasses everywhere you looked. It was a fun frenzy to be a part of, honestly. I was totally into it. However, even after anticipating it for a couple of months, I still found myself unprepared. In the end, I had a great time, but it was also a tad chaotic.

And it was easy to make a few parallels between this unique experience and the world of marketing. So, be a business nerd with me for a minute, and just go with it . . . 

1. Plan Ahead

Did you get your circa Back to the Future ISO-certified eclipse glasses? I almost didn't. I literally got my hands on a pair less than 40 minutes before the big event. I had been thinking about this moment for weeks and weeks leading up to it, but kept forgetting to pick up free glasses or buy them, and then when I put some real effort into it just a few days prior, they were, of course all gone. Like, long gone. My friend and I managed to buy a pair from a guy who's friend didn't show up to watch with him. Whew!

Marketing lesson: Good marketing doesn't just happen. If you don't live in the world of business communications as I do, there are plenty of other things to occupy your mind and your time. Believe it or not, sometimes it's even hard for me to make the time. And if you don't consider it to be one of your skills, it's easy to let marketing slide or get pushed to the back burner. But you can't expect people to buy, donate, or show up without some real effort on your part. I know there is already a lot on your plate, but stop and think about your marketing. Put together a plan, even a loose one to work from. Read a book, listen to a podcast, or get on an email list that will teach you more about marketing. The better you get, the more your organization will thrive.

2. Have a Backup Plan

I ended up enacting Plan D for my eclipse experience. Plan A was to win one of the cool trips I'd registered for, which would've meant watching it in either Portland or Nashville. Long shot? Absolutely, but how fun would it have been! Plan B was to buy glasses and go watch with my friend at her house because her daughter was napping and she couldn't get out. But I couldn't find any to buy because I waited too long. Plan C was to go to a local event that had glasses for sale. This is what I thought was happening up until it didn't. Another friend came with me to this event, but when we arrived, they'd already sold out of specs. That's when Plan D evolved. 

We were standing in line for this event, but we didn't know if the line was for drinks, or to buy the glasses. So, I tapped the guy in front of me on the shoulder and asked. He said it was for drinks, and that they'd already run out of glasses. Gahhh! But he said that his friend didn't show up and that he'd sell us his extra pair! So, we grabbed those because it was almost 2:00 p.m., and the eclipse was happening at 2:36 p.m. here. We'd just have to share.

Marketing lesson: Maybe not every time, but at some point, something in your marketing plan will go wrong. (My experience is that it's usually technology-related.) Maybe it's a bad wifi connection, a glitch with your email provider, an event speaker gets sick or misses their connecting flight, the product doesn't get shipped on time, or your computer crashes and you know you were supposed to, but you haven't backed it up in six months even though you got a notification to do so the day before. It could literally be anything. The point is to have a backup plan, or three. Expect that something will go wrong, because it easily could. And do a happy dance when it doesn't!

3. Share the Experience

As you've already seen, I didn't plan very well for this historic moment. It wasn't until last Thursday when I actually started hunting for glasses. And I was sick last week and over the weekend, so even though I'd been excited for the eclipse, my enthusiasm was quickly waning. It wasn't until Sunday that I reached out to my friend to attend the viewing party with me. She showed some interest, but we didn't even make firm plans until around 11:00 a.m. on Monday!

I woke up that day still feeling pretty drained from being sick, so I'd almost resigned myself to just watching the eclipse on TV from my couch. I was about to text her that I wasn't feeling up to it, when she reached out to see if we were still on. So, I took a moment, remembered that previous excitement, and put together a plan. We ended up having a great time, and a fun, shared experience.

Marketing lesson: If you are a solopreneur or run a small business of just a few folks, it's very easy to get used to doing things on your own. This may be because it's just easier, you don't have the resources to pay others, or have a hard time delegating. But whether you're in the middle of a launch, promoting an event, fulfilling a product order, administering a service, or just dreaming of what's next, it's always more fun with a buddy. Conversations with others may give you new ideas, good feedback, inspiration, or one of another dozen awesome things. Even as a solopreneur, doing everything alone is a choice. Make plans to involve others, even informally. Your organization will be better for it. After all, you got in this business to help others. So, let someone help you.

4. Make It Last

If you're anything like me, your post-eclipse routine included updating social media with the photos you took. After that, I scoured Instagram and Facebook to see the photos and videos my friends and family captured. It was an experience worth sharing and celebrating. I also had friends that were in prime viewing spots all over the country, so I couldn't wait to see a glimpse of what they saw. It was truly an event that brought the country together, and gave us something fun to focus on after all the bad news we hear every day. I'll certainly be watching for those photos and videos in the days to come.

Marketing lesson: One of the common mistakes I see by organizations is that they host an awesome event, but they only talk about it before-hand. They don't promote it much during, and rarely after. Those are two prime opportunities to get your audience excited about your next event. Likewise, if you put a lot of time and effort into a launch, but never update your peeps about how it went, you're missing the opportunity to keep them in the loop and tell them how important they were to it. Or, do you put a lot of work into writing blog posts, but never actually promote them? It's unlikely people will just sit around waiting with baited breath until your next post. You need to market it! I've heard that 20% of the effort you put into your blog post should be writing it, and the other 80% should be marketing it. Your words may be incredible, but if no one knows to read them, they won't be very effective. Go the extra mile. Make it count, and then make it last.

So, did you watch the eclipse? Where from? What did you think?

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PIN THIS POST FOR LATER: 

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I'm Kristi Porter, and I started Signify to provide writing, consulting and strategy services to nonprofits and for-profit organizations with a social mission, primarily through copywriting, marketing, and business communications. I believe that cause-focused organizations like yours are the future of business. You're proof that companies can both make money and do good. And I'm here to help you get noticed and grow. When you succeed, we all win.

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