Why do some organizations get people to share on social but you don't? Why do some organization have an easier time getting their donors to give again, or volunteer more often? The easiest answer is this….THEY ASK!! If you ask for what you ned then you're much more likely to get what you need from you board, your volunteers, your donors and anyone else in your network.

In this episode you'll learn:

→ why we need to ask for what we want and what do we even want to ask for?
→ how to ask people to get on your email list.
→ asking for testimonials.
→ different marketing techniques you can implement

Want to skip ahead?  Here are some key takeaways:

[8:42] If you're looking for more visibility on social media create a promo kit and share it with people. Make it easy for them with pre-written copy and images that they can use to share about your organization wherever they are currently active.
[13:00] Ask people to join your email list in their tax receipt emails. Let them know what they can expect from the emails and how often they'll receive them so they see that there is value in it for them. You can also create a pdf that has added value for your audience that you give them for free when they give your email address. Again making it about them but asking all the same!
[13:30] Don't forget to ask for testimonials. It can be great to have them from donors, as well as the community that you support.

Resources

EP 68  Use Your Existing Audience to Promote for You
Pretty Links

Full Transcript

[INTRO] Hey everybody, Sami here, your host of the digital marketing therapy podcast. And today we are talking about asking for what you want. And I don't just mean when you're one on one with donors, when you're trying to reach out to corporate sponsors or get in kind donations, I'm talking about the everyday little things that you can be doing in your online marketing strategies to continue to build your network and build your audience and get new donors coming into your funnel. So that's what we're going to talk about talk about today, and ways to get people to take the action that you want them to take. Because a lot of times people don't do it unless they're asked, they might think about it, but to take the action, they just don't do it. So we want to ask for what we need, and make sure that we're getting that visibility, and we're nurturing, and we're continuing to build on those relationships so that we can turn them into bigger donors, we can turn them into, you know, all the things that we need to continue to build our donor base and continue to grow and reach our goals for our organization. So I'm excited to have this conversation with you. And I would love to hear if there are other things that come across for you that you've been doing, you can share those with us. That would be awesome, because we're always trying to learn also from you guys and the things that are working well for you.

But before we get into this episode is brought to you by our free guide, nine ways for nonprofits to raise more money online, you can get this guide at thefirstclick.net/fundraise. And it's got some fun ways that you can get out there online and start to get in front of your audience and ask them for money and build that donor base. And like you know, we love get them into your monthly donor programs. Okay, so again, that's thefirstclick.net/fundraise. But for now, let's get into the episode.

[CANNED INTRODUCTION] You're listening to the Digital Marketing Therapy Podcast. I'm your host, Sami Bedell-Mulhern. And each week, I bring you tips from myself and other experts, as well as hot seats with small business owners and entrepreneurs to demystify digital marketing and get you on your way to generating more leads and growing your business.You're listening to the digital marketing therapy podcast. I'm your host, Sami Bedell-Mulhern. And each week, I bring you tips from myself and other experts, as well as hot seats with small business owners and entrepreneurs to demystify digital marketing, and get you on your way to generating more leads and growing your business.

[BODY] Okay, so before we get into kind of how and why in where you can ask for certain things, let's talk first about what might be some things that you would want to ask for.

So obviously, we're always asking for dollars for our organization, making sure that it's super clear that we're stating why we need these funds. What are the funds going towards? How will we be utilizing and maximizing on those funds, things like that. But yes, obviously, we're asking for donations than other pieces here are maybe a little less obvious. So we might be asking for people to share a post on social media, maybe we're asking them to share about an upcoming event that we have, or even just share a great blog post that we just wrote that really clearly explains, you know, the mission behind a project that you're working on. And you might also want to ask somebody to run an online fundraiser for you. It's super easy now through Facebook, and even Instagram to run a promotion, and help support a nonprofit organization. We also might want to ask people to sign up for our email newsletter. I'm a huge fan of email and love that it is something that we can use to nurture and grow and retain our donors, well worth every dollar that we invest in it if you're doing it consistently. But we do need to ask people to join our email list. And I'll talk about a few ways that you can do that. We might also ask people to volunteer. I can't tell you how many times I've been willing to volunteer for an organization, but I don't know what they have going on. But when somebody said Hey, would you be willing to do this? It's like, Oh, yeah, if you need me to do that, 100% I'm down. So asking for for people to volunteer in areas where you need them to if that's a problem. You might ask for specific in kind donations. Maybe it's supplies that you need for your after school program, or you need somebody to come in and replace the carpet. I don't know. But you never know until you ask what kinds of resources people will have. And people that are involved in your organization at the root want to help. So I just like in this too.

When it comes to pitching people for me to be On their podcast, right? I've always been nervous about him. And like, I don't know, I don't want to bother somebody, I don't want to, you know, what if they don't want me, I don't want to be a pain, I don't want to be self promoting. But at the root of it, we as podcasters, or any content creator, if we're using other people's content, if we're, you know, having guests on our podcast, like we're hungry for that content, right. And so I'm actually doing them a favor by making it easy to say, hey, I've got this great topic that I could talk to your audience about that I think would make sense, right? Like, that's a benefit, that's actually helpful. So think about that, as an example, when you're reaching out to your donor, base, volunteer base, whatever, and making those asks for those specific things, because likely they want to help, they just maybe don't necessarily know how, and they can always say no, and that's okay. And them saying no, doesn't mean No, I don't want to be involved in your organization, it just might mean now's not the right time, or I can't help you with that right now. Or I'm not on social media, whatever it might be. So we want to make it easy. We want to make it simple. And we want to give them an easy, yes. So you know, we can all move forward, move on with our days and keep keep growing. And you know, you don't have a lot of time to spare. And we all know, everybody is just bombarded with messaging all the time. So the more succinct, clear and specific we can be, the better it will be.

So let's talk first about asking, you know, for visibility, so maybe one of the things one of our campaigns and goals is just to grow our social media reach, get in front of new people, and start to maybe drive more traffic to our website for the content that we've created. So that we can get some more loyal raving followers and eventually turn them into donors. So we did an episode A while ago, I'll link it up in the show notes. I've referenced it several times, with Lily stairs, about creating your promo kit. And that is one really easy way for you to make an ask of people in your list and say, Hey, we have this event coming up, or, you know, we are really talking about this topic this month. I know we worked with an organization, or we work with an organization that handles sex trafficking. And well, they don't handle it, they are working to get rid of it. But January was anti human trafficking month. And so you know, maybe you're coming up on a campaign like that. And you can say, Well, hey, guys, we know that you support and appreciate our organization. And during this month, we really want to take advantage of the fact that there's going to be a lot of awareness and conversation about this topic. And so we've created this promo kit, we'd love for you to share these posts, here's the dates, that we'd love for you to share some of this information, if it works out, here's the copy, here's the imagery, all you have to do is download and share it right? Super easy, super simple. You make it easy for them to get it done, where they are currently living on their social media platforms, right. So you're giving them Twitter, you're giving them LinkedIn, and Instagram, all the things so that they have the opportunities to do it where it makes most sense to them. And you can ask them also to send emails to their friends giving them email copy that they can share. So whatever it is just again, keep it simple and keep it easy.

The same is true if you're asking people to do like a Facebook fundraiser. So maybe you're putting out a campaign that says, hey, we want for 2021 we want to have as many of our donors celebrate their birthdays with us by running a Facebook fundraiser as possible. Here's how you do it. So giving them the step by step instructions, because sometimes people might not do it because they don't know how and technology is changing so fast that even if they've done one before, the setup in the process for it might be different. So giving them a simple and easy to use guide that says here you go. This is how you set up your birthday fundraiser. You know, we always recommend that you set it for $250. And maybe if you could seed it with you know $25 so people see it's already kicked off like that's when we found people have the most success would you be willing to run this for us on your birthday? Right? So it's a very simple specific ask Yes, helping you raise money but not necessarily requiring that person to open up their bank account again and give you funds. So I love that as an idea.

And then when it comes to email, I love having an email list. I love growing an email list. I think it's super important. And, and we have to ask for people to join our email list. And you know, this can be a few ways this could be on your website. This could be in your email, when you send out a tax receipt, it might say, please make sure you're registered for our email list so you can get future updates. There's lots of ways that that ask can be incorporated. And one way that I really love to encourage people to sign up is, you know, we want to use our email list to provide value. And this is something that we take from the for profit commercial space, not just getting people to sign up for a newsletter, although that's fine, but you'll probably find more success if there's something you can hook them with. Maybe it is a guy that they can download with after school activities for their child, maybe it's potty training tips for their puppy, maybe it's a list of resources for an underserved population that you support. in your community. It could be anything, but another way just to get people to sign up. So then when you're asking people to get on your email list, you're saying, Hey, I would love to send you this free guide, you can get it here has tons of information for the things that we're doing. So you can get to know a little bit more about us. You know, please, please download that. It makes it an easier sell. I don't even want to use the word sell, but an easier conversion. Because you're providing value for them immediately, they're immediately getting something in exchange for them giving you their email address. And the same is true.

When you think about your website, having those lead magnets, what they're called as lead magnets, having those on your website. Having maybe even assets on your website for social media posting, like using your website as a hub to also be able to drive people to so when you're making these asks of your your community to post on social or to host a Facebook fundraiser or to get on your email list. You're not having to like you know, custom send an email every single time you have quick and easy URLs like earlier today, I said in the podcast, right? Go to thefirstclick.net/fundraise to download the free guide. Now when you go to that URL, it's a much longer one, right. But the I've been able to make it a short version with a plugin that I use called pretty links. So that you can just have a short, simple, sweet way to share that information with people that you come across. come across, I say across all the time, and my daughter yells at me and says crossed is not a word. So anyway, anybody that you come across, and then also having some of those links in the footer of your website. So it's easy for people to access as well. And then you can simply say, you know, just head to our website, go to the footer, there's a quick and easy link for you to download all of these assets. Because again, we want to make it as easy as possible.

The other big thing that we want to ask for, that I think a lot of nonprofits don't do as much is testimonials. Now, there's so many different ways that a nonprofit can use testimonials. One being providing that social proof that yes, you are a trustworthy organization. So testimonials from donors, saying that they have enjoyed their experience and giving with you that you are great stewards of the money in and that you are providing an amazing program service, whatever it might be. Number two would be testimonials from people that have utilized your products or services. And this could be a combination of vendors, this could be customers. So I'm thinking like when we adopted our dog, like we could be a testimonial for that facility. But it could also be like a spay and neuter facility that comes in and spays and neuters all the dogs, you know, maybe they would leave a testimonial about what a great partnership it is, which is a win win for both organizations. It might be testimonials from your volunteers about how smooth and easy that process is, how great the opportunities were, how much fun they had, how you make it such a great experience. And then it could be testimonials from your corporate sponsors. You know, again, talking about just the ease that is to work with you and it kind of what that experience is. in any industry across the board. People typically do not give testimonials on their own. So we want to ask for that and we can ask for that in our emails. And our follow up. It could be picking up the phone when we're reaching out to just check in and see how someone's doing. And just, you know, saying, Hey, you know, by the way, would you mind leaving us a or emailing us a testimonial or review that we could put on our website so that you can help us reach and get to more people. If they already believe in your organization and give to your organization, they're going to want to help spread the word so that they can continue to help you build and grow and fulfilling your mission. So make sure you're asking for testimonials. And you're putting those on your website, you're putting them in your annual reports, you're putting them in your emails that have updates on what you're what you're doing, you're utilizing them wherever you can, because again, it's social proof. People love to hear about things from third parties. If we're talking about ourselves, that's great, we shouldn't be doing that too. But you know, you trust something a little bit more when it's coming from someone else.

So make sure you're asking, asking for the things that are going to help you get to the goals that you need. And all of these things, some of them are going to directly relate to cash in the bank, most of them are not. But they will lead to more growth in your list more growth in your social media, more people that you can reach out to more people you can nurture. And in a lot of them, it's like I said, social proof, it's helping you get in front of new audiences that are going to be warmer to what you do, because they already trust the person that is starting that conversation. They're already trusting you, if they're giving you their email address, they're already trusting you to give you money if their friend is running an online fundraiser, right? They want to support that friend, they're already trusting you if they read a testimonial from somebody that they know, on your website, or from a company that they know.

So I hope that you will put this in your back pocket and think about which which ways you can start to ask for some of these things. And you might be surprised at how easy it is and how many yeses that you get. So with that, I hope you've enjoyed this episode. Please subscribe to us wherever you listen.

And I would love if you would give us a nice review over on Apple podcasts so that we can continue to push this content out to more and more people in the nonprofit space. I so appreciate you and thank you for letting us come into your ears every week and we'll see you in the next one.