When you utilize your digital marketing to bring in new leads regularly it can help you with your long term fundraising strategies. You'll have a bigger pool to talk to as they donor history increases with you. Alex Oliveria is here to share some ways to think about bringing in new leads in the online space and how to get in front of your ideal donors.

What you'll learn:

→ how to find where your current audience is so you can find new donors.
→ utilizing advertising in the digital space.
→ how to get out of the feast or famine cycle.

Want to skip ahead? Here are key takeaways:

[9:38] Understanding your Audience To better advertise to your audience, create a well documented survey by speaking to your audience directly through in-person conversations or one-on-one phone calls. Gather critical information about what your audience finds valuable and what areas they tend to avoid.
[15:18] Advertising Even if you are just getting started, advertising is important for people to become aware of you and find you in search engines. Use storytelling to attract your audience and keep them interested. Use resources like Google Ad Grant, which offers up to $10k a month for you to use.
[20:51] Keeping your Audience With the money you can save by using resources like Google Ad Grant, you can hire someone to run your advertising to ensure the proper content is being pushed out that will keep your audience interested and engaged. As you gain more traffic, you can use that information to build a larger email list to keep advertising costs down.
[26:00] Feast and Famine Cycle The internet is competitive and other organizations in your area will surpass you if you stop advertising. Continue to push out content even if things are going great, or if there is a recession coming.

Resources

hotjar
Humans of New York
Faces of Covid
Google Analytics 4
X Verify
Ep 161 | Increasing the Conversions of your Email Copy with Kyle Stout

Full Transcript

[Sami Bedell-Mulhern] Lead gen and funnels are two terms that really get thrown around in the online space. And, you know, it's really important to kind of continue to feed the funnel and bring people into your organization into your network at varying levels. But I think we tend to get in our own heads about how to kind of get those put together, and how to think about how we treat people at different stages within the sales cycle, or the donor cycle, or cultivating people to buy tickets to our museum or our concerts or to adopt animals. Right. So today, I'm joined by Alex Oliveria, to talk to us a little bit about lead gen strategies to help you grow. And these are not complicated things. These are things that anybody can do. But I think there'll be great ways for you to really rethink the activities that you're doing on a regular basis, in order to kind of systematize a little bit differently. And then we'll eventually save you time and effort because you'll know exactly what to do based off of where you're at in your sales cycle. Alex is a dad to  four, a husband and entrepreneur, and an information junkie. He's a passionate guy that loves business and really loves helping business owners turn their passions into profits. He has spent the last 12 years helping clients advance their businesses and brands through dynamic interactive marketing campaigns, and always welcomes a challenge, and is relentless in the pursuit of innovative marketing strategies that actually work. It was a really fun, engaging conversation. And I think you will think this too. When it comes to sales and lead gen, I'll admit it's one of the things that I don't like to do very often. But he gives some really great ideas and insights on ways to just make it part of the mix and kind of pull it all together into a bigger global picture. So I think that you'll find inspiration in that as well. Before we get into this episode, it is brought to you by our digital marketing therapy sessions. So if you need some support and figuring out the right marketing tactics to help you pull together the lead gen strategies that you learn in this episode, I'm here for you. I'm here for it, head on over to thefirstclick.net/officehours to check them out. Book a time, and let's get to work and get some stuff rolling for you that you learned from this episode. So again, that's thefirstclick.net/officehours. Let's get into the episode. 

[INTRO] 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. 

[Sami Bedell-Mulhern] Hey there, join me in welcoming Alex Oliveria to the podcast. Alex. Thanks for joining me.

[Alex Oliveria] Sami, thanks for having me here. I'm very excited to talk about digital marketing and anything else that applies to nonprofits.

[Sami Bedell-Mulhern] I love it. So we're talking about lead gen today. And I think it's kind of like a buzzword. And it's something that's on our to do list that we should be doing all the time. But I feel like we're really good at it when the money is slow. And then we're really bad at it when the money is good. So kind of why kind of give people the pitch for why lead gen should be like on their task list all the time?

[Alex Oliveria] Absolutely. So I've worked with hundreds of nonprofits, and many directors, CEOs, all the people who are trying to raise money and get their mission to the next level. And typically they think of marketing or digital marketing or the promotional stuff, especially the big nonprofits like your habitats or YMCAs and I've sat on many of those boards. And when I come in there, I'm like, listen, let's start with the website, your users are there. They want to make a donation, you have to make it easy. So when I start talking about leads, they're like, yes, but we're nonprofit. I'm like, Yes, you need leads, need leads for all the stakeholders, you need new volunteers, those are leads, you need new donors, you need, obviously board members, you need the community around you. And so whatever the program or mission that you're trying to put out there, you need to bring those in as leads. And the leads may be email, like an actual email inquiry on the website, or it could be a phone call, or it could be connecting and engaging with them on their social pages. So lead generation comes in a lot of different forms from different channels. But typically, in the nonprofit world, they try to focus a little bit more on traditional marketing, because that's where the big donors are. We know that.

[Sami Bedell-Mulhern] Well, and I want to touch on something that you said in that nonprofits tend to not think of themselves as businesses. And so terms like lead gen, they're like, oh, no, no, that's not us or customer support or customer journey or customer engagement, like they don't necessarily run those parallels. So I liked that you said that because I think it's true. Leads come in from everywhere. And we need to kind of continue to fill that funnel. So why don't you kind of for people that are like lead gen is a new thing for me, could you give us just like a down and dirty quick one on one on what lead generation is? And maybe like, what that funnel kind of looks like?

[Alex Oliveria] Yeah, absolutely. And you don't have to think of it as a funnel. Because remember, every stakeholder around that nonprofit ecosystem, they're gonna, they're gonna have different touchpoints. So I never like to put it in terms of a funnel. In the lead generation world, I like to put it in terms of like, look, they need to go through a journey. And it's going to be different for different stakeholders so design that. It's like a map, just a map. And the lead is at the point that they are in touch with you, in contact with you. You got to have their information, first name, last name, email, phone number, and then figure out what is it that you would like to do with us? Would you like to volunteer? Would you like to donate? Would you like to be a sponsor for one of our events? What would you like to do? That's your lead. And then probably the most important things that I see nonprofits don't do very well, they do this well with the donors, but not all the other stakeholders, which is nurture those leads, the leads, it's your database, your database, it's your community, it's your network. And all that information, you have to babysit it and nurture it, update it, get in touch with them, get their mailing addresses so that when it's time to do a mailer, direct mail still works very well, then you're getting everybody and hitting them with the right messages at the right time.

[Sami Bedell-Mulhern] So really, before you even think about the digital marketing strategies that you're going to think about putting out there to get in front of new people, it's about how do we create the systems on our back end? They don't have to be complicated. But how do we create the systems on our back end to ensure that once they come into our network, we can nurture them in the right way for where they're at to continue to kind of move them through that journey?

[Alex Oliveria] Yeah, that's so right. I mean, it's so different for all the different nonprofits, because whether it's a program they're offering, whether they are a nonprofit generating revenue, or just raising money, I mean, there are so many business models for nonprofits out there from the smallest to the biggest. And so you almost have to treat them like different lines of businesses, that different programs, right. I think the YMCA is such a great example. I've been on their board for over five years. Look, you've got programs for youth, for kids, you've got programs for adults, seniors with diabetes, you've got the swimming classes, you've got the gym, you've I mean, there are so many. It's a very diverse business model. So you have to create that customer experience, that member experience, at a level that that member talking to the mom who's getting their kids involved in youth sports versus the dad who just wants to come in and do some kickboxing or whatever, or play on the adult basketball team, is very different. But a lot of this can happen online digitally, right. So even though we're starting offline, as you mentioned, Sami, and it should start offline these conversations and these strategies. But then as you move them in online, you're starting to say, okay, when they come to my website, what happens. And this is where there's such a big opportunity, from the smallest to the biggest, which is, study the behaviors of your users, of your visitors on your website. I'll give you a tool that I really love. It's called Hot Jar. It's free for nonprofits. And study what's happening on your website, I assure you, if you've never done this, you will quickly see why those visitors are not turning or converting into leads. And then you can work with your team to optimize.

[Sami Bedell-Mulhern] And Hot Jar is basically a visual tool to show you where people are interacting on your website and kind of gives you like the heat mapping right of where they’re click meaning where they're scrolling, how far down on your website they're getting. Yeah, I love that. And then Google Analytics Four is also kind of integrating a lot more of that. So if you want to kind of take it to the next level, there's a lot of great tools you can use inside of there.

[Alex Oliveria] Yeah, and I think that's a great opportunity, Sami, that you're mentioning. The suite of tools that exist across tech, you can build a tech stack for next to nothing if you're a nonprofit, because many of these organizations will either give it to you free or at a very heavily discounted rate.

[Sami Bedell-Mulhern] I love that. So you mentioned like we need to understand the behaviors of the people that are coming to our website. Do you recommend that that kind of be the first place that you start because we want to like funnel everybody to our website before we kind of take a look at some of the other digital strategies that we're implementing.

[Alex Oliveria] Yeah, absolutely. And I think a great way for nonprofits to do this is just to go out and talk to those stakeholders, ask the questions. We've done this for many nonprofits through a program that we work with at FAU, Florida Atlantic University. And it's a free program to nonprofits. Every semester, both in the MBA and undergrad class, we pair up 40-50 students and we break them up into teams, they create a ton of really free digital marketing assets and strategies for the nonprofit and the nonprofit in turn, is allowing them to come in and let them learn in real time, like real life, right? So it's a win-win for everyone. Yeah. And in that program, one of our first steps is to do exactly that, Sami, which is to really talk to the donors, talk to the volunteers, talk to the clients, ask them about the programs, what do you like what you don't like, I'm not talking about a Survey Monkey, I'm talking about a well documented survey, once you come back with that research, usually about 75 or more respondents is what we found works well, then you can have that conversation with the management team, right? And the board and say, like, here's what we're hearing, we think this, but this is what the reality is because trust me, you will find there are some things that are happening that you might not be aware of. Something as simple as like, when I try to make a donation, it's difficult. And for a lot of people if it's difficult to make a donation, or they don't trust it, because perhaps it redirects you to another system that you're using that doesn't feel secure. So you're like, oh, you know what, forget it, I'll cut a check. But then you never get around to cutting a check. Right? So by talking to your members, you are going to learn how the digital marketing and lead generation strategy should be built. And that's just going to save you a lot of time and money. So again, we haven't talked about spending $1 on marketing or lead gen at this point, we're just focused on the stakeholders.

[Sami Bedell-Mulhern] I think this is gold, because then you reverse engineer from what you hear from people, how you reach the new people that are like them, that you know are already donors. So you're making your path much easier to either service people that take advantage of your services, or donors, by just asking them those questions. And then you also learn from them what they find to be valuable, because I think a lot of times we get in our own head, for profit or nonprofit, we get in our own head about the value we provide and what we do, and what we think is important and what we think people are going to tag on to but I mean, I'm sure you've had this experience, Alex, where you put out a piece of content, you're like, This is gonna be amazing. And you get crickets, but then you put up something they're like, this is cool. And it goes crazy, right?

[Alex Oliveria] Absolutely. I mean, I think the perfect example of that, it's a while ago, over 10 years ago, is the ice bucket challenge, right with ALS, like who would have thought that something like that would have gone viral. And of course, that's probably the biggest example. But nevertheless, I think getting your mission and your word out there, where I think the good news is for all nonprofit leaders and marketing people in the nonprofit world is the good news is everyone online, whether on social or just the web, everyone loves stories, positive stories about change that's being made in their community. Who doesn't like that? I don't know anybody who doesn't like that. There's way too much bad news. So another good channel that I think for inspiration for nonprofit leaders to look at is Humans of New York. Another one is Faces of COVID. Now Faces of COVID. I'm not sure if they're a nonprofit yet, but you know, they're highlighting the stories of the people who've passed away from COVID. And the guy who founded said that he was going to turn it into a nonprofit, I'm not sure if he did or not. But he was taking a page from either Humans of New York, or one of the channels online, that is just giving stories. They're just providing stories for us who are online, who want to hear all the positive that's happening in your community. So I think the good news for nonprofits no matter what area you're covering, or serving, people want to hear the stories. And I know it can be difficult for some nonprofits, because depending on what their mission is, like, for example, we worked with one that does human trafficking, you know, they're trying to eliminate human trafficking. That's a difficult conversation to have with the clients. Because, you know, these are very tough stories to tell. However, on the other end, we found that even with pantries, these are some big pantries down here in South Florida. The people who are getting help Sami, at first we thought maybe they don't want to be highlighted on the website, on a YouTube channel, on social media because maybe they feel embarrassed, right? They're going through a tough time and they don't want to be that subject matter. No. They were like, listen, absolutely. I want to be an advocate. You're helping me with 80 pounds of food a month, because my family is going through a tough time, put me in front of the camera, and I'm going to tell you how great you are. It's like, wow. So tell the stories.

[Sami Bedell-Mulhern] Well, I think this goes back to what you just said, like, we don't know what impact we're making or what impact is being conveyed until we talk to our people, whether it be donors or people that we're serving. So starting there, and then really working backwards can make a huge impact. And it can also save time, because I think a lot of people get stressed out by sales funnels or lead gen. I know you said you don't always like to think about it as a funnel. But we get stressed out about like kind of figuring out how we're going to walk people through this journey. But if you start at the end, then you could potentially eliminate a lot of that work that you might have done ahead of time, or social media channels or things that you might have done, that wouldn't actually resonate with your audience.

[Alex Oliveria] That is a brilliant point. And that is why I focus so much on the end user first, and figuring out what their pain points are, what their likes, dislikes are, because then you come back to it exactly what you just said, you might find out there's five channels on social, where 90% of your your people have said we don't use those. So here you are spending all this time and creating content and going crickets, crickets crickets. Okay, be done with that channel. Now, what I will say about social and even search engines for nonprofits is that you should always be there for referring to the funnel, top of the funnel, you should always be running ads there. And even if your ad budget is $100 a month, that's okay. Get your branded keywords, branded keywords would be your organization's names and the program names that are sometimes even trademarked. Make sure that when people are searching for that, you're not being overtaken by some other, some other person in the community who's talking about your programs. And they're coming up first in the search results. So that's why I always say, if you're not doing ads online, you should be because that is the awareness at the top of the funnel. Because if you're a small organization in a small geographic area, you have to educate people as to what you do, right? Like, there is an organization we work with at the program we did with Florida Atlantic University. This was a nonprofit that 90 plus percent of the respondents said they never heard of them. And they had been around for 40 years in the community. And it was an equestrian nonprofit. So you had horses, and the horses work with people with mental problems to relieve them of that, right. And it just helps them overcome some of their challenges. But most people didn't even know that this organization existed.

[Sami Bedell-Mulhern] Well and we talk about this in almost every other episode, because I think it's so impactful, but nonprofits have no excuse because of the Google Ad grant. So you literally have access to $10,000 a month in advertising on Google. As long as you, I think, you just have to be a 501 C three, and I haven't read the right rules lately. But I think you just can't be a medical facility or university. I'm not exactly sure on this. It's like really broad, like pretty much everybody can be part of the Google Ad grant. So to your point like, there is no excuse to running ads, because you can run ads with $0.

[Alex Oliveria] Yeah, and what I would say is that, you know, a lot of nonprofits, when I've worked with them and doing Google ads, and they'll say, Well, we tried the grant, it didn't work. So well, yes, well, you still need a professional paper. So you have to go to your board and say like, look, the ad dollars are going to be free, but the guy who's gonna charge us $500 a month, that's gonna happen, it's gonna cost money for some time. Now. Go ahead.

[Sami Bedell-Mulhern] I was just gonna say $500. I mean, because we know people that run Ad Grants, run the Ad grant for nonprofits for $500 a month. And I think that's like stupid little amount of money for what that can generate for your organization.

[Alex Oliveria] Totally. So let's take the Google Ad grant in what you could get as far as return on investment. So the cap, the cap is $2 cost per click. But let's just say that for most nonprofits that we've studied is usually $1 cost per click, we'll get all the keywords you need, could be 1000 different keywords. So you're saying $10,000 A month, that's 10,000 keywords, that's 10,000 clicks, right? If we're doing it at $1. That's 10,000 clicks to your website. 120,000 clicks in a year, not an average right, not a high conversion. Let's say that you're converting at 2% converting into leads, people who are interested. And even the other 98-99%, who didn't convert, Sami, now they know about your organization. Yeah, I mean, if you think about it, it's like, I always try to give the analogy of a storefront to nonprofits, because they said, Look, your website is no different than a store at the mall. So make sure it's nice. Everything's looking well, the speed, all that good stuff. But if you're getting into case of Google ads, 120,000 clicks, that's like 120,000 people walking right into your store at the mall. Yeah, the rest is up to you to have chat, to have good forums, good navigation, the phone number on the header, all the things that will lead people to engage with you further. So yeah, I agree with you. There's no excuses.

[Sami Bedell-Mulhern] You're speaking my language. Well, and here's what I love about all of this is that we tend, so I think we want to make, I like using lead gen to make it easier on our fundraising team, right. So if we are running Google ads, and we're getting those 120,000 people to our website, and then they're coming in through a former donation page, and then we have a nurture sequence. And then we have like, you know, a way in our CRM to target who our fundraising team needs to reach out to, for one on one conversations, like, it seems like a lot of work. But when you put all that effort in at the front end, then your team is spending that one on one time with the right people. And not just kind of running around like chickens with their heads cut off trying to like, figure out how to bring in the funds that they need for the organization.

[Alex Oliveria] And I know you're so right. And I think if they're coming to the website, you have to have the, you don't have to have massive amounts of content, that would be great for every organization. But that doesn't happen. But let's just start with the newsletter because it's the most underutilized tool that I see out there. And even the ones that I see out there often you can tell how much effort was put into doing the newsletter, you're like, okay, it took somebody like 30 minutes. And this sucks. I'm not going to open my Yeah, I'm never going to open my email again. Now I'm going to unsubscribe, perhaps even spam if I didn't ask for it. On the contrary, if I'm sending 120,000 clicks to the website, and I've got a nice, you know, little banner form right there that says subscribe to our kick ass newsletter, awesome newsletter, we share stories about our community, yada, yada, okay. So your like, expectations are vague. It's like, okay, this newsletter is going to be weekly or monthly. Just make sure whoever's working on that newsletter, is putting together really, really amazing stories, not just, here's what we're doing, here's how much we raise those things are great, too. But like, really, what impact are you having or have had in the community? Keep it simple, three, four pieces of content in that newsletter. Because, as you know, as you know, Sami, that email is so valuable. So again, let's say you had 120,000 clicks a year, because you spent $6,000, to get a PPC Manager, because you convinced your CFO and the board, we need that six grand, now you're doing the PPC, you got 120,000 clicks, and let's say 5% of the 120,000 clicks converted into subscribers, now you've got a database of an additional 6000 people, right? Who are coming back, and you're engaging them, I have got to think that at some point, those people will go a step further in your funnel, to either become a volunteer or a donor, or whatever else, but you got to put the work, there's no way that it happens magically. And then I'll leave you with one more thing in that strategy. Now that I have the email, I go to a company like X Verify. And there are many others there who append the data, for five cents a record, I can take that email and append it adding the first name, last name, even address and other demographics, psychographics, that are important to me, so that I can then segment them. I may find out that in that 6000 subscribers, that there's a handful of, you know, really wealthy donors who donate to other organizations. Now I know who to approach by looking at the analytics and go oh, well, we should have a conversation with Joanne Smith, because she donates to the hospital and the university and she's been opening our newsletter for like six months. I mean, it's tedious, but it's worth it.

[Sami Bedell-Mulhern] Well, I think too, things are changing with privacy. And so the more you can grow your email list, then the easier it's going to be for you to run low cost ads. I mean, I'm not an ADS expert. I don't pretend to be but I do know that running a lookalike audience to your email list or running ads to your email list on other things like social media is going to be way cheaper, plus, they're warmer leads. So now, if you can run, if you can build out this email list through this, you know, through Google Ad Grants, which are free, and then you're building your database. Now, when you go to rerun ads on like maybe Facebook or Pinterest or something else, you have a bigger base to run cheaper ads in a way that's going to be much more successful as kind of things change and privacy laws continue to get a little bit more strict.

[Alex Oliveria]I agree with you. Yeah.

[Sami Bedell-Mulhern] Thank you. That's easy.

[Alex Oliveria] No, you're right. Absolutely, the email is more valuable. And I agree with you, you're only going to be able to spend so much on paid ads. So that's the takeaway should be if you're not doing email, you need to be doing it. And if you're doing it and you're not getting the results, then you need to get someone with email marketing experience.

[Sami Bedell-Mulhern] Listen to the episode we recorded. I think it'll be episode 150. I don't know, I don't remember. But we had an episode we just recorded that was about creating engagement in your email. We have an episode coming up, that's about increasing open rates on your emails with subject lines and things like that. So pay attention to those and grow, grow your list, because that's the only digital content that you can really get right now that you can help. Okay, so I want to kind of circle back to something I asked about, at the beginning, before we kind of wrap this up. And that is like, how do we talk to our bosses about like, you know, continuing to maintain generating leads, even when things are going well, or like maintaining that donor journey. So for example, maybe now as a smaller organization, we might call every donor or send every donor a thank you card, but then as we scale, that personal touch kind of goes away, which can be detrimental, I think, in some cases. So how do you continue to have that mindset of like, yes, things are great, but we still need to continue to bring more people in, and time and money and all that?

[Alex Oliveria] Yeah, that's such a good question, Sami. And I think every nonprofit director, or marketing director at a nonprofit is struggling with that. Because you have to deal with the board who want you to do different things. Maybe there's, you know, some big donors who are like, No, we don't want you to do this, do that. But at the end of the day, like if you don't, if you're not consistent in your messaging, in your branding, in letting your community, however big that community is, or geographic area serving, if you're not letting people know, there are new people born every day, there are new high school students who are graduating every day. Think about like, there are certain nonprofits where the demographic may be the parents. Well, there's always going to be new parents coming in, they don't know about your organization, right? Or elderly people they might not know about, I may not know about a senior citizen organization today, but it might matter to me and like a couple of decades, right? Right. So you, you there's, and then people move in, move out of the community, it's your job to continuously, like consistently, let them know, we're here. This is what we do for the community. So that if you need us, this is how we can serve you whether it's for animals, for children, seniors, whatever the mission is, but you have to do that. So of course, you could do that with traditional advertising, it’s expensive, PSAs, you need really good PR people. But as you said, the email and the website, those are the easiest ways for you to do it. And as far as, I don't think you should have to really compel the board or the CFO too much. You just have to say the reality is this. There are more people online every day, and there's more noise. And our competitors are every non profit in our geographic area. And here's what our nonprofits are doing. I mean, our competitive nonprofits are doing and they're going after the same pool of donors. And if we don't show up on those donors' radars, don't ask me why we are shrinking because you will. It's the same thing for as you know, for publicly traded companies, I say to people, why do you think that publicly traded companies, some that are brands like Nike, no one needs to know about me. Yes, they keep advertising because if they stop, Adidas and the other brands will crush them. That's not BS. Even in a recession. We're about to enter. We're pretty much, we are in a recession already. Okay. But I say to companies and nonprofits, don't eliminate your budget now because you're thinking there's some tough times ahead. Make sure that you're still getting the message out there because the minute you disappear from online, from people's phone screens, that's it. Cool story now Alex, Sami was showing up on my feed and giving me content, sending me emails, direct mail, phone calls, and Sami is not doing that anymore. Now Alex is doing it. Okay. Here's my money. Alex. Here's my time, Alex, the three T's right time, treasure, and talent. Here you go. I'll give it to Alex. So either you fight for it, or somebody else will come and get it. It's the same for for profit companies. So don't sit on your hands and feel like well, our last event we raised, you know, the largest amount ever. And we're feeling good. Yeah. And, and other nonprofits are ready to come back here and eat your lunch. So.

[Sami Bedell-Mulhern] I agree. So it's like, staying out of the feast and famine cycle, right? Yeah. And then it's also understanding that like, we, as an organization, do amazing work. But there's also tons of other organizations that do amazing work that are similar to us, we aren't special. So how do we create that specialness, and staying in front of our audience, just everything you just said? I think that's a great reminder for organizations and something they don't like to think about, I think when you're in the nonprofit space you like, but we do such good work. We're so amazing. And you have like all these people telling you how great and amazing you are. You know, but there's other great and amazing organizations that do similar work. So how do you stand apart so that you can snag those dollars? I think the real reality is that nonprofits don't always want to think about it.

[Alex Oliveria] Right, and I think sometimes, I think there's a good reason why, like, I've worked with nonprofits that their entire budget, it comes from either federal or state funds. So, okay, but I have two really big examples of nonprofits I've worked with that used to get at one point $40 million from federal, state, okay, agencies. And that went away, when a new governor came into office and said, I'm sorry, that's like welfare. And then they were sitting and going, Oh, my God, how do we get out in the community? Now let people know that we actually need your funds, because the government's not giving us funds anymore. I mean, just look to an organization like NPR or PBS, they take some funds from the federal government, right? But they depend on their listeners, like, hi, you like listening to NPR or PBS, watching PBS? We need your help. So it's really no different for any other nonprofit, you know. And so it's a lot like a for profit business, you have to stay in front of people, because some of those people will move, go away, and new ones will come in. And if you're not there, they'll go somewhere else.

[Sami Bedell-Mulhern] Yeah. Yes. Alex, so many things for people to think about in this episode already in ways to kind of rethink about how they're kind of working through what their marketing decisions are. If you had kind of one last takeaway for folks. What would you want to share with them with regards to how they're bringing people into their, into their network?

[Alex Oliveria] Yeah, I would, I would, what I would share is focus on the content that you're putting out there. And then focusing on that content, focus on telling the stories, because what I love about nonprofits, I've been working with nonprofits for over 20 years and been in there in different capacities. I just love the stories. And I've, I've watched personally, from looking from different angles, when the stories are told, right? When the stories are told how you can get people to really buy in, and then say, awesome. Here's one of my three T's, right? So again, create content, focus on stories, and just keep engaging with those end users.

[Sami Bedell-Mulhern] This is a common thread that we talked about on this podcast all the time. Now you're hearing it again from another person. Hopefully it's like starting to sink in and like, create strategies for you. Well, Alex, if people want to learn more about you and what you do and how they can learn from you, how do they do that?

[Alex Oliveria] Sure, just go to my personal website, dadpreneur.co. I do have a leads agency. But we don't really do a lot with nonprofits there. A lot of the nonprofit work that we do is just pro bono. But we all know a lot of great marketers, like yourself, Sami, who do nonprofit work, and we usually refer them. But as far as if they want like free content, we have podcast videos, lots of great stuff, dadpreneur.co.

[Sami Bedell-Mulhern] I love it. And we'll have all of these linked up in the show notes at thefirstclick.net/163. So you can check out all of Alex's resources there. Alex, thank you so much for joining me

[Alex Oliveria] Thanks for having me, Sami.

[Sami Bedell-Mulhern] So what was your favorite takeaway? Thank you so much to Alex for giving such great insight. I learned a lot in this episode as well. You can get the show notes and the resources at thefirstclick.net/162. But I really hope you'll check them out. And really just kind of this I think, is an episode I'm going to come back to a few times depending on where I am just to revisit kind of some of the things that I need to keep focusing on, keep working through in growing my own business and kind of building my own pipeline. If you enjoyed this episode, make sure you leave it a five star review and subscribe wherever you listen so you don't miss a single episode, and head on over to thefirstclick.net/YouTube for video versions of these podcasts. I look forward to seeing you in the next one.