Ep 276 | Creating your 2025 Marketing Plan

It's that time of year again – planning season! It's one thing to put together your strategic goals for your organization, it's another to put a marketing strategy together that will support that. Whether you're launching a new initiative, gearing up for a capital campaign, or just looking to grow your reach, your marketing plan should work in tandem. We'll walk through how to align your marketing efforts with your organizational goals, identify your target audience, and create a plan you can actually stick to. 

What you'll learn:

→ How to review your goals and data to inform your marketing strategy
→ Tips for evaluating your current marketing efforts and identifying what's working (and what's not)
→ Strategies for collaborating with other nonprofits and tapping into new ideas
→ Steps to create a detailed, executable marketing plan for 2025
→ Advice on staying realistic and avoiding burnout during the execution phase

Want to skip ahead? Here are key takeaways:

[04:22] Trust the data over your personal opinions. Reviewing regular who your audience actually is will help you determing where you show up. It will also help you refine your messaging.
[11:01] Review the data around the current marketing efforts you are doing. Focus on the marketing tactics that are actually converting, and don't be afraid to let go of what's not working.
[14:59] Avoid the shiny objects throughout the year. Instead, maintain an “idea folder” to capture new concepts, and revisit it during your planning process.
[17:48] Build a calendar based off of your goals and relevent times of the year for your area of service. Map out a detailed content calendar to ensure a steady flow of relevant, engaging material.

Resources

EP 215 | Create Your Social Media Publishing Schedule

Full Transcript

Sami Bedell-Mulhern
It is 2025, planning season already, and we are getting ready and prepping for what our year is going to look like next year. What do we want to share? What programs and services are we going to offer? What are we going to stop doing? And all of that goes into our marketing, our marketing strategy for the upcoming year. So in this episode, I'm going to give you some tools and things to think about when it comes to putting your marketing plan together, plan that you can execute on, a plan that you can stay consistent with, and a plan that will help you hit your goals. A lot of times we think about marketing separate as a separate entity to our fundraising or to our programs and services, but in reality, it should be kind of holding all of those things together and working in tandem. So I'm going to assume in this episode that you already have your budget pulled together. You already know kind of what programs and services you're going to be providing, and we're going to give you some tools and strategies in this episode to help you really think about how your marketing can support you reaching those goals. So that is the that is the goal for today's episode, to give you some marketing things and and not to tell you what you should or shouldn't be doing in the marketing landscape, but more to help you figure out what you can do, what's going to actually help you hit your specific goals, and what to think about when it comes to your team, your budget, etc.

Now, before we get into this episode, it is a new month, and it is a new freebie. So we are in October. Y'all, it's so crazy. So this month, I have recorded a short little video for you to show you how I start to put together all of my plans for the year. How I kind of put my big picture plans together, so that I know exactly what I'm executing on in 2025 so that I can put together my detailed q1 plan already. So when January hits, I'm ready to go. Some things might change throughout the year as we reevaluate, but for now, it's going to give me my big picture plan for how I'm going to and what I'm going to do in the coming year. So if you want to watch that video and learn how I kind of go through the process of figuring out what I'm going to do, you can do that by going to thefirstclick.net/resources, it's there for you. You can download it, and I'll also show up in your inbox with a few extra freebies for over the next few days, so that you can really take and make the most of that video. So again, this and all the other resources that we have available to you are at thefirstclick.net/resources, I can't wait for you to check it out and let me know what you think. For now, let's get into the episode.

Intro
You're listening to the digital marketing therapy podcast. I'm your host, Sami Bedell-Mulhern. Each month we dive deep into a digital marketing or fundraising strategy that you can implement in your organization. Each week, you'll hear from guest experts, nonprofits, and myself on best practices, tips and resources to help you raise more money online and reach your organizational goals.

Sami Bedell-Mulhern
So marketing serves a multiple, multiple purposes, right? It provides brand awareness, getting more people to know who we are and that we exist, helps to build trust, and it even helps to convert people into our programs and services, people to become donors, sponsors, people to show up to our events, all of the things. And so it can be overwhelming to really kind of think about, what are we going to do, where are we going to do it, and how is it going to best serve our organization? And remember that we want to start small and start where we can be consistent, because consistency matters, and then build and grow from there, once we start to see results, we also want to know that it's okay to stop doing a certain action, or just because it's working for someone else doesn't mean it's necessarily going to be the same strategy that works well for you. So really keep in mind that you want to pay attention to who you're trying to serve, what your organization does, where your audience is, and run your own race, you might find some things that work great for you based off of your skill set, your team, your ability to promote, execute, what have you, and some things that just might not work as well. So point of this is, is that we all have our opinions about how marketing works and what's the best strategy.

The only way that you're going to know what works for you is by testing. So today I'm going to give you some drivers and some things to think about, but before we kind of jump into those, I kind of want to give you a little bit about how to use this episode. So definitely listen to this episode once through and think about it big picture, but I also want to make sure that you have had a chance to review your goals, your financial goals, your donor goals, your program and services goals, all of that, so that you have that in your head before you really start to put together your marketing plan, because all of these things are going to layer on top of each other. And so we really want to be clear. The year about who we're serving, how we're serving them, and then how we need to get in touch. For example, are you in a mode this year where you're going to be launching a brand new initiative or a capital campaign? Are you going to be launching a brand new way that you can serve your community, and you need more people coming in or hearing about that program? Are you in a mode where it's business is normal, and you just want to continue to grow slowly and make sure people know about you, but you don't have anything really major or a big update that's happening, or maybe you're heavily more into the program side this year, or have more heavily into the fundraising side, really understanding where you are going into 2025 is going to be really important, because it might not be the same as it was last year, and that means that your marketing strategies might need to shift, your messaging might need to shift a little bit. So we want to be aware, prepared and cognizant of all of those things so that we can better prepare for our marketing plans for 2025 Okay, so once you know what those goals are, you've listened to this episode once through, come back and listen to it again, so that you can go step by step by step through the things that I'm going to talk to you about today, to make sure that you get them all done. And if you're saying to yourself, Well, we already did this. We already know that do it again, because I promise you, things change since covid. The way that we support our organizations, the way that we support our teams, the way that we support our community, is shifting.

The people that need our services, the people that don't need our services, is changing. And so it's always good to really make sure we're doing these steps every single year, even if the things come back the same, totally fine. Keep moving forward. That's great. But now you know, and what I also love about this is then you know when that donor or that volunteer or that board member comes to you and says, Hey, why aren't you on this? Or why aren't you doing that? You can say exactly why, with reason, with data, and it just takes that in that that my this is my opinion, or this is just how I feel about it out of the mix, and it's going to help you test and have better marketing strategies. Okay, so let's jump into it. So the first thing that we're going to do is really take a look at our goals, and then we're going to take a look at the data and have the data kind of back it up. So let's say you're a food bank, for example, and typically you serve families with young kids. That's been the niche that you've worked with, that's who's been coming and that's kind of who you're still continuing to market to. Well, maybe if you go back and look at the data of who has been utilizing your services, who's been coming into the food bank, who's been requesting the services that you provide, maybe you find that in the last year you've seen an uptick in elderly the elderly population coming in and needing your services more so than young families. So then it's a conversation of, okay, well, let's think about this. You know, what's the reasons for why this is happening? So that you can make a thoughtful decision. Do we need to shift in how we operate? Are we okay with that population change? Is that still in alignment with our funding, with our goals, with our mission,

and if so, then do we need to change the way that we market or are we missing the mark, and we're not getting in front of enough families to let them know about the programs and services that we provide? There's no right or wrong answer here. Right It depends on you and your organization and how you operate, and what you're what you're choosing to do, but that's what you want to pay attention to. Sometimes these shifts happen slowly over time, and so we don't always realize it until all of a sudden, you're looking back at the data and you're like, Oh my goodness. Like, this is very different, similarly with your donor. So let's say you have a goal of adding 100 new monthly donors in the first half of 2025 so instead of just saying, Well, we're going to go after monthly donors, we're just going to target everybody. We're going to ask everybody think about who are your current monthly donors? Who are the people who have raised their hands and said, Yes, I want to be a part of this. Look for commonalities within that donor base, and that's who you message and target to. That's who you talk to, because more people like them are more likely to join and also, those that are current monthly donors are more likely to reach out to their friends, family, colleagues that are also probably going to be sort of like them. So it's a great way to really refine the way that you're talking. And I know that this is something that's scary, because every single client that I have when I say, Well, who are you trying to you know? How are you trying to raise money? Oh, anybody who has money to give to a nonprofit, that's who we're targeting. And in theory, yes, but the more specific we can be about who they actually are, the easier it is for us to target them. The easier it is for us to create content that is going to appeal to them. The easier. It is for us to build trust, because we are talking to a specific type of person who has the similar motivations, who is going to engage and be excited about working with us. We're building communication that's going to lead to longer term relationships with our donors and with the community that we serve. So take a look at your goals. What are the different subset of goals that you have, people coming to events, people utilizing your programs and services, people that are corporate sponsors. You know, first time donors. You know, if you are really trying to bring in a lot more first time donors, who were your first time donors last year, where did they come in? When did they come in if you're looking for donor retention, who are the people that made two gifts? When did they make that second gift? What was that second gift? Right? Really geek out on the data, so you can understand who they are, so you can better create content and marketing to support reaching out to those types of people or new and retention, okay?

The second thing is, we want to take a look at conversions. We want to find out, where are people converting? Sorry, if you can hear the dogs in the background. So do you find that when you post on social media, you get a lot of direct messages and it opens up the door for conversation? Are you finding that going out and speaking at rotaries or Kiwanis Clubs or on stages at conferences is really helping you build and grow your audience. Do you find that when you send out emails, those conversions and click throughs are happening and you're getting an uptick in donations and or registrations, think about the things that you're currently doing, what's working? Do you have a lead magnet on your blog posts, and you're getting a lot of signups from people who want to join your email list and download that freebie? Which freebies are working better? All of these things are going to help you understand currently, what marketing is working for you now and maybe what's not working. So then, now that we have the two levers, we know who our audience truly is, not our perception, but based off the data, we know who our audience is, and we know what's working and what's not working, we can kind of layer them on top of each other, and that's when we're going to figure out, what do we keep doing and what do we stop doing? So what we keep doing are the things that are converting, maybe platforms we still need to test, but that's where our audience is. So for example, maybe Facebook isn't really working for us right now, but Instagram is doing really well, and when we review who our audience is, we find, you know, they're really active on Tiktok. So maybe we can let go of Facebook, but we want to do Tiktok now because we're seeing a shift, and we know that's more where our audience is right, or maybe it's we're going to start doing a YouTube video because our blog post is okay, but when we do post a video, it does way more. So we're instead going to do a YouTube video and post it on our blog so we can still kind of have the same content right? So really layering on top to make sure we're hitting our right audience and aligning with our goals. So kind of put those on top of each other and see what you're going to do and what you're going to stop doing now.

What you're going to stop doing doesn't mean you're going to stop doing it forever. It just means that for right now, depending on your capacity and your team and your skill set and your budget. These are the things we're going to focus on, because we know they're working, and we'll layer in and continue to test some of these other things as we have capacity to do. So instead of always adding new we want to make sure that we're still building that strong foundation and that we're doing what's working. So we're continuing to build that funnel. We're continuing to bring more people and we're continuing to engage people, and then we can add more things to kind of build those different relationships. Those things could be ads. It could be maybe you don't have a blog yet, and that's something you want to add in. Maybe you know your email newsletter is going to go from once a month to twice a month, to test it out and see how it goes, all of the things right, we want to kind of play and test with all of those things with purpose, because now we have the data behind it, so we can kind of play with what we know is going to work for our organization. Now, another thing that I really love to do is sometimes doing this marketing in a silo by yourself is difficult. You can work with your team. I also love reaching out to other nonprofit organizations in other parts of the country that might be doing similar work to you, and having conversation what's working for them, what's not? What have they tried? What ideas have really kind of sparked things for them that are exciting, and brainstorm and brainstorm on a quarterly basis. Get together and plan together, so that you don't have to do this on your own, and you can kind of have somebody to bounce ideas off of. So that leads me to my next piece, which is kind of reviewing your idea folder. So when you have a strong marketing plan, strategy and goal for your year, we're going to reevaluate every quarter, right? We're going to reap.

Plan every quarter for what's coming up in the next quarter. I don't want to, I shouldn't say replan, but we're going to put into detail what's coming up in the next quarter each quarter. So when you do your big plan, you're doing q1 so you're ready to go. And then kind of halfway through q1 you're like, Okay, well, this is what's working. So we're going to hear what our game plan is for q2 right? So you're kind of always going into deeper detail as you go throughout the year. So when new ideas come up, I love to have an idea folder. You can we have one in clickup. You could put it just on a regular notepad, whatever it might be. It might be you have a folder. I know some people that just have folders with sticky notes in them, or you might have them up on your wall, whatever works for you. Anytime a new idea comes across, write it down, put it in that idea folder for not right now, because you know you have your plan, unless it's something like really amazing that you need to execute right away. But you know you have a plan, so you're going to execute on that plan, because we want to keep testing and finding out what's really working. And then now you have your idea folder. So at the end of the year, it's a great time to say, Okay, we've reviewed the data. We know what's going on. I'm going to go look at that idea folder, and I'm going to see what ideas that we had that might be in alignment with what we've just talked about, that might be in alignment with these new audiences, that might be in alignment with kind of where we're going next year. They weren't yet, but now we're ready to do them. Right? It might be things like guest podcasting, maybe creating a new form of content. It might be different kinds of community outreach, different partnerships and collaborations, right? Whatever's been in that folder, we think we're going to remember all these things, but we don't, and I have sometimes gone back to those folders, and it's a gold mine. I'm like, Oh my gosh, I totally forgot about this concept. This is going to be great. I'm going to do that now. So review your idea folder, if you don't have one. Now is the time to work with your team to create them. When you're at staff meetings or team meetings or strategic planning meetings, you can pull that out and just make sure you're writing all of those things down, board meetings, whatever. Write all those things down so you don't lose them. And then finally, we're going to write out our plan. So we're going to say, Okay, this is what we're doing now. This is what we're committing to. We're committing to two blog posts a month. We're committing to two emails a month. We're committing to further segmenting our email list. We can have better communication with our list. We're committed to this many donor socials, or these kinds of, you know, donor stewardship, follow up pieces, whatever it is, this is what we're committed to. This is what we're doing. And we're going to write out the plan. And if you have not yet gone and downloaded the video for how I plan, I literally just have, like, I start with 12 months of blank calendars and start to map things out. If you haven't watched that video, it's a freebie on our website, thefirstclick.net/resources,

check it out, and start that process of kind of mapping out your big picture items. And then I like to take a look at our social holidays. So what are the things that are going to be happening that we want to, you know, maximize on. What are the things that we're going to want to make sure we create content around that makes sense for organization. For example, it's October. We all know it's Breast Cancer Awareness Month. If that's something that makes sense for your organization. Now it's time to start to put in those big pillars. So whether it's around mental health or food scarcity or pet adoption, whatever, everything has a holiday, holiday I'm saying in quotations. And so we can start to really map out some of those plans based off of what our goals are and what our strategy is and what we're trying to accomplish in those months. Okay, because it starts to make your content planning super easy. If we think about okay, I need to come up with 24 blog posts for the whole year, because we were committed to doing two blog posts a month. That can feel overwhelming, but if we start to take a look at okay. But in this month, we're launching early childhood education, whatever, whatever. So now we can write a post about that, or then we're going to do this, and we're going to do that, you start to put in those content pieces based off of what you've got going on in the year, because you already have your roadmap, all of a sudden, you're going to start to find that you actually are probably running out of space for all of the things that you can talk about. So now we have our plan, we have our strategy. We have our content calendar that we're starting to build out. I will link up for you in the show notes. We have a podcast episode that we've done in the past about creating social media categories. And don't have the number off the top of my head, but we will make sure it's in the show notes at thefirstclick.net/277, but we do have a podcast episode talking about social media and creating your categories for what you're going to post. So now you kind of know, okay, we're always going to post a behind the scenes. We're always going to post a program spotlight. We're always going to post a volunteer spotlight, like these, the things that we're going to talk about. Each week, and it makes things so much easier, because you're not having to scramble to figure out, what am I going to say today?

So now you're going to start to write out your plan, your content calendar. You can use a spreadsheet. You can just write it down on a piece of paper. I literally will have, like, blank calendars, and I use colored pens and map out exactly what I want each day to be so I can have it handy, put it in your clickup calendar, your Google Calendar, whatever you need for your whole team to do it, and then just time to execute. So remember, the planning is fun. Execution is always the struggle for me, right? It's always the piece that I have to push myself to make sure I'm doing all the time. So don't overdo it. Don't over commit yourself and say in the planning, oh, we can do this and this and this, and this is going to be grand, and this is going to be amazing. Make sure that you're putting together a realistic plan that you and your team can execute both financially and with your time, or if you need to hire more staff for specific things, because you know that it's going to generate the income that you need to continue to keep things moving forward. So that is kind of my to do's to getting started with your marketing strategy. Remember that it's about who you serve and where they show up, how they engage, and that what looks right for you might not be the same thing that looks right for other organizations around you, and that's okay. It's easy to compare ourselves, especially at your end, to see what other people are doing, but just remember that you just keep doing what you're doing, and as long as you're moving forward, testing and paying attention to the data, then you will be moving your organization forward. So with that said, if you have any questions, shoot us a message, hello at the first click.net, you know, we have digital marketing therapy sessions to help you kind of work through these things, or we can get together for a VIP day and plan your whole 2025, marketing strategy. But regardless, there are tons of freebies and resources for you at thefirstclick.net/277 that's where you can find the show notes for this episode as well. I'm sorry not 277, 276 thefirstclick.net/276 um, apparently I can't read. But thank you so much for listening. I really appreciate it. Make sure you hit that subscribe button if you're watching on YouTube or listening wherever you're streaming, and leave us a review. If you don't mind, we'd love to connect with you and hear what you love about the podcast. If you have topics that you really think we should be talking about, we are in 2025 planning, so we're working on all of the things for next year's podcast season. Can't wait to hear from you and what it is that would help you out with your organization and your online fundraising needs for now. Thank you so much for listening. We really appreciate you choosing the digital marketing therapy podcast. Thank you so much, and we will see you in the next one.