Ep 300 | Top 15 Episodes from the last 300!

Can you believe it? We've hit a major milestone – 300 episodes of the Digital Marketing Therapy Podcast! To celebrate this incredible journey, I'm taking you on a whirlwind tour of our top 15 episodes, packed with actionable insights and strategies to elevate your nonprofit's digital marketing game.

From crafting compelling year-end emails to leveraging AI for content creation, we're covering a diverse range of topics that have resonated most with our listeners. Whether you're a seasoned nonprofit professional or just starting out, there's something here for everyone.

Practical Tips and Strategies

As we reflect on these top episodes, I'm filled with gratitude for the incredible guests, loyal listeners, and the wealth of knowledge we've shared together. This journey has been about more than just digital marketing – it's about building a community of passionate nonprofit professionals dedicated to making a difference.

Looking Ahead

We're not stopping at 300! I'm excited to continue bringing you fresh insights, practical strategies, and inspiring stories to help your nonprofit thrive in the digital landscape. If you haven't already, make sure to subscribe so you don't miss out on future episodes.

Thank you for being part of this amazing journey. Here's to the next 300 episodes of Digital Marketing Therapy!

Want to skip ahead? Here are key takeaways:

#15 – EP 201 [03:34] | How to Market Your Monthly Giving Program
#14 – EP 194 [05:52] | 7 Ways to Maximize Calls to Action on Your Website
#13 – EP 132 [09:28] | Mastering Local SEO with Wendall Jordan
#12 – EP 58 [13:45] | My Dad and Business Part II : Innovation
#11 – EP 76  [16:23] | Taking an In Person Event on Line with United Way
#10 – EP 24 [20:10] | Sales Funnels with Cody Burch
#9 – EP 200 [24:33] | How to Increase the Annual Value of Monthly Donors with Patrick Kirby
#8 – EP 273 [28:07] | Crafting the Perfect Year End Emails with Vanessa Chase Lockshin
#7 -EP 205 [34:03] | Using AI to Create Content with Scott Bywater
#6 – EP 196 [38:10] | 6 Ways Your Website May be Hurting Your Organization with Dani MacGregor
#5 – EP 196 [40:44] | Time to Jump Into LinkedIn
#4 – EP 128 [43:10] | Creating Campaigns with Stories with Vanessa Chase Lockshin
#3 – EP 219 [45:45] | Leveraging Social Media for Better Connections with Amanda Kohal
#2 – EP 251 [49:15] | Coming up with Content Ideas for Short Form Video
#1 – Ep 236 [53:25] | Minimizing Your Limiting Beliefs with Tracy Pleschourt

Full Transcript

Sami Bedell-Mulhern
300 episodes. We have officially hit 300 episodes, and I cannot believe it. It is a big deal. We have been running this podcast for a few years now. I love it. I love being able to share these resources with you, but I also just love the people that I've been able to meet, the connections that I've made from the guests. So it's a win, win win for all of us. And so to celebrate 300 episodes, I am breaking down some quick wins from 15 of our top performing episodes. Some of these go way back. So I hope that you will check out these snippets. Go to the show notes at thefirstclick.net/300 and there you'll be able to find all the links for all of the episodes that we have here. And I am so grateful and thankful to all of you for listening and allowing us to be here for this many episodes. If you love the podcast, I would love for you to just shoot me a note Hello@thefirstclick.net, let me know which episode has been your favorite and helped you in your digital marketing journey. I know that we have kind of grown and evolved over the years together, and some of these episodes are old, and so I'm really interested to hear what you think about the difference in how we have been producing and publishing and creating this podcast over the years, so 15 of our top performing episodes, they cover a variety of topics.

Sami Bedell-Mulhern
So I'm really excited for you to kind of hear and remind yourself, maybe of some of your favorites and maybe some you didn't get to check out before we jump into it. This episode is brought to you by do good university. DGU is an amazing platform and community of nonprofit professionals just like you who are struggling and working through and brainstorming and building the nonprofit of their dreams. We come together every single week live for Q and A so you can get all of your questions answered, or you can just hang out with us and see what's up and have some fun and learn from other people as well. There's also hours upon hours upon hours of On Demand training that you can access whenever you need to, from board governance to marketing to branding to dei to grant writing and event planning, all of the things. So I really hope that you will check it out. I do have a free two week session for you, or two week coupon offer for you, so you can come in, hang out with us, check out what's there, and then after that, it's only $50 a month. All you have to do is bring in one new donor from some of the strategies that you've learned, and it more than pays for your monthly fee. Now I really hope that you'll join Patrick Kirby and I. Patrick's been on the podcast quite a few times in this community, because it's so much fun. So head on over to thefirstclick.net/dgu, the letter U. Check it out. Learn more. Listen to our bonus podcast episode and see if this is the right fit for you. If you have any questions, feel free to reach out hello@thefirstclick.net, here for you. Let's talk about DGU, and if it is the right fit for you and your organization. We've got so many fun things coming down the pipeline. Can't wait to see you inside. 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
Okay, so the 15th most popular episode was episode 201, which was a solo episode. There's a few solo episodes in here, even though they're not my favorite to record, as you know. But Episode 201 is how to market your monthly giving program. We all know that a monthly giving program is super important. In fact, we have lots of episodes regarding monthly giving, but marketing it and getting people engaged and to join is a different thing. So in 201, I give you some strategies that you can use when it comes to marketing your program once you already have it pulled together. Now the second piece is messaging. So figuring out what your messaging is around the campaign, what is the impact that you're sharing, what are they going to be providing you are allowing your organization to do with these gifts. And I love with a monthly giving program having levels that show that impact, because it really makes it easy for people to walk up the ladder. Okay, I thought I was going to give $10 a month, but now I see at $25 a month, I'm like, quadrupling my impact. Like, that's amazing. Like, that's worth it to me, so I'm going to step up in that level. So being really clear about what that kind of impact can look like, and crafting that messaging, that story, so you have it all pulled together so you're ready to go, because that story is what's going to go on the website, which we're going to talk about here in a second. But. It's also what you're going to use over and over and over again in your emails, in your marketing efforts, in your social media, in your conversations with the board. Right? We know that we need to share our messaging over and over and over and over and over and over and over again before people are really going to step into hearing your message, understanding and determining that this is the right cause for them to support, that it's in alignment with what it is that they want to participate in, excuse me. So creating that story, you create it one time, and now you know what impact statements you can go after client testimonials, what donor testimonials, you can start to build more of that stuff over time, but we want to have that core messaging, that core story, in line and ready to go, that you know exactly what you're sharing and what that impact is.

Sami Bedell-Mulhern
Our 14th episode. Most Popular episode was episode 194, and this one is all about maximizing calls to action on your website, seven strategies, in fact, to help you maximize that call to action. And this is great because we know we need to give people somewhere to go and something to do once they've landed on our website. And so this is going to give you some strategies depending on the different goals that you have for your organization, so that you can make the most of when people land on your website. So again, that's episode 194. Seven Ways to maximize calls to action on your website. We're gonna start with number one, and number one is your blog. Now I start here because I feel like this is the biggest area of opportunity. Most people do not maximize their blog content as much as possible. They get their blog up. We did it awesome. We raise our hands and cheer and get excited. But that content isn't really working for us if we're not incorporating calls to action. And there's a variety that you can put in your blog content, first being links to other blog posts or other pages. So if you have an informational piece of content about something that you're working on a research project or a way that you're impacting organization or impact community or the area that you serve, then have links to deep dive into some more of that. Why are we serving that? What other blog posts do we have that are relevant to that information? And that link is a kind of a form of a call to action, like we're driving people check out this information. There's more here. This is also great for a whole host of other SEO reasons, but we want to make sure that we're giving people an opportunity to get more information on the things they care about. Another obvious call to action is a donate button. If this is a piece of content that is related to that, 100% include a way for people to donate. Make it super easy within the content, so that they can see it and move forward. If it's more of a educational piece, brand awareness building, then think about maybe including your lead magnet. Opt in or your newsletter, sign up. Include that depending on the length of your post. If you have a really long post that's like 1500 or 2000 words, put that in the middle. Include it in the middle. So if they're scrolling, they can see these calls to action throughout the content, not just at the very end. We can grab them where they are when they're ready to move forward. I also love having social share buttons on your blog, and you're going to hear some of these opt ins repeated a couple times, but just stick with me. I love social share buttons because this makes it super easy for people to connect and remember, with those social shares, they don't have to just be the platforms that you're on, include all of the platforms, because you don't know what platforms your visitors are most active on, and you want to give them an opportunity to share with their network where they are. So that's a great opportunity to do that. Another call to action, if you want, depending on your industry, is a comment section below. Now this isn't necessarily a traditional call to action, but asking people to leave their comments is and this is a way for you to get feedback, engage and chat. Now you'll want to make sure you have spam filters in place. You probably want to turn on approval for comments and depending, again, on the nature of your organization, this may or may not be appropriate, but just keep that in mind.

Sami Bedell-Mulhern
Okay, coming in at number 13 is episode 132 and this is mastering local SEO with Wendell Jordan. Now the difference between local and non local SEO, or search engine optimization just has to do with if you're targeting a specific region or area versus a wide kind of national space. And while some strategies and things have maybe shifted a little bit with regards to local SEO or SEO in general, core concepts and foundations are the same. So if you're really trying to target a. Specific physical location area, then this is the episode that you're going to want to listen to so that you can get in front of more people that are in your local area. So again, that's episode 132 mastering a local SEO with Wendell Jordan.

Wendell Jordan
Using search tools versus using Google. Right? Because Google's a search is a search engine. But when you're in SEO, you use tools in order to get your information, because you get very different answers based on where you are. If your location isn't turned on, sometimes you get some of the most abstract responses ever, right? But more often than not, it's using cell towers, right? It's using geo, Geo, geo locations to be able to help you at least, at least the way search engines feel, they're helping you find the answer to what's near you, right? Because, again, your kids may go to school 20 minutes away, but the restaurants you're looking for may be 10 minutes in the opposite direction of your home. So it's really 30 minutes from where you are. In theory, too far from your current location, you would pass too many items or too many stores, too many restaurants before you got to where you wanted to go. But I think that you're right. That is probably I deal with that frustration as well, right? As a person who searches stuff all the time, I tell people, that's what I do for a living. I find things on the internet. So sometimes I get frustrated because I'm like, No, right? Yeah, not where I am. I need, I need this across the country. I'm looking for something across the country. Stop showing me Bridgeport, Texas. That's not what I'm looking for.

Sami Bedell-Mulhern
I love that. So as a nonprofit, if you're trying to reach a local audience, what are some things that they might want to consider, because obviously SEO is going to work in tandem with your website. So what? Maybe, what are some things they might want to think about taking a look at on their website as they think about where they want to show up and search locally, whether it be, you know, for service, like people that they're providing services to community, whatever that might be. That's

Wendell Jordan
a good question. So the thing I always tell clients, the very first thing you got to think about is content. What kind of content do we have on the site? What? What are we talking about? And who is going to be listening? So the thing with local SEO, you're going to be focusing on things that tend to have a some sort of location within, within the keyword term, right? But the main theme of that content still has to be informational and helpful. So if I'm a nonprofit, or if I'm if I'm talking to one of my, one of my clients that happened to be a nonprofit, what we're talking about is how, like you said, if you're in Houston and you are, you know, facilitating winter jackets, right? We want to figure out what keywords are coming up when people are searching for, you know, wearing coats or wearing jackets, so that we can start gearing some content, or or maybe you help with homelessness, whatever it is. I think you should start looking at the content from a near me, quote, unquote, context, right? You need to even start making content that is specific to your location. For example, using Houston, it doesn't really get that cold here, right? Whereas me, growing up on the East Coast, sure. You know, 10 degrees like here, 50 degrees is cold, 50 in New York. You know, some people might have shorts on. So you want to make sure that you understand who you're talking to when you're talking about the cold, when you're talking about whatever those issues are. You know, you want to be sure that you're that you're addressing the locality in which you're hoping to resonate.

Sami Bedell-Mulhern
Okay, so number 12 is an oldie, but a goodie, and it is kind of one that is personal to me. So I got to interview my dad. We did two episodes, but number 58 was my dad in business part two, all about innovation. So we were talking about how to think creatively. Think outside the box. Even if our organization is successful and it has been around for a while, we still need to kind of innovate, grow and continue to do things differently. And so that's going to help us get in front of new audiences. It's going to help us kind of be creative and come up with new ideas. And so number 12 is my dad in business, in all about innovation. And it was such a fun conversation. And I was so blessed to have my dad on the podcast talking about business, because I learned so much from him. I guess kind of, one of the last questions I had is, if I'm somebody listening to this, and I'm like, Okay, well, yeah, he's got all these great ideas. He has his passion, but I have no idea how to like, you know, I'm so in the weeds of my business right now. I have no idea, how about how to think about things differently. Would you recommend people just take a minute and just really sit with themselves for a minute and just kind of allow themselves to get back to their core, which maybe they haven't thought of? Out for a while?

Tom Bedell
Yes, because there's things pulling on all of us all the time, right? But if you turn, if you turn the television on today, you're going to end up feeling uneasiness or fear or concern about the Coronavirus and its impact on other people and people you care about and or or about people's ability to have a paycheck, or you know what it's what it's going to mean in your life, your family's life, your friends lives, your community, etc. If you don't turn that TV on, you might think about different things. And in our minds, we get to where we're absorbed with stuff, and we get stuck. And I think that's what you're saying, Yeah, is if you say, you know, I'm stuck, how do I think differently? And you just have to turn the TV off, you have to sit back, and you have to say, You know what? What's me? And what different patterns can I have and how I express my day and myself and my relationships and my efforts, and what I really care about and what I'm working on, etc. Okay,

Sami Bedell-Mulhern
yeah, I hope you loved that episode, and make sure you go check out episode 57 as well, which is part one of that two part series. So let's go into number 11. So this is again. We've got a few that are old episodes for sure. This one is number 76 episode 76 taking an in person event online with United Way. Now we did this episode right around the time of COVID, when a lot of your events were being canceled because you couldn't gather in groups. And so we had a great conversation with a event that United Way was putting on in Central Oregon, all about Christmas trees. They had an event where you could go and bid on Christmas trees that were decorated by a bunch of corporate sponsors, right? Everybody kind of decorated their own tree. Well, you couldn't, obviously do that, and it was a really tricky thing to kind of figure out how to do online. So this episode is a great one, even if you are not doing online events, just ways to think differently about the events that you're running, get creative and really figure out how you could still raise a lot of money, even though maybe your event can't look the same. This could be maybe you lost the venue that you normally do it at, or funding changes happened. But this one is a good one, just to think differently about how you approach your events while still having good end results. So that's episode 76

United Way
And so number one, you can get people to participate and and not have to pay to be there in person. We're going to try to generate virtual watch parties, you know, give people ideas of, you know, a Girls Night In and or a, you know, have a scotch and cigar night and watch. Or, you know, yes, participate as a quote, unquote table sponsor, even if it's the table at your house for your friends instead of at the convention center. And so we do hope we have people who maybe have not attended in the past, who are interested. And then promotional wise, one of our sponsors has talked about potentially having the tree they're doing set up in their bank space, because they do have customers come through and and so they would be publicizing that. If we do trees at wineries, you know, we're hoping those businesses would be promoting that as well. And so for us, the question is making sure the word gets out so that people even know that, you know, they can log in and watch and they can bid on a tree or just look at the trees. But also trying to get more silent auction items, because the more of those great items we have, if we have more people engaging with us, then perhaps we can, you know, raise more money for the cause.

Sami Bedell-Mulhern
Yeah, and I'm gonna, I reference this episode so many times in all my recent podcasts, because I feel like it's just really relevant to so many things, um, but I want you guys, I'll put this in the show notes. We did an episode that's all about how to create the promo kit. So how like the graphics, the copy everything, so just like what you're saying, to give them the tools in order for them to promote for you easily. So you'll definitely check that out. I'll put that in the show notes for this episode, but it's episode 68 but you'll want to check that out in. And create your promo kit make your life easier if you're running these kinds of events, so that you can use your board members, your sponsors, and everybody has everything they need pulled together to kind of do that promotion.

Sami Bedell-Mulhern
Okay, we're gonna go way back with number 10 to Episode 24 and that is sales funnels with Cody Burch. Now sales funnels might seem like something as a nonprofit you don't need to think about, but really, when you think about your donor journey, that is a sales funnel. So how do we think about the way that we bring people in? How do we nurture them, and how do we ultimately get them to make that donation? So Cody Burch comes with a lot of great strategies and ideas for how you can kind of build those funnels, be authentic, be genuine, and connect with your customers, donors, community members in order to become your best customer. This could be recruiting board members. This could be recruiting volunteers, making sure that people in your community know about the product or service that you provide. All of those things. Sales funnels are part of that. So make sure you check out episode 24 sales funnels with Cody Burch.

Cody Burch
I still have that problem. And then here's the key. I love this. I love this strategy. I do this. This works shockingly well. Sam, have you ever sent a nine word email to your list?

Sami Bedell-Mulhern
You know, I know about it. I have not done it yet. It.

Cody Burch
It's so bananas that it works at all. But here's how a nine word email goes. The subject is their name, and then you say it's kind of are you still or have you yet? So let's say I'm the bridal weight loss expert. It would say Sammy, and the subject line, and then the email says, Are you still interested in getting in shape before your wedding. Let me know, Cody, like, that's it. So that's more than nine words. I think don't count me on the nine words. But the point is, it's a very casual colloquial almost, like, I bumped into you at a Starbucks, and I was like, oh, yeah, hey. Like, are you still trying to get this result? Like, because I can still help you with that. I still have the resources and the time and the expertise to get you that result that result that you said that you wanted nine, you know, 90 days ago, I can still do that. And so every 90 days I would send, I do send a nine word email my top performing one, which is just silly, is I put their name in the subject line. Actually, I think I might have put June, because my event was in June, all lowercase. You think about it. When we email each other, it's not like, you know, ending tonight, flash sale, 599 mix and match combo. That's not how we talk. That's how Domino's Pizza talks. But not me. So I would put June in the subject line and then say, Hey, I'm hosting a get together for entrepreneurs in June. Would you like to join us, Cody? And then that had something like a 60% open rate, which my emails are, I think typical 18 to 20% open rate, which is good, yeah, that's fine, but 60% is crazy, right? It had like, a 30% reply rate, which is crazy. Somebody dozens and dozens. My email list isn't huge, but it's dozens and dozens of people. Like, maybe, when is it or how much does it cost, or what exactly are the dates, or is it a hotel or at a you know, you get the conversation going. So there's a little nugget for your listeners, for the people that don't buy about 90 days later, send them the nine word email and say, Hey, are you still interested in getting the result that you said you wanted 90 days ago? Let me know.

Sami Bedell-Mulhern
Okay, so there's so many things that you just dropped that I don't even know if everybody picked up. One is really the nine word email helps in kind of cleaning your list and making sure you still have people that are interested in what you're doing right and making sure that you then at some point, get rid of those people that don't respond because they aren't going to buy from you, and they're just taking up space, and you're paying for them, right? And they're not actually going to buy from you. But also kind of that an easy way of re approaching your list to generate sales in a way that's not salesy, which I think a lot of people feel scared about. Like we feel scared to sell to our email list, which is crazy because it's warm leads. So like, go for it. Like, sell to them. And then also just that you threw out that you have an 18 to 20% open rate. Like, you know, it seems low, but in like, logical sense, but that's such a good, like, that's a good, healthy open rate. So don't get discouraged by kind of that lower number, you know, like, a 2% click through rate would be insane. A 30% response rate is, is amazing. And the last thing that you said that I love is I don't have a huge list, because, again, I don't know how many people are on your list. I don't have a huge list, but it's not about how big your list is. It's about how well you take care of your list and how they engage with you.

Sami Bedell-Mulhern
Okay, we're gonna move it on up a bit, and we're gonna go to episode 200 and again, Patrick Kirby has been on the podcast a few times. He's my best bestie. We have a lot of projects together. You heard it DGU, which is a great opportunity and way for us to connect and teach and share and grow nonprofits together as part of a community. And so episode 200 is how to increase the annual value of a monthly donor, and it's not. Just about increasing their monthly gift, right? It's also getting them to give additional gifts in conjunction with their monthly gift. And Patrick Kirby has so much knowledge about how to grow and scale your monthly giving programs. So episode 200 is going to help you with increasing the annual value. Definitely a must listen, and you can also check out the other podcast episodes that he's been on. He's always a bundle of energy and a wealth of knowledge. Does it matter if it's somebody who's given two years at $10 a month or two years at $100 a month or $1,000 a month? Do we care about their monthly gift, or we care about their longevity of giving?

Patrick Kirby
It's longevity only. Now, a lot of the and again, they probably gave you $10 a month, because you probably asked them for $10 a month or gave them the option at $10 a month, they probably would have given you $100 if you had given them the option. A lot of no a lot of donors only give the amount in which you ask. So they probably have not been re approached by you to give more or give an addition, because you probably have this mindset of, oh, they already do so much because they're a monthly donor. Well, they've probably a forgotten about it, and B, they probably have capacity to give you more, but you haven't pulled the trigger to ask them for it. The other thing too is you can ask them what else they would like to do, or what they would like to support, or their perspective on how to gain more people like them. This gives you a perfect reason to give them a call and say, Hey, Sammy, you've been a supporter of ours for five years. You're one of our longest, longest standing supporters. You're one of our biggest and best cheerleaders. First off, I want to say thanks. Secondly, what can we do to celebrate you? To be a champion for us, right? You're giving them the option to tell you whether they like to be praised, or they don't like to be praised, or they don't need a thank you note. Now you know a lot about these donors already. Now you know a little bit more, and then you get to dive into like, what else kind of makes you think that we're the best, or what else can we do? You've seen our materials for a long time. Give us your thoughts, your perspectives on what we're doing, and now you're engaging them in a conversation about the track of the organization. And because they're invaluable donors to you, they're going to give you perspectives and their opinions, and they may give you some leads out of it, but it opens the door to these more in depth conversations than you've ever had before, because you know exactly how long they've donated, and you know what, what campaigns they've seen through the activities, the events, the the CEOs leaving, the Development Director, they've all been with you for a very long time, and they've stuck with you the entire time. So you they know you love you. So that's it's such an advantage to know and ask some of these deeper questions by using this as an access point.

Sami Bedell-Mulhern
Okay, coming in at our number eight episode, most popular episode is episode 273, and this is with Vanessa Chase Lockshin, who is also another biz bestie of mine. She is an expert in email marketing, and she's been on the podcast a couple of times, but this one is specific to crafting your year end emails. We email a lot at year end, and she has run some campaigns that have raised hundreds of 1000s to millions of dollars. So definitely a must listen. She gives you some great actionable tips and steps to take when it comes to building your year end email marketing campaigns. Now this doesn't have to just be related to year end campaign. This could be any campaign that you're running. It could be a mid year campaign. It could be gearing up for a fundraising event or something of that. So even if you're not year end or not year end, here we're in May, but if you're planning on your end stuff, if you're already starting to put things in place, things in place, if you just want some great email strategies, this is definitely must listen. So this is episode 273, crafting the perfect year end emails with Vanessa Chase Lockshin. Okay, so let's talk Giving Tuesday, because I feel like this is kind of the launch for most campaigns, or most year end giving campaigns, and you know you might have your opinion, you as a listener about giving Tuesday and how it works or doesn't work for your organization, but it is a loud and noisy day. So do you kind of walk us through like a strategy of what a cadence might look like leading up to Giving Tuesday, and how many emails we might want to kind of think about on that day itself.

Vanessa Chase Lockshin
Yeah, well, I want to get to that, but I want to say the number one tip I actually have for people about thinking about being more successful on Giving Tuesday isn't necessarily about the frequency. It's about having a compelling message that is not just it's giving Tuesday and make your donation. And I think we all know that on some level, but I want. Remind people, because I do see those emails every year where, like, that is the central essential message coming through the email. And like, that's just not enough for me to be compelled to make that donation. And I think the same thing too, with, like, the subject lines, right? Like, everybody is sending a subject line with something about giving Tuesday. Like, where can we actually send something that's, like, emotionally compelling, interesting. It's going to capture people's attention in a much more like, impact oriented way, because ultimately, that is, like, why people want to make that donation and want to make a difference. That's That's my soapbox about messaging on Giving Tuesday. Let's talk about the frequency, though. So I think, like, in terms of the frequency of, like, Giving Tuesday itself, like one email, sure, like, we can definitely send one email and, like, make it happen and get that campaign out the door. For most of my clients, we're often sending two to three emails on the day itself. And there might be segment versions of that. So there's sort of like, a morning email, and typically, like two a little bit later in the day. Interestingly, the last like two years that we've done Giving Tuesday campaigns, our like, early evening emails are outperforming the morning emails. I don't know what it is about our, like, current habits around email, but yeah, I've been, like, surprised that often email sends that we do at like, 6pm 7pm at night on Giving Tuesday are outperforming.

Vanessa Chase Lockshin
But anyways, that's like a random, random data points. Definitely recommend, yeah, definitely recommend sending multiple emails. I think the thing that a lot of organizations kind of grapple with, too, in the days leading up to Giving Tuesday, like that week before, is like, well, we can send people cultivation emails saying, like, Giving Tuesday is coming. Like, should we make an ask? Should we get out there ahead of people and, like, put a donate button in our email, or, like, put a call to action in there. That's like, you might as well, right? Like, you're going to tell people about this campaign, like you're going to get some early action takers, probably not the bulk of your audience, which is fine, but you might as well. Like, if you're gonna take some time, like, email airtime to talk to people about a giving opportunity, like, make it easy for people who participate to just, like, do the thing right away. Yeah, I would. I would tee up your campaign, though, and just think about, like, you know, a week or two out like, what is it that you want to be talking about on Giving Tuesday? And this is really about, like, the messaging that you want to get out there. It's like, what is the problem that your organization is currently fundraising money for to solve, and why is that problem a problem? And can we get people thinking about that again and thinking about like, the impact of this problem, and also the impact the organization's solution can have on solving it and people's lives all of that. So, you know, thinking about, like, can we tell some stories around that? Can we get people engaged in what we want them to be thinking about, and get them intrigued by, like, what the possibilities are and what our organization's positive vision for the future can be? I think that those are good types of emails to send leading into campaigns, just to make sure people kind of, like, maybe have some baseline what we're going to talk about the day itself, like sending two to three emails is a great plan. And you can even think about doing some follow up afterwards, in the weeks after. We had a client last year who ran a like four day matching gift that started on Giving Tuesday and ended on the Friday after it, that Friday, we raised, I think, about six times the amount of money we raised on Giving Tuesday. And I'm very sure it's because nobody was out there sending emails like, Giving Tuesday is not your own day to make an ask. So you can also just think a little bit more spaciously about make meeting your goal and like, what that can look like like. Sure, you can set a goal for giving Tuesday itself, but like, maybe you want to expand the communication and send the days after, or maybe you just want to send the money email and giving Tuesday, but actually focus on follow up in the days after. It really depends on what you want to do, like, what your kind of larger vision for that campaign is, but there's, I think there's so many options for how you can increase the frequency around the email sentence for that.

Sami Bedell-Mulhern
Okay. And then coming in at number seven is episode 205, and this is using AI to create content with Scott Bywater. Now listen, AI is a topic of conversation everywhere you go. We're doing a lot of trainings on how to use chatgpt to be your full time employee, and so this is going to help you really with that content generation piece. We know we can use it for a lot of different things, but how can we use it for content generation? There's lots of great resources and tips in this episode. So if you want to get on the content creation game, you don't know how to do it with the resources that you have. This is a great episode for you to listen to to figure out how you can do it faster, how you can do it more authentically, and how you can still make it happen without having to hire somebody to help you do it. So again, that's Episode 205, using AI to create content with Scott Bywater. Okay, so what are maybe three? Three or four ways that you see AI kind of helping Jump Start people's content strategy, to really just kind of open up their creativity and allow them to kind of move past the blinking cursor and like the writer's block. Like, what are some ways that we might want to think about using AI to generate some ideas? Yeah.

Scott Bywater
So I think, firstly, the ability to enter the conversation going on in people's minds. So, you know, ask the AI, yeah, for your target market, what are their fears? What are their pains, what are their desires, what are their beliefs, what are their objections? Yeah. So, so you really understanding your customer and creating like that. That's a framework you should have, you should have in front of you all the time when you're writing copy is being super clear and crystal clear on those on those facts, because then, you know, you're writing to what matters, right? Because the AI is not going to know that. So that's number one. Number two, in addition to, you know, to understanding all that is, getting topic ideas for emails. So then you can plug that in and go based on, this is my business. This is my these are my customers fears. Give me 10 topic ideas for potential emails as an example. So all of a sudden it'll start spitting out that those ideas that then when it comes to actually writing, let's say the emails, but it could be content, social media, content. It doesn't matter. The only thing I would be just red flag is, if you're looking to get, like, SEO juice and all that sort of thing. I don't know if i i would just be aware that Google may have a way of being able to tell AI content. So you just might be want to, want to just have that in the back of your mind if you're going to go down that track and look and investigate it. But then when it comes to to actually writing the writing the copy, then you're using AI to write the copy, and you're using a bit of man and machine, right? So you're, you're also in control of it. You're directing it. But then, so the third way is to write the copy, and then the fourth way is to actually write the, you know, write the subject lines. It's itself. So how do we actually take that and it's and it's literally, you know, a simple command will be able to write those subject lines based specifically off those copy and then you're using, obviously, your your human brain and your understanding of your target market to work out which one you know, which one of those is relevant

Sami Bedell-Mulhern
well. And what I love about this holistic view is like you can start with, let's say you want to start with a long form piece of content. You want to start with a blog post, you can have aI generate that you can then have it generate, right if I'm understanding this generate, then the email copy in the subject lines from that blog post. So you're really repurposing it is helping you make and repurpose content so much easier, because it can then help you generate social media posts from that content that you've created. So now this blog post that you're putting up is like going out all over all of your things, but you're really minimizing the time that you're having to create some of those base elements. Okay, you know that I love websites. I think that they are so foundational for your organization. In order to communicate, connect and get conversions, it's what we do most often. And so the number six most popular episode is episode 196 and Dani McGregor came to share different ways that your website might actually be hurting your organization. So she gives you six different ways that you might want to look at your website differently and see if you're making these mistakes so that you can clean them up and do better. So if you're not getting the conversions that you want, or you're not seeing the results that you want from your website, give this a listen. One of these steps might be something that you want to kind of review, refresh and clean up. So this is episode 196 six ways your website may be hurting your organization. With Dani MacGregor, there, should we be sharing that impact on our website?

Dani MacGregor
Great question. One of my favorite places is actually having an our impact page. It's kind of a major thing that I like putting on my clients websites. You can also kind of splice it in on your programs or your initiatives pages, and you can also add them to your donor, your your donation forms, if your donation embedded forms or even on say you're on a Bloomerang or a Network for Good where you outlink. A lot of them have impact statements that go for that dollar amount. So say $25 gives a backpack to a child, or $50 you know, serves, I don't know, a full year of elephant food. I don't know, put something up, you can show that vision, that actual man, monetary impact. Impact, and you should place it everywhere you can. And that can really entice that donor to give a little bit extra. They're like, Oh, you're right, you know, 100 bucks versus 50, I can make that jump. And getting them to get that to that click of the actual donate button, or getting them to that donate page, is splicing in that impact all throughout your website. But a lot of times, those more critical donors are going to look for an impact page, and that's also a really great place to put and encourage your partners to go to your foundations to go to if they're really looking for those tangible stats, in addition, obviously, to your annual reports that need to be on your website.

Sami Bedell-Mulhern
Okay, for the fifth most popular episode, we're going all the way back to Episode 63 and I'm kind of surprised that this one's the most popular, because we've done a few of these, but they've been more recent. So this is episode 63 time to jump into LinkedIn. Now, LinkedIn is a very popular tool and resource. This is a solo episode that I did, but it is so incredibly important and impactful. If done right now, we'll definitely want to check out all the other LinkedIn episodes that we have on the podcast. But this one is time to jump in, and it just gives you some strategies and resources and things to think about as to the power of LinkedIn and why we want to utilize it as a nonprofit professional. The people you're going after, you're targeting, you're donate, you're wanting to donate, to sponsor, to provide services or be on your board, they're on LinkedIn. So why are we not focusing on engaging and connecting there? So again, that's episode 63 time to jump into LinkedIn.

Speaker 1
Yes, it's two ideas there, and one, one is for the events that might have been canceled or moved online. Is LinkedIn just rolled out events as a, you know, as a feature on LinkedIn, both from personal pages and company pages, along with LinkedIn lives recently. So if you're moving your event online, you know, I'd recommend is it's free to use these features, create an event for it on LinkedIn, and then also post on LinkedIn live. And just like how Facebook gives people your network notifications when you go live, so does LinkedIn. So it's also a good way to activate your networks there for any events that you are moving online, and then before you

Sami Bedell-Mulhern
go to the second one, though. Okay, so like, let's say we have all of our board members on LinkedIn. And is there a way to if we publish it to our pub or our business page for the nonprofit, could they then share it with all of their board members? And if their board members share it, then the live goes, then to that entire network of people,

Speaker 1
so the live notification will go to anybody following the page. But as as a page can share it with people connected with the page, they can then share it with their networks, and then it can kind of expand.

Sami Bedell-Mulhern
Okay, perfect. Okay, so then your second idea, my second idea is,

Speaker 1
if you're kind of like looking for fundraisers or looking to reach out to networks of higher net worth individuals, then LinkedIn, good channel views, you know, maybe you do sign up for Sales Navigator for the nonprofit, and then you target specific CEOs companies, maybe a certain industry, and then you can connect and start the conversation with them

Sami Bedell-Mulhern
there. So the only person to show up twice on this list at number four is Vanessa Chase Lockshin again, email seems to be a topic that you all really love to hear more about. And she, again, is the expert. So this one episode, 128 is all about creating campaigns and stories. So this is a great episode to listen to if you're wanting to do better with your email in general, any campaign that you're running. Again, the other one was specific to your end. This could be any campaign that you're running. How do you really tell those stories? How do you connect with your readers? How do you encourage them to click to open to connect? And so she's here with all of those strategies. So coming in at number four, again, with Vanessa Chase lakshin, episode 128, creating campaigns with stories.

Vanessa Chase Lockshin
I mean, I think that at the basic level, like there's always got to be one channel that you're asking on right? And I always think that it's good to choose the one that you know is going to perform the best. And so if that for your organization has been direct mail, great if you're aspiring for it to be email, but you really don't have much of an email list, then I wouldn't say put all your eggs in the email basket and like and abandon your direct mail. So I would definitely pick one to start. And then if you find that you have capacity or time, or you're just trying to prioritize growing a channel, I would put that one in next in the strategy to kind of add to what you're doing, and in terms of the actual kind of like campaign itself. I mean, there's certainly a couple things that you're gonna want to think about, which is the, you know, having, like, the initial ask probably some sort of follow up strategy, especially if you're using digital channels, and you can do easy follow up with people. You know, you're gonna want to have great stories and really strong messaging, both for the cultivation phase and the asking phase. Stories. And it doesn't have to be a lot of stories. Sometimes it only takes one really strong one that helps communicate your argument and get your points across. And you can use that story in different ways and in different places in that campaign to engage people with one really strong example of how their donation will make a difference and kind of coming off of that campaign, and I think what you touched on, Sammy, is, you know, the idea of great follow up, like you put in so much time and effort into these campaigns, and you want to, ultimately, like, build a long term, loyal donor community, and so having even just, like, a simple process of, like, a thank you letter and maybe a phone call after the campaign's over to connect with people, to thank them for their donations, can make a really big difference. Okay,

Sami Bedell-Mulhern
number three was a fun one for me, leveraging social media for better connections with Amanda Kohal, we know that social media can really be impactful, but a lot of times we post stuff and hope that things are going to happen. So how can we actually use it to our advantage, in order to really connect with our audiences and be a little bit more engaging, and take those conversations offline and turn them into potential donors, or turn them into customers, or turn them into people that trust us, that want to be part of our organization and community and engage with us. And so she's here to give you all of the ideas. I know you're gonna love it. This is episode 219 leveraging social media for better connections with Amanda, Kohal, Tiktok, algorithm is so fantastic for reach and visibility.

Sami Bedell-Mulhern
Every time you post, your content gets seen by about 90% of new eyes, whereas on Instagram, your posts get seen by, if you're lucky, 5% of people who are already following you. So that was like a little light bulb moment in my head of why in the world are we spending so much time and money and energy creating for Instagram a space that is getting us very little ROI financially, as well as just, you know, fruitfully and kind of reassurance that what we're posting is good. Why would we not take those resources and put them on a space like Tiktok that actually is built for visibility, make that the primary content creation space, and now repurpose, slice and dice that content and drive people from Tiktok over to your Instagram or over to whatever other social media channels you're using. So it was like, holy smokes, we've been using social media all wrong. I went back to my scribbles and my mad scientist ways and literally lying on the floor on my stomach. For some reason this is like soothing to me of my parents house, because my husband and I were living there at the time, our house was being renovated, and I was just drawing out this entire strategy. And I was like, Okay, we're gonna put the platforms into two different buckets. One bucket is those platforms that are good at visibility, reach and growth, and then the other bucket is the platforms that are good at nurturing and converting. And guess which one fell into each we got Instagram and nurturing conversion, and we've got Tiktok, amongst others. We can get into that that is in the growth and visibility space. So at the very least, if you're only using those two platforms, if you have access to them, because I know Tiktok is banned in some regions, you're cooking with peanut oil, and you are covering all of your bases. You're looking at, how am I approaching my strategy from a growth perspective? How am I looking at it from building community, and how am I converting as opposed to what gurus are typically focused on, which is, how do you get 10k followers on a platform? What is that 10k followers going to do for me in terms of building a real network, as well as converting in my business?

Sami Bedell-Mulhern
Okay, we only have two episodes left. Thank you for sticking around this long. I hope that you have enjoyed all of the topics that we have talked about already. If you're watching this on YouTube, please make sure you drop in the comments which episode you're most excited to listen to or re listen to, or if there's topics that we haven't mentioned, that you think that we should be talking about, I'd love to hear that as well. But coming in at number two is episode 251, and this is a solo episode that I did, but it's coming up with content ideas for short form video. Short form video is usually 60 seconds, sometimes 90 or less, depending on the platform, and it provides a quick win, a tip, a resource engages with people, and it is really the most effective way to get out there. And connect and in a way that platforms are favoring. So if you are just struggling with how to come up with ideas, episode 251 is for you. You will have more ideas than you know what to do with. And then you can get to hitting that record button or building those templates out in Canva, if you don't want to be direct to camera and sharing who you are, how you solve problems, building trust and engaging with audiences on a multiple on multiple social media platforms, whether it's LinkedIn, YouTube reels, Tiktok, whatever episode 251, is for you.

Sami Bedell-Mulhern
Coming up with short excuse me, coming up with content ideas for short form video. So you can kind of come up with two. So to start with today, I would love for you to just start with with whichever one is most present, if you're not in a promotional period, or you aren't gearing up for one, then just do your general brand awareness. But I want you to sit down and just get a piece of paper out, think for a few minutes, just like five minutes, and just kind of brain dump what types of content, not like specific videos, but just like big picture things would be helpful for you to be creating content around. Think about FAQs. Think about behind the scenes. Think about you know, the community that you serve, or even you know sponsors or things that you've promised donors and sponsors that you know you need to produce, foundations, grants, all of that stuff. So pause this episode, get out a piece of paper, spend a couple minutes and brain dump all of the things that you think are good topics for you to discuss.

Sami Bedell-Mulhern
Okay, how did that go? Was it awesome? So now we're going to take these and we're going to kind of prioritize and we're going to break it down. So what are the content topics that you have? So let's say you have behind the scenes. Maybe there now you can start to, like, really develop some of the things that might fit into that category. So behind the scenes could be, maybe you do a series where you have people in the office each share their favorite thing about what you know working for the organization and the thing that they love most behind the scenes could be fun videos at a board meeting. It could be silly things like the gross part of having to work at an animal shelter, right? The animals, the all the poop cleanup, things like that, just silly stuff, right? So really, just that you can start to kind of brain dump a bunch of different ideas under each of the categories. Once you start doing this, more and more ideas are going to flow. And what's even better is taking some of these core themes and then just spending like three to five minutes at a staff meeting and saying, Okay, who's got what for this, this, this, this, and this, right? And you guys will start to build off of each other. I also really love an FAQ, because what people are asking about your organization, this is a great opportunity to educate people, um, and again, quick video, um, have the executive director just sit their phone on their desk or whatever. And question is somebody asks you, on a regular basis, you know, does your organization do this? Answer the question, if people have questions regularly about the data or the relevancy or why your program is super necessary. Answer that in a question, right? One question, one video. Because remember, these are only 30 to 60 seconds, so this is just a great way for you to kind of continue to push that stuff out there.

Sami Bedell-Mulhern
Okay? And finally, here we are with our number one most popular episode of the digital marketing therapy podcast. It is episode 236, minimizing your limiting beliefs with Tracy plus now listen being an online fundraiser or a fundraiser or an executive director. It's hard work, it's exhausting, and it feels sometimes like we aren't making the progress that we want to make. So minimizing your limiting beliefs, removing that self doubt, that imposter syndrome, all of the things that are stopping us from making that ask, sending that email, coming up with that new idea or testing that new strategy. This episode is a great one to kind of help you work through that process it and make sure that you are building the organization of your dreams and making the impact, increasing the impact and serving your community in the best way possible. So make sure you check out Episode 236, minimizing your limiting beliefs with Tracy

Tracy Pleschourt
pleasure when you can leverage like discovery, right, this strength that is afforded to you when you're operating from your prodigy brain. Well, it's fascinating, because what you can discover from the willingness to fail, yeah, is endless. Like you learn so much from being willing to fail, like there is nothing to be afraid of. And so that's the kind of behavior, that's the kind of that's the way you start showing up on the regular when you're operating for. Your prodigy brain. I mean, it's mind blowing how you almost intentionally, like, lean in to all of the scary things that you never would have thought you could have done, like I do almost everything before I'm ready. Some of the programs we launched last year, I had no business launching them, but I also know that I'm willing to feel the fear, and I know that if I fail, I'm going to learn so much from it. So I'm okay with that. That's what it looks like to become self made. And by the way, this is not like some finish line that you cross, becoming self made, coming self actualized, living that purpose driven life. This is more like being on a merry go round, right? It's like it's never ending. It keeps getting better, but it is what you make it, yeah, and so it's not a degree that you're gonna get. It's like it's more of a muscle that you're going to continue to strengthen and you're going to reap the rewards from it. So anyways, the final step is finishing with a decision. So as if this couldn't get any more simple, step one and step four, the same steps, but you finish with a decision that is so easy, it's almost hard not to do there you have it. Our

Sami Bedell-Mulhern
top 15 episodes out of 300 Well, I guess 299 right? Since this is the 300th episode, I hope that there was at least one or maybe 10 that you want to go check out now. And don't forget, there's so many other incredible episodes here for you to listen to. If you need recommendations of what might be a helpful episode for you to listen to based off of where you're stuck right now, feel free to email me hello at the first click.net, or drop a comment if you're watching this on YouTube or on social media, whatever, let me know what, what you're needing help with, and we can send you a resource. For sure. We plan on being here for another 300 episodes, so make sure you subscribe wherever you listen, so you don't miss out on a single episode. We have a couple bonus episodes coming up this year as well, and I would love to see your face inside of do good university, so that we can meet face to face, have conversation, and I can help support you, and Patrick can help support you wherever you're stuck, so that you can raise more money and increase your impact. Thank you so much for taking the time to listen to this episode and all of the other episodes here. I look forward to seeing you in the next one.