The concept of content marketing has been around for the last couple of years and represents a great opportunity for non-profits to stand out from the pack. But creating content can feel like a never ending task. Between your newsletter, website, blog, stewardship materials, etc there are dozens of unique opportunities to create content that will engage your audience with your cause.
Instead of reinventing the wheel every time, consider these four ideas to streamline your content creation process and create consistently better content for your audience.
1. Develop a master calendar that includes important program and development dates. When you have the important dates laid out ahead of time, it will be easier for you to collect the basic information you need to create your content, such as quotes, photographs and video.
2. Take a holistic approach to content creation. If you’re creating content for one specific purpose and then putting it on the shelf, you’re wasting a lot of time and resources! For instance, if you create a video think about how you can repurpose the script or stills for other channels. This is an easy way to create more content and develop something cohesive.
3. Develop a culture of storytelling. If you find it challenging to collect information on a regular basis, consider revamping how you collect information. Start a story bank on your intranet or use the first 10 minutes of staff meetings to talk about stories.
4. Survey your audience regularly. Non-profits collect a lot of data, but arguably we miss many opportunities to collect personal preferences and opinons from our supporters. If you have an email marketing program, create an autoresponder for one to two months after sign up that prompts subscribers to take a survey. Or, do an annual mail out survey. Either way, it’s an opportunity to understand what makes your audience tick, which will make content creation less of a guessing game.
Non-profits have some pretty amazing opportunities in terms of content development. From programs to donor stories and community outreach and research, many non-profits are on the leading edge of their cause. Now it’s just time to position yourself that way to your community.
