Featuring Abbey Wolin, CEO, and Founder of Social Marketing Agency Abbey & Co
Change The World Podcast-Ep (Completed 07/18/22)
Speaker 1 (00:06):Welcome to season two of the change, the world podcast. This season, I'm going to be speaking, not only with nonprofit founders, but with other nonprofit leaders, such as fundraising experts, communications, executives, and board members. We'll be addressing some of the big issues facing Jewish nonprofits today and brainstorming ways that we can come together to address them. Thanks for joining.
Speaker 2 (00:30):Hi everyone. Thanks for joining me today. I am so excited. I'm doing my first in person podcast recording with the one only a Holland. Um, I'm gonna let her introduce herself and tell you a little bit about herself and we're gonna get into some really, really amazing stuff about social media and nonprofits. And I think it's gonna be really, really, this is gonna be a fun one. So Abby, tell us a little bit about yourself, how you got started and how you got into what you're doing now. Oh goodness. How well do we have <laugh> okay. So I, I used to be in education. I was a teacher for 15 years. I did not know that. <laugh> you didn't. So I taught like every single grade under the sun from like preschool all the way to high school. Yeah. Special ed teacher. And every summer I used to learn like just new, like art stuff.
Speaker 2 (01:17): I went to art school and I was really into art and, but I gave it up because we had to pay the bills anyway. So one summer I learned had pizza on glass and the rest is the history. I turned that into a full-fledged business, built it. I started to sell to stores. I went to trade shows and I sold all over the world. I like hundreds of stores all grow like internationally. I started my business when Facebook actually asked me in 2009, do you want to start, like, do you wanna have a business page? And so I built up the company very, very early on, on social media. It was like me Kaba high Forche down for, from bits of glitz, Sarah Lare from princess. That was what she was told back then. Yeah, I remember. Um, and Sharon who was fashion, like these were, remember, like this was social media world.
Speaker 2 (02:04): We were dating ourselves a little bit. Um, but because of that and because I got in so early, I really understood market trends. I was there when we migrated from Facebook to Instagram, it was actually a high fortune from bits who like was encouraged me to go to Instagram. And then I started just building the business. And in 2017, I realized that I was making $350,000 a year, but only getting 60. And I was there's something wrong. There was something wrong. I was working days. I was working Mo hours. And I said to myself, something has to give. And I remembered the night that I was crying hysterically. You understand? Like I would get pieces. I would get an order. Huge, huge, huge, massive order of like, I don't know, 60 and, and, and 25 bowls and whatever it was. And I was painting every single one.
Speaker 2 (02:52): And I had a team of five people team of five people, and I would get an order. We would rush, rush, rush, shut out to get all the orders out before Thursday. And then by Sunday night or Monday morning, you're like, we're sold out. We need more. And I felt like I was on this like hamster wheel that was never ending. And I never saw my kids. I didn't have money in my pocket. And I was just so miserable. And I said, I am responsible for the choices that I'm making in this world. And I have to figure this out well to my family. I went to myself to figure out this business, which I, from the outside, it, like, I knew what I was doing. And so then what ended up was that I started opening up social media on Instagram and I started talking about entrepreneurship and all people were like, feel that way too.
Speaker 2 (03:31): And I realized that my voice had power and I started, um, pivoting. I pivoted away from my art. I ended up revamping the business. I gave myself 30 days to rechange. The whole business. People saw what I was doing by the end of it. Profits were up by 10% and I was working five hours a day. And people were like, how'd you do that? How'd you do that? How'd you do that? And so I realized like I could probably making more money consulting and helping women grow their businesses and do business plans and marketing strategies for them than actually running this art business. So I partnered with Waterdale. I ended up selling a lot of my artwork today and they would manufacture it for me. I was able to close my studio, which I never thought would ever happen in my wildest dreams. And I started, um, doubling tripling and ING my business and then going like, and the way that we started working together, I dunno if the world knows, but I started working 14, nine because the GWE came to me and they asked me if I would run their 2019 conference, if I would come in as a director of programming.
Speaker 2 (04:31): And I said, absolutely my education background and my business background, like really helps. And we had 500 women that year and it was incredible. We were set to have 700 women at our next conference for two 20 and then hit now jump JWS back. And we're better than ever. And it's happening. It's incredible. But back then I did that nonprofit work. Then I did the value nonprofit work, and then like they asked me to do another event for them. And then I obsessed at 27. All of a sudden I fell in love with nonprofit work and I'm obsessed with it obsessed. And so what I realized was that there was a huge, huge, huge, empty space in the nonprofit world and understanding marketing. I was getting them thousands of new subscribers, thousands of new followers. And then there was no follow up afterwards. And I realized, wow, I could really build an agency that could really help them, you know, build their impact, but also bring Carda to me.
Speaker 2 (05:30): And now I have 10 inter I have 10, no 11 team members internationally, and it's incredible to watch their products to grow and all of it being connected in the ecosystem of impacting world. Wow. Okay. That's an amazing story. I really love the hear has for people kinda fell into it be cause I don't think most people woke up like one day just saying like, I'm gonna get into nonprofit marketing. I did. Most of us who are doing it stumbled in one way or the other. So tell me now about this agency, what, what is the model? How do you work with clients? And like what's, what's your ideal scenario and how you can come in and really help them? Okay. So what I realized was is that nonprofits only are present when they are asking people for money. Like, that's the truth. Why? Because they're, they're fighting the good fight they're doing what they're supposed to be doing.
Speaker 2 (06:17): They are getting volunteers, they're helping their recipients. They're meeting with donors, but the world doesn't get to see what's happening in there. And so what happens is, is that they get all of these new followers and subscribers and they don't nurture them. And so they they're basically running their organizations like rollers, where you only see them at the top, when they're asking for money, then they disappear. And then they come back. When they're asking for money again, and instead marketing needs to be steps where you go up, you and then you plateau. And then you, you, from that place of plateau, you nurture them during that plateau so that you can then when you go up to the next step, you're at the next level . So how do you get a donor at $50 today? They give you $50. How do you get them to give you $500?
Speaker 2 (07:03): What's the nurturing journey that you have to take that donor through. And it's not just donors. It's notabout impact, right? Cause KPIs, right. When we're looking or measuring goals. I think the biggest question I always get, and we could talk about this later is, well, I'm gonna invest X number of dollars. How do I know I'm gonna get X number? What's the ROI, right? What's the ROI. So I think though that we also have to look at impact and impact numb ers. So are we growing our volunteer base? Are we get how many more intake calls are we getting? A lot of times, people like my biggest, the biggest fear that I hear from nonprofits when they start working with me is are we going to be able to manage all of the new flow that comes in? Um, which HBI should be their biggest problem, right?
Speaker 2 (07:40): That they should be able to, many of them it is. And they say that they're afraid to advertise. They're afraid to do promotion because they can't handle the influx. But to me, that's like the saddest problem in the world because you all these nonprofit leaders that I met are super passionate and they didn't set out to like help some of the people. They really wanna help all of the people, but they're constrained by their own way of thinking. So I think that's just like, it's such a sad, like problem to begin. It is it it's actually very, to me that's like super unfortunate. I think though, that what ends up happening though, is, is that if you do your social marketing, right, and I call it social marketing, not social media, because you have to really understand how to build a community around your product or service and understand your ecosystem.
Speaker 2 (08:18) : Sometimes Instagram is not the place. And sometimes Facebook is not place, but WhatsApp or, you know, maybe it's just email marketing and being really smart about your email marketing. Or maybe it's like putting together a pamphlet that goes into one of these magazines and it tells the full story of your organization. Like, there's just, you have to figure out how to do it. Right. So what you do it, right? You're going to actually build your donor base. And the influx of people are gonna come at the same time it's supposed to happen to simultaneous. And so I think the more that we put out into the world, the more we see, right. It's a law of our reciprocity. So I think that, you know, like in Judaism, like we all have to take complete the face. Like at the end of the day, we all have to have a MOA.
Speaker 2 (08:54): And I think that nonprofits also need to like, just, they do that every day. So they have to do where their marketing also <laugh> from your perspective. Cause I've had the same experience with the same conversations from your perspective, why is it such a challenge for them? What do you mean with, with like, why do nonprofits struggle so much with marketing and the idea of marketing, not while asking people for money. Well, they need to learn how to do the soft desk, right? So it's like talk about that. It's like jab, jab, jab hook. It's like, get them like, you know, nurture, nurture, nurture, then ask. And I think that, so like one of the biggest things that we do right. For social marketing. So we, we are about creating micro content for them. So we come in and we we're the voice, we're all intent of purposes.
Speaker 2 (09:36): We are the voice of the organization. So, you know, after we do our research and after we come up a strategy, we do a shoe day and we sit with the powers that be the people that we think that we've identified, not that we think the people that we've identified and it's not just the powers that be in the organization, it's the people that have been helped. And it's the volunteers. So we tell, tell stories from the, the donors, the volunteers, the recipients. And then we also do the executive directors of the people that are within the organization. And we interview them and we ask them specific questions and we get such good pieces of nuggets. So what ends up happening is is that we, we create this, these pieces of micro that go out into the world. And when people actually see things and they see the impact that they've had, right.
Speaker 2 (10:21): You all of a sudden, you don't really need to ask that hard because it's out there. It becomes your Instagram is, is your place like your website. It's like where people go to look like, so somebody says to you, like, what do you do? Just go check out my Instagram. It's not everything there. It's your, it's now your living virtual portfolio. That's the way that we treat it. And I think that when you do your marketing, your social marketing, right, the ask is so easy that you don't even have to do a hard ass. Does that make sense? Yeah. It makes a lot of sense, but I think that the nonprofits, you know, many of them have like very specific challenges, for example, in our community, most people who use the services of nonprofits don't necessarily wanna talk about it. A lot of the topics are very sensitive, very personal.
Speaker 2 (11:05): They don't wanna get in front of the camera. We're talking about mental health issues in fertility, right? Like, so what do you fine? So, so in those cases, first of all, for example, we did fertility. Like we had a, we just did a, a huge fundraiser for Pula fabulous organization. We have, the re's so many amazing stories, but fertility is a very, it's a very personal and private matter. And there were some people who said, I don't want, even, you cannot show my face. You cannot show my nothing. You can't even use my voice. And so in that case, we just did a transcription and we got great quote from, right. So there's so many different ways that you could actually, like, we could take that story and change the name, change a little bit of the works. And that becomes a great email. So just because they don't, but they don't have somebody else who is like, you better use my voice, use my, and tell the entire world what P did for me, because the world needs to know about this organization.
Speaker 2 (11:58): Sometimes the organization themselves is like close-minded or they have a, a scarcity mindset that nobody' s gonna wanna tell, or nobody's gonna wanna share, or nobody's set up. They don't understand that the power that they've had on so many of these recipients there's ambassadors there. Right? Like, so we have to think about our funnel. There's like a, there's a whole funnel. Like, how do people find you, right. Awareness, how do you convert them to a client or a donor, whatever it is. And then how do we take them and turn them into an ambassador? So they always say that the trick is the real trick. I, for all you, nonprofits are listening. You wanna get them young, the younger, you can get them and turn them into an like a lifetime ambassador gen Z, right? Yes. Get the gen Z or that even get the high school kids.
Speaker 2 (12:42): So like, if you can create like an auction type of situation
or a raffle situation, or like a school program, whatever it is, if you can start something with these high school girls or even high school boys, or she boys, first of all, they're so powerful. Those Ishi boys, or even like eighth grade or seventh or eighth grade, like they, they would love to have an extracurricular activity out at high school. Right. So I think that you can get them young and get them to really understand in the brand awareness of your organization when they get to be an adult where the y actually have money to spend, and they're gonna give to something, they're gonna give it to something that they've already been bought into as a kid. So you have to think to yourself, your organization, you're thinking about now, and you always have to be looking at your 10 year plan.
Speaker 2 (13:23): So in 10 years you wanna be an X number. Who's going to be those donors who are gonna be those donors and how you gonna reach those donors. So you have to think like long term, long term. Yeah. And I think most nonprofits, they seem to operate like an emergency mode or going crisis to prices, fundraiser to cover it. And that's an next one. And not looking through and marketing is strategy and its consistency. Have you found a resistance to taking on, let's say social, you know, versus some of these nonprofits have been doing things the same way for decades and decades, you know, to this mailing and this dinner and this, you know, this request. And like that's kind of, they're set in their ways. And social is like very new to them. So it's interesting. Like, so I had this one, I have two organizations that come to mind.
Speaker 2 (14:04): So one organization is just very, I call them like vintage. They're like a vintage organization. The person who runs it is like he wants the social media. Cause he knows that that's where the world is going towards, but they still, he, he loves the old ways. He loves the old look. He, and so every single time he would meet with a, with a branding agency or a marketing agency. They were like, we need to rebrand you. We need, and he got turned off every single time. And I finally said to him, I wouldn't rebrand. I would, I would embrace, embrace the, the old embrace your who you were and what you were. I wouldn't change your logo. I would take that logo. Let's just tweak the logo. You know what I'm talking about? Cause you actually hit it. Let's the log o just a bit, make it so that we can actually like, instead of it being hands on anymore, it's actually like on the computer, we can use it in our elements, but like let's embrace that old.
Speaker 2 (14:54): And I think that when you say people, especially in nonprofits, when you like they're, so they're obsessed with what they've created. And I think that if you can you get your, you get them buy in as a marketing when you come in as their friends, as opposed to their enemy and saying I'm smarter. I know because you're gonna have resistance the entire time going forward. The other organization that I'm thinking off the top of my head, it was an organization that had never been on social media whatsoever. Only their community knew about it. And what they wanted to do was they wanted to reach out everywhere else. And I always find, so I think the question is not necessarily like they're old set in the ways, but how do you actually get, if, if you are an organization that's very local, right? And they wanna raise a million dollars, well, why would Miami wanna support a Brooklyn community?
Speaker 2 (15:39): Like why? Like, and so I think that's a bigger question is like, how do you actually create a community around an organization? That's not necessarily servicing the people that they're way after. So that is a very hard question. That's a big question. I mean, we have that a lot when we work with schools and should at the end of the day, if you're not part of it or you're not like an alumni of it really hard to get people to care. So like for them, it's even more important that every single person who walks through their indoors become the lifelong could part of their community. Cause you can't build that your community as easily as, as other organizations. Correct. And I think the other thing is that it's all about This transcript was exported on Jul 18, 2022 shared experiences. So that that's where it really comes down to storytelling and really like tapping into someone's real heart.
Speaker 2 (16:24): And because people are more likely to give a if they're connected to it. And so that could be, I live in this community and I'm a recipient of it or my is a recipient of it or, you know, something like that. Or if you have a shared experience. So even though for example, let's take LACA, right? LACA is an organization that supports colleges, right. They give them every single thing that they need to set up their apartment. It's amazing organization, but they're set in Brooklyn. But if you're a, that didn't have any, and you were like, I, I wish that there was an organization like this who you're gonna support it. Right. So like for links, links for me is that like I was a, uh, my father passed away when I was a kid. And I wish that there had been an organization likes, you know, yes, links also now supports a lot of people because they've been able to fundraise enough that they can support people like kids all over.
Speaker 2 (17:15): But, um, so I think that when you can tap into the storytelling, that's really where you can really effectively market an organization. And yet that's something that they find very difficult. Like I think that some of the nonprofits I work with, they're like the world best secret keeper, a hundred percent, which I guess it's part of the job. Cause they're dealing with people's most private, vulnerable moment. So I guess it becomes like in nature, but if you're not sharing with people, I mean, I had an organization that I worked with for months before I found out the true extent of the scope of what they were really. And I was like, you know, I thought you were just kinda after programs. And like, he looked at me like in shock, I said, you never told me, you never told anybody. So when you ask people for money and they don't get the gravity of the situation, why would you expect them to step up?
Speaker 2 (17:59): Right? No, but I think that that's where it happens in the research program, the research part. Right. Cause what end up happening is is that for example, will be onboarded. We'll get research from, you know, we'll, we'll, we'll interview different people, but then when you actually sit in a, in an organization's space and you hear from the recipients and you hear from the volunteers, you get a totally different story than what the powers that be in the organization are telling. And I think you have to like, look the yeah, yeah, yeah. And I think that that's really where the magic happens, which is why we now require it when we start with any client is, is that we don't just take it base value because it's, and it's not that the organization is trying to hide. It's not that they're trying to hide anything or not it's that they're dealing so much and they can only tell you the macros.
Speaker 2 (18:48): They can't tell micro some of doesn't to them that not everybody knows, knows what we do. Yeah. They're and sleeping. And so like when you hear these other stories, you're like I bought in, I bought in for, oh yeah. When you finally open them up, they're the best sales people hundred. Cause this is what they, this is their whole passion, but you have to get it outta them. So it, you know, it's, I think it's can be very overwhelming to the nonprofits. A lot of them have super limited budget, limited resources. Everybody's wearing many hat and they're just kind of going from one crisis to another. What advice can you give someone, someone let's say, you know, they either run a small nonprofit or they work for a larger nonprofit and they wanna kind of start, where would you tell them to like, what's, what's ground one, start on social media.
Speaker 2 (19:32): Yeah. So first building social community, whatever that. Right. So the first thing is you need to figure out where, where people are hanging out, right ? Like that's the first set and who they're. Yeah. So I'm saying like, who are your volunteers? Where are they hanging out? And where can you find more? Right. So, I mean, I always think that WhatsApp is great. I mean, that's where, if your volunteers are all high school kids just put 'em into WhatsApp, that's like your best way. And then have them, you know, you know, what's really an interesting trans I'm going off topic is user generated content. Oh yes. Right. So that is a huge, huge, huge trend right n
ow. So you can incentivize your volunteers to create content for you and
incentivize them with a raffle or a pizza or whatever it is. And so, and then the community on WhatsApp ends up, everyone's sharing their pictures and their videos and whatever.
Speaker 2 (20:20): And then you can then, you know, get permission obviously to put it out there into the world. So like that's like one such an easy way to yeah. WhatsApp, I think is a huge missed opportunity. I see a lot of organizations like where they'll have someone within the organization putting out a request, oh, can someone do this? But there's no branding, no, like you're just doing a personal favor for personal. And it's such a missed opportunity that someone that doesn't even realize they're actually helping out a huge organization and that could be the step one in their connection. But they're just doing it as like a real quick WhatsApp that they throw up on your status without any kind of background or any, probably that person who helped out never grows from them again. So I think there's huge opportunity being missed. Right. But also the thing is that these volunteers, these ambassadors, like people don't realize they end up turning into your, your fundraising.
Speaker 2 (21:05): Like when you do crowdfunding each one of them, if they
fall in love with you and they feel treated and they feel that you care about them, right. Then what ends up happening is that they then become your ambassadors and they'll raise, they'll take on a goal and they'll, they'll go to other people. So I think that it's really, really important that nurture their volunteers because they're giving to us. And I think sometimes we forget that it needs to be reciprocated. Yeah. Like even like a small thing, just to follow up with a thing, you can be so powerful, you know, a Auburn Lewis. Yes. So he's, he's great. He's a fundraising consultant. And he did like a, like an informal study of, you know, giving small donations and such a small percentage of the nonprofits even responded to them at all to say, thank you.
Speaker 2 (21:48): And like, it's just a missed opportunity to build a connection when somebody reaches out and a lot of these like fundraising campaign, also somebody, you know, the, the, the team leader gets a, like the donation from their friend and that's it. But that friend that gave you small donation could now be such a, a potential supporter for the organization. Cause they made them first connection from a psychological standpoint. That's like their foot in the door and there's so many opportunities, you know, what's so interesting. Like you take a step, you know, like the phone companies, cell companies, you know, like those, they always given is a one that sign up. Like you always get the special incentives, but what about me? I've been with them for four years. Why don't I get anything special? Right. I've a valued customer. Right? New. Yeah. I new people.
Speaker 2 (22:29): So I think that we sometimes forget that the ones that are giving you the 25 to 50, they have the potential to possibly give way, way, way more in the future. And so's really important. Like, you know, I can tell you from the amount of nonprofits that I've built to help them campaign, I think two of them two. So I think, I can't tell you off the maybe of right, the last three years, two of those, um, have called back each individual donor. Wow. At a certain level, meaning like anyone leave a <inaudible>. Right. So like that's sad that to me speaks like so many values. And then what about the people under thousand, right? Like, yeah. You're gonna get like thousands of donations. I get it. It's hard to like give them a personal call, but you could still give them a postcard. You could still give them, give an email.
Speaker 2 (23:19): You could, you can do SMS texting. You've got their phone numbers. Hopefully you ask for them, you could send out like, just like the little video that just from the executive director saying, thank you so much. Your donation is impacting in this incredible way. And I think the other thing is, is that people for like, I did two building campaigns, right? So now that they've done their building, right. They, they they've made a 2 million for their building. Right. Whatever. It's well, people wanna see what they right. People wanna see. OK. So what are they doing? Because what happens is, is that you're gonna have the money to build, but let's say you need a science lab or what if you need furniture for that building or you need something. Well, if they see that you're using the money wisely and you're building and you're this, and you're on to do this, whatever, it's, when you ask them for additional resources, they are more likely to give you more.
Speaker 2 (24:11): Instead of saying, well, I just gave you five minutes ago, where did that money go? Because they have no idea where it went. And so you wanna bring them into the story, into the process because people want to root you on and they wanna see you do, right. Like you want to absolutely. They want good stories. Okay. So now I'm gonna put you on this spot. I have a little bit of a tough question. Right's super specific, but I think it's something that need to think about businesses have generally one audience. They may have different products or different services for different types of people, but they have one audience and it's people that potentially will buy for them. Nonprofits have at least two completely different audiences. Many of them, many times they're like in totally different parts of the world, even that's how treatment can be.
Speaker 2 (24:52): And that's the two, a, the people that they serve. Right. And that's the people that support them. And in very many cases, these are completely distinct audience. Now this are the challenge that they have to do with every single bit of communications is who are you speaking to? And, and how are you speaking to them? But from a first perspective of building a community on social, who are you speaking to over there? Which audience. Okay. But I, okay. So we have, we have one organization, the Jac, the Jewish educational sector they're in, um, east incredible organization. Rabbi fed started it. I dunno, maybe 20 years ago. And he had a dream that he was gonna have a community ALA, a school and an outreach program. And then he was gonna do FA, which is the Florida Atlantic university was gonna do outreach on campus so that he had a vision and the dream and barhop into reality.
Speaker 2 (25:41): Well, he came to talk and said, I have, I have, I have all these audiences, how many accounts am I supposed to have? What am I supposed to do? How am I supposed to do it? So we actually set up three
different accounts. We did the general GAC. Then we did the, which is like their small little camp. Right. They have a summer camp and then we have the FA campus and they, they all talk to each other. Right. What we talk to FAS the college campus. When we talk on it's the donors saying, Hey, look at what we're doing here. And, um, be a part of this journey. And like in helping these college kids like find Judaism, right. We also educate people like, so on the C platform, we're actually talking to multiple people. We're talking to donors. We're also talking like we're giving Q, right?
Speaker 2 (26:26): Like, so this is part, this is what happens. So a lot of their donors happen to be recipients of or Macari. So they're all about S so they appreciate rabbi butter. Right? So it's kinda, again, it goes back to a, what's your goal? What's the goal of the organization and what are you trying to do on social media? Are you trying to raise money? Are you trying to raise awareness? If it's the same? If, if yes, the goal is yes, I wanna make money and I wanna build a community. You have to try to figure out like, so then what's the message and how are we going to do it? Cause you are gonna talk to both. So would your general advice be to have separate accounts to talk to the different audience? No. That could get overwhelming. No, not necessarily. So like for example, ya DECA.
Speaker 2 (27:06): Right? So Yaba in that respects, we had one and they had nothing and we built them up. We got them, I think, close 3000 followers within like, I mean, six weeks span. And we, we built up a very, very juicy community. That was like, that really loved what they did. And I think that, so what was it? It was like, we used a combination of influencer marketing, user generated marketing in influencer marketing. We used trends, turn the audios and like just different types of trends to like, so, but the person that we were talking to was really your impact does this. Right? So when your impact because of you, right? So because of you a has this because of you, they can have, they can build a buy. They can have, they can do what they need to do there, whatever it's right. So we're talking to the donor, but because we're talking to the donor, they're constantly getting messages.
Speaker 2 (28:08): I have a friend of students to call cheese help. So it's all about the messaging that we put out that builds in that story, that then you can, you'll get people in the recipient, like even like, like, so let's say for toast shops and Rockham county. So a lot of the social media, like you also have to remember, what are your pillars? What are your content pillars? What are we going to build C around? I think some people listening may not be familiar with that term. So just tell what that is. Okay. So after we do a lot of research and we interview everybody, we're interviewing them around four basic pillars. It could be three, but, but we're basically figuring out, okay, so where is their deepest impact? Right? So for Chelsea, Chavas is the blue boxes, right? Every Friday they give out those food boxes, but on Wednesdays and Thursdays people come to pack, okay.
Speaker 2 ( 28:55): Then they also have also took fish, has partners in ESSA where, you know, people are, they're partnering people up, they're getting them job placement and they're also fulfilling roles. Then they also have Bobby slaves where can get clothing. But around all of that, we have what's happening behind the scenes. What are the stories of bat, which obviously are completely 100% private. We have letters that are sent to him. We have, Alan will send us like three or four stories a month. He also has a letter that he sends to every single person that generates tremendous amount of donors from all over the world. And then we take those stories. We turn tho se into carousel posts. We go down to the actual packing and we say, why did you come with your son? Why is it important for you to be here every single week? We show them all packing and we put like a voice over over it.
Speaker 2 (29:44): Like, you know, so there's all these different ways of creating content. But the voice in there, the whole voice is, is look at all the amazing things that we're doing, right? And sometimes the call to action is, Hey, we need you to come and volunteer and compact boxes. And then sometimes it's, Hey, look at what your money did. This RO like that we were able to do. Like, this is how many carrots we purchased. This is like in this quarter, there's how many chickens we ordered before. YTO right. And then there's be other ones that are like, you saved me in such a huge way. And so when you hear those stories and you see people giving, you hear the stories of them helping, and then you see the impact that they're doing, all of that is, is very powerful, is very powerful. Yeah. And so the audience of who we're speaking to kind of like the question kind of disappears because when you come from a strategy of what are our content pillars, the voice just, you have to just have like a macro understanding of how the voice is gonna sound, and then you just do it because it comes from a place of heart of impact.
Speaker 2 (30:47): That makes a lot of sense. OK, we're going a little long, but I have one topic that I need to get to, which in and of itself probably could be an entire conversation, but I just wanna make sure that we cover it. Cause it's important to me. OK. I wanna, from your perspective of helping nonprofits, build social communities, how important is brand extremely important? So I will say to you this, when your picture pops up on Instagram or Facebook or wherever its WhatsApp status, whatever, its, they're not necessarily look at your name and they're not necessarily going to know who you're, unless your colors are the same. The font is the same. I need to know that when I see your piece coming up from any of my newsfeed and I'm scrolling in the endless scroll of like, Zombieland I know, oh that's, that's something.
Speaker 2 (31:28): Oh, that's ya? Oh, that's who, oh, that's I need to know that's yours. So branding, but branding is not logos. And branding is not color. And branding is not font. Branding is the overall message that we're sending out, which is why. And you know how much I like a kicker on this. But like, people don't understand that when I come in from my agency, it is integral that I become almost latch on to the marketing agency. And I kind of like become a, like a, like, um, a bird on an S up in the wall. And I'm just listening to everything that's happening. Because in order for me to be the voice of the organization, I must know what's being rolled out. I must understand where's the strategy here. Where's the here had it where like the organization will be, I'll open up MSA magazine and I see that they're advertising in events and they didn't tell me about the events.
Speaker 2 (32:36): Yep. And then what, you know, what happens that night on social media? I get tons of messages. Hey, I'd love to keep telling more. You have no idea. I have no idea. And I look like deer and headlights and my team comes to me and says like what? And, and we have, and, and it, so it's harder for us to do our jobs because we really don't know what's happening. And so it's very important that we all are all on the same page so that because we want, we wanna do right by you. And we want, if you're doing an event that's in event, first of all, my team has to be there to there. So to the right content, the you're to money into this event, you better strategy. Right. And that strategy, all the different pieces, all the tactics have to be working together towards the same goal.
Speaker 2 (33:20): Otherwise it's just wait. Right. So I think branding, I think people just think branding is like low as a economic and just something that like only big corporations, like cool. No, but branding. So from the beginning, it's very, very important from the beginning. And it has, everyone has to be on same agent. Everyone has to be telling the same story so that every single thing that comes out is everything. Like, I cannot tell you how many people, like it really bothers me when emails go out and it's not granted to the campaign. Like it makes me crazy. Yeah. It makes me crazy because I'll tell you why there has to be harmony throughout. So the social posts happen. Look the same, the design, the ads, the print ads have to look the same. The digital ads have to look same. The emails have to look the same.
Speaker 2 (33:58): And if you're, and if your general marketing department tells you that, no doesn't, that is wrong. And second of all, if they, and, and second of all, if they tell you that email marketing is not important, they are wrong. And if you are sitting on a ton of emails, that you have no idea what to do with, you have to like reach out to me or reach out to another marketing firm who could help you generate your list, your email list. Because I always equate marketing as like a, what do you call it? Um, like a realm, like imagine like, you know, Candyland land was like a huge realm. OK. So in that realm, you have an empire. That empire is content. That content, that brand, right? That's your whole, that's what makes the entire land look land, right? Like, so you have this, Rob, the content is all over this route.
Speaker 2 (34:52): Then you have a king and you have a queen. The king is email marketing. If yo u do not have a, if you don't have a list, if you're not building an active list, you're not using eco marketing to the best of your ability. Your keen is like is not, it's not being, you're losing money on the table. And your queen, your queen is either social media or WhatsApp. They, and they work hand in hand and they have lifting work hand to hand there's harmony around. I love it. <laugh>, it's a great metaphor. Um, and thank you so much. This was so awesome. I think there were some really valuable things that we spoke about. So I hope number of its are all listening. They will take you very, very seriously. Aw. Thank you for having me. This was really you. We're gonna do it again. <laugh> I hope so.
Speaker 1 (35:38): Thanks for listening to this episode of the change, the world podcast. If you have any feedback or comments, or if you are a nonprofit leader who is interested in learning more about how 14 mind can help you, I'd love to hear from you. You can reach me by email@ciaatfourteenminds.comfor more nonprofit content. Follow me on LinkedIn or visit 14 mine. com to subscribe to our mailing list.
