Why you should get this Guide

If you don’t have a blog yet, you should get one. Pronto! Yup, I think they’re that important for nonprofits in today’s market place..

I truly want you to do this, and I don’t want it to kill you. So I’m going to give you some easy steps you can take to make your blog (1) doable, and (2) a super investment of your time and resources. I’m betting that pretty soon you’ll wonder what you ever did without it!

This will help you persuade the “powers-that-be” that it’s worth investing in a blog.

• Blogging is not just something to check off a list of ‘to-do’s’. Done right, it’s the content hub for all your other marketing communications and strategy. 
• Blogging can help search engines find you.
• All the work done for your blog can be leveraged elsewhere. Everything else emanates from your blog.
• The better your blog strategy, the easier it will be for you to accomplish multi-channel marketing. Your tweets, facebook posts, LinkedIn discussions, Instagram and Pinterest shares and even your e-newsletters and online fundraising campaigns will write themselves.
  

This Workbook + Resource Guide is a “How to Get Started” road map that includes a user-friendly worksheet, tips, tools, templates and more to get you started with a blog that can become the hub of your content marketing strategy. It’s also a handy-dandy directory of some of my favorite non-profit and general marketing websites, blogs, tools, articles and books focusing on helping you to achieve your nonprofit blogging and social media objectives. Were you to read everything you find in this Guide you’d be a nonprofit blogging expert!

What’s inside?

• Getting Started Worksheet

• Sweet 16 Nonprofit Blogging Tactics

• Why Content is King

• 8-Point Nonprofit Blog Content Checklist

• Your First 10 Posts

• Links to a multitude of popular and highly-retweeted marketing  and blogging posts.

• Links to admired communications, content marketing and social media blogs.

• Links to inspiring and practical nonprofit marketing blogs.

• Links to additional tools to help you with email, search, content calendar, comments and more.

In a nutshell, a blog will help you expand your audience, increase engagement and make your life a lot easier. Is there anything here you would not want to do? I didn’t think so. A blog will help you get:

• MORE PROSPECT LEADS: Businesses that blog get 55% more website visitors than those that don’t. Plus blogs provide search engine juice that websites can’t match – largely because they’re a storehouse of freshly updated content. Your best fundraising appeals are meaningless if you don’t have the right folks to send them to, so getting more prospect leads is hugely important.

• MORE CREDIBILITY: People trust what you say in blogs more than what you say on your website, Facebook page or Twitter posts. One of top reasons donors invest in nonprofits is because they find you trustworthy, so this is a biggie.

• MORE COST-EFFECTIVE COMMUNICATIONS: Inbound marketing, of which blogging is an integral part, costs 62% less per lead than outbound marketing. One of the reasons blogs are a smart investment of resources is that they serve as a content hub for all your other marketing communications and strategy. So all the work you do on your blog can be leveraged elsewhere. Any tool that can accomplish multiple objectives simultaneously is a winner.

• MORE CONTENT YOU CAN LEVERAGE EVERYWHERE, BOTH ONLINE AND OFFLINE. This is probably my favorite part about a blog.

Sound good?

If you want to stop being the best kept secret in town, it’s time to start rocking a blog filled with content your constituents – including prospective donors – are looking for.