I’ve been doing a fair amount of consulting lately with nonprofits on their content marketing strategies, as well as talking with lots of nonprofits about how they handle content creation and distribution, and I see nonprofits falling into two different camps with different needs:
Nonprofits That Don’t Have Enough Content
These are the groups who have a hard time coming up with material to fill all of the communications channels they think they should be using. What do we put on our website, in our email, on our blog, on Facebook, etc., they ask? How do we keep it all fresh and interesting, without repeating ourselves too much? These groups tend to be the direct service providers who are busy interacting with clients all day long, and seem to have a hard time figuring out how to talk about their work with people who support them, but who aren’t in the trenches day in and day out. Or they work in fields that are pretty specialized, and they don’t understand how to talk to a broader audience.
(I created our free Monthly Nonprofit Writing Prompts to help these nonprofits.)
Nonprofits That Have Too Much Content
On the other hand, you have nonprofits that produce lots and lots of content — perhaps too much. Having enough fresh material to fill up channels isn’t the problem; rather it’s prioritizing and organizing all of that content so that it makes sense to their supporters. They have great material, but with so much content, users of that material often get lost within it and either don’t see the big-picture mission, or can’t find what they are really looking for. They also have trouble with “snack sizing” their communications and end up sending out newsletters that are way too long, for example. These groups tend to be more of the technical assistance and resource providers, advocates, and coalitions.
In the course of consulting with both types of organizations, I’ve been developing a number of tools and resources that I plan to share with you in the coming months.
I’m also trying to apply some of them to my own work here at Nonprofit Marketing Guide — I’ve heard from many of you who appreciate all the great stuff we produce in this blog and on our site, but who are overwhelmed by it all and don’t know where to begin. I hear you, and I’m working on some ways to fix that!
Where do you fall on the not enough content – too much content continuum and what tools would you find helpful as you manage your content marketing?
Share your answers in the comments.
