Content marketing has swept the world by storm (at least the marketing world).
Take a quick look around your favorite websites and pick out the offers they’re pushing to site visitors:
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The changing landscape of content
Yes, content marketing is proving to be a much better marketing tool than traditional outbound marketing tactics like ads, cold calling, and direct mail. It’s more personal, less “sales-y”, and (most of the time) provides actual value.
And yes, it’s gotten easier and easier to actually do this type of marketing with tools, software, and web plugins galore that make it a pinch to upload a PDF and “gate” your content in exchange for a simple e-mail address opt-in.
But your prospects are getting bombarded on a daily basis by offers for mediocre e-books and white papers, and it’s gotten harder for your non-profit to stand out in a crowded marketplace.
You need to offer something of value in order to build your prospect list and grow your membership.
Sharing is Caring
Luckily, non-profits are in a unique position to create and distribute useful content that can engage potential members and donors.
Remember, the first rule of content marketing is to be helpful first. Providing real value to a site visitor earns their trust, which can be nurtured to lead them down a path to becoming a member of your organization.
Non-profits have access to an extraordinary amount of expertise, knowledge, and experience within their volunteer and member bases. Your goal as a non-profit should be to tap into that wealth of information to create content that not only helps your members and donors, but helps professionals within your industry as a whole.
Use that information to help someone, and their membership will follow.
How Two of Our Client Partners Have Done It
- One of AH’s client partners, NADCA, has worked with volunteer leaders to create two industry standards that detail lab-tested processes for cleaning and maintaining the duct systems that their members work on every day. These pieces of content not only position NADCA as the authority in their industry, but provide members and non-members alike with a tool that helps them improve the quality of the work their small businesses perform.
- Another AH client partner, SIM, has been producing its IT Trends industry survey on the motivations, goals, and challenges facing its members, who are made up of high-level IT professionals. By gathering this information and engaging its academic members to help analyze the results, SIM gets a high amount of media reach and provides members a customized snapshot of where their decisions stand compared to other professionals in their field.
These examples show how associations can utilize their members’ knowledge to create tools and resources that add real value to their industry.
Interested in how your non-profit can leverage its expertise to create valuable content that grows your membership? Maybe we can help with a free consultation.
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