Newsletter: Pillow Fighting 'Buddy the Elf' Recruits Sponsors for Viral Videos ❄️ ; The Right Content for Each Stage of the Sales Funnel🔻; Is Swearing the Next Hot Marketing Strategy? F— Yeah! 🔥🤬

Per usual, Andy Crestodina over at Orbit Media Studios has written another outstanding post, this one on Formats & The Funnel: How 17 Content Marketing Formats Align with Lead Generation.

Smahht partnership teams understand that they need specific content to move prospects from Awareness ➤ Consideration ➤ Action.

At the top of the funnel is the AWARENESS stage when it's all about getting the attention of your target prospect. Partnership teams can do this with blog posts, social media, curation, and guest posting.

As an expert explains in Andy's post:

“The goal is to be visible to your ideal buyer, so the key is to front-load the beginning of the journey with valuable expert content – and gate as little as possible. If you have expert advice or amazing industry insights, get it out there, and fast.”

For partnership teams, this means presenting yourself as an expert in corporate partnerships...and not just someone who is selling partnerships. You need to be a thought leader, a trusted advisor in this space.

In the middle of the funnel is CONSIDERATION. This second phase is all about staying top-of-mind and engaged with your prospects. Partnership teams can accomplish this with email newsletters, how-to articles, research and virtual and live events. The key here is that when a prospect says "Maybe" or "Not right now" or "Tell me more," you have resources to continue the journey.

At the bottom of the funnel is ACTION. This final phase is all about cultivating serious prospects and converting them into partners. At this stage, partnership teams should rely on testimonials and case studies. These formats allow your prospect to see firsthand how a partnership with your nonprofit helped a business address a specific challenge.

In the hands of a good seller, testimonials and case studies visualize for a prospect how their challenge can be similarly addressed. It's the equivalent of a product trial for a customer.

I'll make one last point on case studies.

If you are a small team with limited time and resources, case studies are your best and most cost-efficient content investment because they can work well both in the middle and at the bottom of the funnel.

What's the content format for your partnership program? Hit reply and let me know!

✍️ Partnership Notes

1. This Boston firefighter raises money for Boston's Children's Hospital by dressing up like Buddy the Elf and challenging people to pillow fights. Now he's selling sponsorships to businesses that want to be featured in his viral videos.

2. You want to ask a board member to introduce you to a prospect. How should you do it? Do you send an email, make call, schedule a Zoom, or ask in person? Here's the answer.

3. This article argues that given the choice between a company-chosen donation to charity vs. a customer-chosen donation to charity, consumers respond better to the latter.

"Businesses can choose where to donate, or they can allow individual shoppers to choose a charity — say, as a portion of each sale. Researchers at the University of Miami and the University of South Carolina conducted multiple experiments to determine which of these systems is most effective...."

🤑 Marketing Your Cause

1. Swearing is fricken hot people! 🤬🔥Mentions of f—, shit and asshole, or related variations, rose 41% on Facebook and 27% on Twitter. I bet Phil Haid and his team at Public, Inc. knew this when they created It's Effing Water.

2. In the spirit of the above post, organic social media reach sucks! Here are four ways you can address the decline. #4 is the key to your success. Don't build your house on rented land. Focus on owned assets, like your webs site and email or SMS.

😎 Cool Jobs in Cause

1. Corporate Brand Partnership Manager, Heifer International, Remote

2. Account Coordinator, Corporate Partnerships, National Park Foundation, Washington, DC, ($50k - $60k)

3. Account Manager - Partnerships, St. Jude Children's Research Hospital, Memphis

4. CSR Market Segment Lead, WizeHive, Philly/Remote

Do you have a partnership position you are trying to fill? Hit reply and share the job posting with me! I'm happy to post it here for FREE.

🧠🍌 Brain Food

1. Any of you interested in Web 3.0 and specifically DAOs (decentralized autonomous organization)? Anyone? Anyone? This is the first DAO for social good I've seen. elfDAO is buying gifts for kids this holiday season. Getting involved will only cost you 0.1 ETH.

2. ESG is not a company's purpose. Nor is DEI, philanthropy, or cause marketing. This is what a company's purpose is.

3. Here are all the major cause awareness dates for 2022.

If you celebrate the 25th, Merry Christmas ya filthy animal!