Newsletter: How to Do Cause Marketing with Consumer Packaged Goods Brands 🎁 ; Creative Ideas for Collecting Emails at Events 📧 ; $200 for a Box of Girl Scout Cookies? 🍪
Last week, I left you on a cliffhanger.
I told you about Todd Arrington, historic site manager at the James A. Garfield National Historic Site (JAGNHS) in Mentor, Ohio, and his tremendous work building an audience on Twitter. He's amassed over 25,000 followers!
📼 A bit of a review...
Building an audience - as Todd has done - is a critical first step on the road to success with corporate partnerships...and everything else, BTW.
The nonprofits that are most successful with corporate partnerships are the ones that are laser-focused on building an audience that knows, likes, and trusts them. Building an audience is critical for nonprofits because companies look for audiences to tell them what is good, popular, and profitable in this world. Having an audience makes prospecting for partners easier - if not unnecessary. 🫢
An added benefit is you'll raise more money from individuals and foundations too!
The bottom line is that audience is the tide that lifts all boats. 🌊⛵️
👉🏻👉🏻 This week, I explain how Todd grew his audience, how it's benefited JAGNHS, and the lessons for others who want to use social media to build an audience.
According to Todd, the reason to build an audience for JAGNHS was simple: "We're not Yellowstone, Yosemite, the Grand Canyon, or Gettysburg," he said. "But this site is important, and we want people to visit us."
While his small team at JAGNHS is engaged on Facebook and Instagram, Todd is laser-focused on Twitter.
"It's selfish on my part because I enjoy doing it. It's fun," he said. "I like the interaction with people. I like it as an outlet for me to be silly and kind of have some fun with it."
JAGNHS has been on Twitter for over a decade, but it was just during the past few years that the audience took off. That was about the time when Todd started adding some "personality" to the handle.
"It helps to be peripherally aware of pop culture, whether it's movies or music, or even memes that are going around," said Todd. "The key is to interject James Garfield into that."
It's great that Todd loves using Twitter, and it's impressive he grew the following. But had his efforts led to more visitors, I wondered.
"Visitations have steadily increased, although, like everyone else, we saw a dip during the pandemic," Todd said. "People regularly come into the visitor center and say, 'I'm here because of your Twitter.'"
While JAGNHS isn't a nonprofit, Todd did have some advice for nonprofits about social media.
You have to engage with people. "You can't just slap something up and forget about it. You need to come back to the content and engage with people," Todd said.
You have to be dedicated. "I get up at five o'clock in the morning, and I'm tweeting by five-fifteen," Todd said. "And I'm tweeting until eight or eight-thirty at night. I'm not getting paid to do that. I'm doing it because I enjoy it."
You should consider Twitter. "Twitter has a very long reach and is very well established. You have a great ability to connect with people and to respond and interact with people in real time. You don't get that on Facebook or other channels," Todd said.
For readers in the Ohio area and history buffs everywhere, I hope you'll visit the James A. Garfield National Historic Site. I can't wait to visit! But you won't find Todd there as he's leaving soon for a two-month assignment as acting superintendent of Little Bighorn Battlefield National Monument in Montana.
I pointed out to Todd that Little Bighorn last tweeted four years ago.
"It’ll get a lot more exciting in the weeks to come!" he replied.
✍️ Partnership Notes
1. 8 examples of how to do cause marketing with consumer packaged goods brands.
2. A slide for your pitch deck: "I try to buy products from brands that act responsibly, even if it means spending more."
3. 7 crucial questions to ask prospects throughout the buyer's journey. I like #2: "Is there anything else I can do to help you out right now?" Beats my question: "You wouldn't have an extra box of Raspberry Rally Girl Scout cookies, would ya?
🤑 Marketing Your Cause
1. Three channels that allow you to own your audience: Email, podcasting, and Discord . The latter made a big jump last year. Is anyone out there using Discord to build an audience???
2. Creative ideas for collecting emails at your events. One event "encouraged people to take pictures of an inflatable butt with a QR code on it. From there, people were taken to a page where they could share their information and enter into a sweepstakes."
3. How to connect with your supporters by sending old-school greeting cards for special occasions. This could definitely work for you if it's your jam and you're authentic about it.
😎 Cool Jobs in Cause
1. Manager, Corporate Partnership Development, United States Fund for UNICEF, NYC ($65k - $70k)
2. Philanthropy Officer, Corporate Giving, Houston Grand Opera, Houston, TX
3. Senior Director of National Corporate Partnerships, City Year, Remote ($100k - $115k)
4. Corporate Partnerships Manager, Cybercrime Support Network, Remote ($80k - $90k)
🧠🍌 Brain Food
1. Listen: Pro athletes running charities: "They don't know what they don't know." Psst! Instead of starting their own charities, athletes should partner with an existing nonprofit.
2. $200 a box? Why it got so hard to find Raspberry Rally Girl Scout cookies. Send me a box, and I'll send you a Selfish Giving tee and an empty cookie box.
3. Think you could land a plane in an emergency? This article says no way...but I know I could totally do it. 😏
