Newsletter: How to Create a Partnership Swipe File 🗂 ; Audubon Society, Ranchers Partner to Certify Bird-Friendly Beef 🦉; Red Lobster Takes a Stand on Saving One Special Crustacean 🦞
Readers ask me all the time how I gather and track all the posts I share with you each week. Today, I'm sharing my process for creating your own swipe file for corporate partnerships, or any other topic that interests you.
🚨🚨🚨 What is a swipe file and why you need one? A swipe file is a digital place where you keep all the useful things you find online. You should keep a swipe file because we're all finding great tips, ideas, and examples that can be helpful to our work in corporate partnerships. The key is keeping these swipes in a place where you can actually find them when you need them.
Finding Things to Swipe. Most of the things I find for my newsletter I get from 🥁....Yep, you guessed it: other newsletters!
I subscribe to around 100 newsletters. I used to subscribe to 200+, but that got way out of hand! I paired my list down by asking three key questions.
Is this information unique, useful and interesting? Remember, I don't want to share the same old stuff in my newsletter. I'm looking for things to really engage your attention! I kept the best and got rid of the rest.
Am I getting this information somewhere else? I discovered there was a lot of overlap in the newsletters I was reading. They shared many of the same articles. Again, I kept the best and unsubscribed from the rest.
I inventoried the articles in my newsletter. This took some time, but it was so worth it! I started at the beginning of the year and clicked on every link I shared in my newsletter. Next, I created a spreadsheet to plug in the names of the places where I got articles. MediaPost, Twitter, and MarketingProfs were just three of the key places I was finding great content.
Okay, your turn. Where are you finding great content? Are you subscribed to their newsletter? If not, you're probably missing out on some great things for your swipe file.
Where to Keep Your Swipes. Now that you're being deluged with great content, you need a place to store your treasures.
I use a digital bookmarking service called Pocket.
Pocket makes it easy to save things both on your phone and computer because they give you a bookmarklet that sits at the top of your web browser. Whenever you read something that you want to save, you just click on the bookmarklet and it's saved. It takes one second!
But take another second to do one more thing.
Whenever you save something with the bookmarklet you can also TAG it. You'll want to do this because if you're like me you'll be saving lots of stuff - but without a tag you won't be able to find it when you need it.
For example, I have tags for each section of my newsletter (e.g. Partnership Notes, Marketing Your Cause, etc.). This section you're reading is called NOTE FROM JOE. Whenever I find something online that would gives me an idea I tag it NOTE FROM JOE. It works! The idea for this post came from this article. I read this article and thought, "I should write about my process for creating a swipe file!" Save and tag. That was weeks ago.
You can use more than one tag. If you find a great example of a point-of-sale campaign at a supermarket you can tag it POS, ROUND-UP, SUPERMARKET. The more tags you use the more likely you are to find something again when you want it.
As your swipe file grows it will become your very own search engine and you'll visit it before you go to Google. I use it for everything - and not just corporate partnerships.
When I need a book to read, I consult my BOOKS TO READ tag.
We're planning a trip this fall so I'm using the tag FALL TRIP 2022 for any good travel recommendations.
If I'm having an issue with a plant or shrub in my garden, I first check to see if I have a tag for it in Pocket.
Whatever you use for a swipe file - and some people just print out articles and put them in a folder - just remember that a swipe file is a must have for your corporate partnership team. There are too many good ideas out there that can save you time and make you money!
✍️ Partnership Notes
1. Bird-friendly beef!🦉🥩 Audubon Society forges a unique partnership with ranchers to conserve grasslands.
2. Very interesting story on a pro-gun Virginia business owner with five franchised stores who took an anti-gun position with a series of TV ads. The story explains how his customers, the community, and his corporate owners (Midas, Inc.) responded.
3. 12 ways to keep your prospects happy so they become happy customers. #2 is key: Create a personal experience at scale. Your goal is what I call "basic likability."
🤑 Marketing Your Cause
1. I mentioned last week that you should whitelist my email to make sure my newsletter doesn't end up in your spam folder. Some readers wrote back for instructions. Then I found this helpful page from the Content Marketing Institute. Instructions for EVERY email provider!
2. Should you shift your focus from inboxes to mailboxes? National Geographic took it one nose step further and included a scratch and sniff of an extinct flowering tree: the Hibiscadelphus Wilderianus. 🌺
3. You should be on Twitter because that's where the journalists are. One of my favorite authors, David Meerman Scott, shares examples on how to connect with reporters using the hashtags #prrequest, #journorequest, and #HARO.
😎 Cool Jobs in Cause
1. Senior Director of Corporate Engagement, Wildlife Conservation Society, Remote ($62k - $86k)
2. Partnership Marketing Manager, St. Louis Zoo ($55k - $80k)
🧠🍌 Brain Food
1. Should more nonprofits be using swag? “For us, the swag is more valuable in driving membership and engagement.”
2. Red Lobster takes a stand on one special lobster they will not boil to death! 🦞
2. 'Pawternity leave' is a real thing and a few companies are leading the way.
