How to Crush Your Nonprofit Marketing Goals in 2019 with a Nonprofit Marketing Calendar

I LOVE goal-setting – and then making an action plan to CRUSH my goals – and the New Year is one of the best times to do it!

Getting out brightly colored markers and a new calendar makes me happy, just as when I got my back-to-school supplies as a child! (Yes, I was a nerd.)

No matter when you start, it’s the perfect time to evaluate what you accomplished with your nonprofit marketing in the past few months and to take some time to sharpen your focus. 

Ask yourself:

• Did you start a blog this year but then desert it?
• Did you start tweeting and then get overwhelmed?
• What about that stagnant email newsletter?
• Did you plan on sharing more video but then stopped?
• Is the Board demanding that you raise more money online?

Whether you followed a Nonprofit Marketing Calendar this past year, or you are starting from scratch, it’s never too late to start planning for success.

Here is my step-by-step guide to crushing your nonprofit marketing goals in 2019 (and beyond) by creating – and sticking to – a Nonprofit Marketing Calendar.

Ready to crush your social media marketing in 2019? Make a resolution to take my four-part online course for nonprofits! We’ll show you how to build an engaged audience, how to measure the success of your campaigns, which platform is right for your nonprofit, and more!

1) Get prepared.

Before you begin:

• Book adequate time out to concentrate on this.
• Ideally, leave the office and avoid all outside distractions.
• Take 2-3 hours.
• Find a partner. It is optimal if you don’t do this work alone!
• Get office supplies – sharpies, poster paper, white board, notepads, laptops, chargers, coffee, tea, etc. – make it fun!

2) Evaluate the past year (or even just the past 4-6 months).

Write down answers to these questions:

• What activities worked this year?
• What activities ALMOST worked?
• How could we tweak the ones that didn’t work and improve them for next time?
• How can we make slight changes to ensure better results?
• What do we just want to abandon?
• Write it all down, no idea too small or insignificant.

Examples:

• We ran a #GivingTuesday campaign and raised 75% of our goal.
• We tried an Instagram hashtag contest and engagement was more than we anticipated!
• We attempted to get people to use Facebook Fundraisers for us but it fell flat.

Write down:

• What activities have you been DYING TO TRY?
• What did you not get to work on this year that you wish you could have?
• What was the year like for you overall?
• Were you crazed, overwhelmed, stressed out?
• Did you feel energized, excited, and motivated?

Action Items:

• Choose one marketing activity that you have been wanting to try.
• You don’t have to know how it’s going to happen, you simply have to commit to making it happen.
• You can even add “learn more about mobile giving” or “take webinar on video for nonprofits.”

3) Dream big.

This is where you ask yourself – what would our work look like if we couldn’t fail?

What would a wildly successful year look like?

Take some time to imagine all of the things you would LOVE to accomplish if time, resources, capacity, and other challenges didn’t play a role.

Examples:

• We will have an overwhelming amount of positive engagement on our social media platforms.
• We will be well-known by civic and community leaders who will open doors for us.
• We will be able to fundraise effectively because people know who we are and understand our work.

Action Items:

• Put these big dreams down in writing however it works for you: a paragraph, bullet points, key words, etc.
• No idea too big at this point!

4) Break down your big goals into actionable objectives

Now you take these big goals and break them down into actionable objectives that can be measured and evaluated.

For example, what does “overwhelming engagement” look like in practice? What strategies would you need to implement to get you there?

Big Goal: We will have an overwhelming amount of positive engagement on our social media platforms.

Actionable Objectives:

• Start a Social Media Ambassador Program.
• Create and share more videos.
• Explore using Facebook Live.
• Run more Facebook Ads.
• Participate in Tweet Chats.
• Share better photos on Instagram.

Big Goal: We will be well-known by civic and community leaders who will open doors for us.

Actionable Objectives:

• Create lists on Twitter of people to follow and retweet.
• Tag community leaders in social media posts.
• Start an interview series on our blog.

Big Goal: We will be able to fundraise effectively because people know who we are and understand our work.

Actionable Objectives:

• Launch a 2-week digital storytelling campaign.
• Create an email welcome series for new email subscribers.

5) Actionable objectives then become projects with lists of tasks and timelines.

Writing down a long list of actionable objectives is all well and good – but what tasks do you need to check off in order to make them a reality?

That’s why each actionable objective needs to become a project, broken down into steps required to complete it.

For example, if your actionable objective is to start a Social Media Ambassador Program for your nonprofit, what should you do first? Second? Third?

Tasks: What daily and weekly tasks do we need to carry out to reach this objective?

• Create a Project Plan with the 6 phases of a Social Media Ambassador Program – identify, recruit, ask, train, acknowledge, motivate.
• Create a Timeline:  When will this get done and by whom?
• Considerations: How will this get managed? Who will create consistent content to share with the Ambassadors?
• More: How to Coordinate an Army of Nonprofit Social Media Ambassadors on #GivingTuesday (and beyond)

Actionable objective: Create and share more videos.

Tasks: What daily and weekly tasks do we need to carry out to reach this objective?

• Create a Project Plan for the ideation, creation, and promotion of one video per month (or more).
• Make a list of the tools that you will need, even if you just use your smartphone.
• Timeline:  When will this get done and by whom?
• Considerations: Is there a budget? Will these be professional or DIY?
• More: How to Use Your Smartphone to Make a Donor Thank You Video

Actionable objective: Get more engagement on the Facebook Page.

Tasks: What daily and weekly tasks do we need to carry out to reach this objective?

• Create the Project Plan for the Facebook Page – when will we post, how often, who will post, how will we ensure we post consistently?
• Post more video.
• Showcase more of our great stories.
• Plan and host one Facebook Live per month.
• Boost one post per week.
• Timeline: When will first post be boosted?
• Considerations: What will determine which posts get boosted?
• More: 6 Ways Your Nonprofit Can Quickly Get More Facebook Engagement

Actionable objective: Launch a 2-week digital storytelling campaign.

Tasks: What daily and weekly tasks do we need to carry out to reach this objective?

• Create the Project Plan for the campaign – goal setting, objectives, audience, message, strategies, platforms.
• Create checklist of assets that you have in place and that you need to create.
• Determine a budget.
• Timeline: When are we aiming to launch?
• Considerations: What is the purpose behind this? Will there be a theme behind the stories? What will make people care?
• More: How To Fill Out A Nonprofit Digital Storytelling Calendar

Ready to crush your social media marketing in 2019? Make a resolution to take my four-part online course for nonprofits! We’ll show you how to build an engaged audience, how to measure the success of your campaigns, which platform is right for your nonprofit, and more!

6) Fill in your Nonprofit Marketing Calendar.

As you can see, the more goals you have, the more actionable objectives you will create, which will lead to more projects and more tasks.

This is why I recommend focusing your efforts on one or two overall nonprofit marketing goals every few months to avoid overwhelm and burnout.

The purpose of the Nonprofit Marketing Calendar is to have the rubber of planning meet the road of action – When is everything going to get done? Who is accountable?

And the most important question: How is this all going to get done? 

Before adding all the tasks into your main Nonprofit Marketing Calendar, do the following:

• Fill in holidays, events, days off, staff vacations, non-negotiable time.
• Cause Days: Look at cause days that may make sense to leverage in your marketing campaigns – 2019 Cause Awareness and Giving Day Calendar for Nonprofits

Then take a look at your list of projects and each one of the required tasks.

• Add the tasks into the calendar. If there is not time budgeted into the calendar, it won’t get done!
• Determine the priorities.
• Do not take on too many Projects!

Here is a list of free and low-cost tools for you to create your own Nonprofit Marketing Calendars:  

CoSchedule: https://coschedule.com/editorial-calendar-template

Content Marketing Institute: http://contentmarketinginstitute.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/11/CMI_EditorialCalendar_Template3-2014.xls

CrackerJack Marketing: https://crackerjackmarketing.com/blog/editorial-calendar-continued-blog-calendar-template/

Search Engine Journal: https://www.searchenginejournal.com/marketing-calendar-free-template/217585/?ver=217585X3

There you have it! My step-by-step guide to crushing your nonprofit marketing goals in 2019!

Let me know how you are planning for a productive year in the Nonprofit Social Media Storytelling Facebook Group!