March 11, 2025 • 34 mins
Are you feeling uncertain about your nonprofit's digital marketing strategy? Wondering if you should stick with your current plan or pivot to something new? You're not alone. In today's rapidly changing digital landscape, it's crucial to strike a balance between consistency and adaptability.
What you'll learn:
→ The importance of documenting your marketing plan and sharing it with your team
→ How to balance long-term strategies (like SEO) with more nimble approaches (such as Google Ads)
→ Leveraging the $10,000 monthly Google Ad grant for nonprofits
→ Creating content that can be repurposed across multiple channels
→ The value of focusing on quality over quantity in your marketing efforts
Evaluating Your Marketing Efforts
Corey shares his insights on how often you should review your marketing activities:
For ongoing campaigns: Evaluate at least quarterly, potentially monthly for high-volume efforts
For specific events or initiatives: Conduct a retrospective after each occurrence
Consider setting aside 5-10% of your budget for testing new ideas
“It's not about doing three blog posts a month and seven social media posts a week just because somebody said you should. It's about doing things with conviction and purpose.” – Corey Morris
This episode provides practical advice for nonprofit leaders looking to refine their digital marketing approach. You'll learn how to make data-driven decisions, adapt to changes in your organization and industry, and ensure your marketing efforts align with your overall goals.
Ready to take your nonprofit's digital marketing to the next level? Listen to the full episode for more valuable insights and strategies you can implement today.
Want to skip ahead? Here are key takeaways:
05:46 Evaluating Marketing Strategies and Balancing Channels Having data behind your marketing strategies helps you understand what you keep doing and where you pivot. Creating a balance between long-term and more agile strategies can help you balance what you need now while working towards longer term projects.
13:27 Leveraging Google Ad Grants and Content Strategy When utilizing Google Ad Grants, create versatile content that can be used across multiple channels. Understand where your audience is and focus on quality over quantity in marketing efforts.
22:01 Adapting Marketing Strategies to Organizational Changes Adapt marketing strategies to align with changing organizational goals. The START framework emphasizes the need for strategy before tactics. Don't forget about the importance of connecting marketing efforts to organizational outcomes and preparing for unexpected “trigger events.”
30:07 Evaluating Marketing Efforts and Frequency of Review Review your marketing activities quarterly at a minimum, with more frequent reviews for high-volume campaigns. Balance consistent strategies with the flexibility to adapt to new opportunities or challenges.
Corey Morris
Corey is an experienced industry speaker, best-selling author, and the owner/leader of VOLTAGE digital marketing agency.
His new book, The Digital Marketing Success Plan (available on Amazon), published in July 2024 and details why companies need a documented, objective, and accountable digital marketing plan in today's era of unprecedented change in the digital marketing industry. He provides the context for why having a plan is important, real stories, and “how to” content for creating and implementing a plan leveraging his five-step START Planning process.
Learn more at https://voltage.digital/corey-video-mtg
https://www.facebook.com/voltagekc
https://www.linkedin.com/in/coreymorris/
Connect with us on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/the-first-click
Learn more about The First Click: https://thefirstc
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Sami Bedell-Mulhern (00:00):
So having a marketing plan is great, but
doesn't mean that it's going tostay the same through the whole
year. So how do you know what tostart? How do you know to stop?
How do you know when to pivot?And all of the things, and that
is the topic that we aretackling in today's episode,
because it can be reallyconfusing. Something doesn't
work right away. Do you stopdoing it, or do you need to give
(00:21):
it a little bit more timebecause it's a longer term
strategy? What are your shortterm strategies? Your long term
strategies? How do you know howto manage it all and understand
the data? So today, I have CoreyMorris here to join us to talk
about this specific topic. Coreyis an experienced industry
speaker, Best Selling Author andowner, leader of voltage digital
marketing agency. His new book,The digital marketing success
(00:44):
plan, is available on Amazon,and details why companies need a
documented, objective andaccountable digital marketing
plan in today's era ofunprecedented change in the
digital marketing industry, heprovides the context for why
having a plan is important realstories and how to content for
creating and implementing aplan, leveraging his five step
start planning process. So Ithink you're getting a lot of
(01:07):
great tips in this episode forhow to really think about your
marketing strategy overall, andhow to kind of plan for when you
might need to make someadjustments, or when to just
keep on going. Things aren'talways going to go super
smoothly, but you can at leastknow and feel comfortable in
some of the adjustments thatyou're making. So give this
(01:27):
episode a listen and let me knowwhat your biggest takeaway is,
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(02:12):
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You're listening to the digitalmarketing therapy podcast. I'm
your host, Sami Bedell-Mulhern,each month, we dive deep into a
digital marketing or fundraisingstrategy that you can implement
(03:17):
in your organization. Each week,you'll hear from guest experts,
nonprofits and myself on bestpractices, tips and resources to
help you raise more money onlineand reach your organizational
goals.
Hey, friends, join me inwelcoming Corey Morris to the
podcast. Corey, thanks for beinghere today.
Corey Morris (03:36):
Yeah, thanks for having me.
Sami Bedell-Mulhern (03:38):
So we're talking all things digital
marketing today, which, ofcourse, is, you know, my jam,
and I love it, so I'm excitedfor this conversation, but
before we jump into somestrategies, kind of, why? Why do
you love digital marketing somuch, and why do you think it's
such an important tool in ourmarketing strategy
Corey Morris (03:55):
toolbox? Yeah, that's a great question. I could
give you the winding story of mycareer, but I'll hold on to that
for now. But a lot of where weare today is the product of the
constant being change in thedigital marketing industry. Even
going back to before digitalbecame the term, when we were
(04:16):
talking about internet andonline marketing, I was excited
about it early in my career,didn't go to school for it. I
ended up in a ad agency, in aproject management role in the
digital department of atraditional agency that
eventually spun off on its own.And what I learned right away
was the exciting avenues we hadto track and measure and get
(04:41):
instant feedback on what we weredoing compared to some of the
traditional channels. And so hadno idea at that time where that
would take me and the wild rideof all the emerging technology
and all the changes, but I wouldnot, wouldn't necessarily
change. It might change a fewdecisions along the way, but
(05:03):
that was a lot of what drove meinto it and has kept me into it
today.
Sami Bedell-Mulhern (05:08):
I love that. Similarly, I do not have a
degree in marketing either, sowe have that in common, but love
it all the same. So let's justkind of jump into we're as this
episode is being launched. Weare nearing the end of q1 so
hopefully you have beenconsistent with some strategies
that you said you were going todo this year, but kind of where
(05:30):
and why would we want to startmaybe looking in, looking at
what we've been doing and seeingwhat's working like, what you
know? What Is there a place thatyou'd like to start first, as
far as evaluating theeffectiveness of your online and
digital marketing strategies.
Corey Morris (05:46):
Yeah, so, yeah. As this year's flying by, we you
know whether it's it's having anannual plan that's based on a
calendar year, or having onethat you know at the right time
you've set up or whatever it is,no matter how static your plan
is or how agile yourmethodologies are, it's always
(06:08):
important to have built in andintentional touch points for
evaluating performance andpivoting balance is probably the
key word there, because if youdon't have a well documented
plan, and you're too agile andyou're changing your strategy
midstream, it's hard to know ifyou stuck with something long
(06:32):
enough to see the effectivenessof it, or if you've changed in
tactics too many times and youdidn't You're two or three
months in at this point, but areyou going to get to six months
in or nine months in on maybe aone year plan or budget or
investment and realize that youdon't have ROI to show for it?
(06:53):
And the opposite is, we don'thave those checkpoints built in,
and we're just blindly runningthe plan. Is it as effective as
it could be? Are we fully reallytaking advantage of optimizing
and being mindful of all thedisruptions in tech or in our in
our competitors, or even inchanges in our audience and
consumer behavior, let alone theones that we might have in our
(07:16):
organizations, from new productsor updates to brand strategy or
sales goals and initiatives andwhatnot. So balance is a
keyword. So if you feel likeyou're running around and you
haven't really anchored tosomething, then it's probably
time to find some focus and putsome measurables down that in a
(07:38):
plan that you can track againstor vice versa. If you haven't
taken time to take a breath andcome up for air and evaluate
your performance as you roundout the quarter, that's a
perfect time to take a step backand look at things. Yeah, well,
Sami Bedell-Mulhern (07:56):
because I love what you said. You know,
marketing, the online space, ischanging constantly. And also
there's we can get more realtime information, and we also
can't control certain things,like we can't control social
media algorithms. We can'tcontrol Google algorithms. So
there's, like, this kind of giveand take, but I feel like in
nonprofits, we tend to makedecisions based off of a
(08:19):
person's feeling or a person'sfeedback versus the data. And so
I love that you're you'resaying, like, pay attention to
what that is and where you canmove quickly and where you
can't. And I think maybe the oneplace that this could be a
really great example for peoplewould be, for example, a long
term SEO organic strategy versusa Google Ads strategy, where you
(08:44):
might need to be more nimble,where they're both very
intricately. That was a hardword to say, connected, but the
strategy behind them is verydifferent. So maybe, how might
we want to look at if that's anexample like where we might not
want to pivot as quickly in SEO,but we might want to pivot more
quickly in an ad strategy,
Corey Morris (09:03):
there's, there's a whole lot of wisdom in in the
question here and the thingsthat you just touched on, to be
thinking about them. The firstoff, thinking about first you
mentioned, you know, personalor, you know, plans. This is one
of the things that drives menuts, is when a marketing or
(09:24):
digital marketing plan is one inone person's head, even if
there's one person who's has themarketing role and wears all the
hats, it's really dangerous foran organization to have it be in
one person's head. You believecompanies do you want to start
over, especially if you'reinvesting in some channels and
content that take longer, or youhave longer sales cycles to see
(09:44):
it through and or it getspersonal, if it gets questioned,
I love to have plans that aredocumented and that are
objective, and even if it's oneperson who wrote it, if you have
sign off on that plan, then anopportunity. If it needs to
change to say, Okay, time out.You mentioned this new
initiative. Here's the plan.What does it change in terms of
(10:07):
priority or expectations? Andit's not just, you know, my work
or my my thoughts or feelingsabout it versus someone else's,
but getting into the your, yourthe other part of your question,
or the actual question, yeah,having a view where you can see
what the different channels aredoing and contributing to each
other is important. Now thereare definitely challenges with
(10:31):
attribution, and we're losingdata, which is kind of funny,
because attribution was abuzzword 1012, years ago, as we
tried to get it, and then we gotsome cool things, so we could
measure things in differentways. And now privacy laws and a
lot of different thingshappening in the fragmentation
there. We're losing some ofthem, but you just mentioned two
(10:51):
channels, organic and paidsearch, that really drive
traffic from the same sameplace, a search engine results
page, yes, the ads are at thetop, or sometimes at the bottom,
or different types of ads wovenin, whether you're shopping or
whatever your type of businessand intent is. But to get there,
(11:12):
yeah, theoretically, you couldpop up an ad account tomorrow
and be or today and beadvertising, while it might take
a bit with an investment incontent and your technical
infrastructure and building upauthority status to get there
for more competitive terms,organically or through SEO,
(11:32):
they're both in the same place.But what's really interesting is
in many cases, I find that thatcompanies or organizations have
siloed, very siloed, eitherstructure or views or both of
different channels, and some ofthe glue, whether it's social
(11:54):
media, whether it's search, andeven if you're advertising, you
need to Have an investment incontent and quality content, and
a lot of shortcuts have emergedwith AI, and I love AI, and I
love using it and how and theefficiencies I've gained from
it, but I what I love even moreis investing in something one
(12:17):
place and be able to use iteverywhere. And if we're
connecting back to brandstrategy and being consistent
with our brand and sharing ourunique aspects of our brand all
the way through to a lead orconversion or a sale, then
leaning into that and investingin content that's consistent and
(12:38):
we're allowing those channels tosupport each other is great.
Yeah, you may find that overtime, you can dial back some of
your ad spend if organic resultsare picking up, but at the same
time, in many cases, thecomplexity of what you can find
based on how well you canattribute all the traffic
together, or how it's working,or your model, especially if you
(13:00):
have a longer sales cycle orcustomer journey these and how
those channels interact witheach other, and the user
behavior that comes throughthat. So you never want to be
guessing or be six months intoan effort where you're spending
a lot of money, where Google orFacebook will take your money,
whether it's working or not, andto have your you know, and
(13:22):
answer a question about, is itworking or not with I think
when, in many cases, you havethe power to know,
Sami Bedell-Mulhern (13:29):
well, and I will say this until I'm blue in
the face, we will say this overand over again on this podcast,
because nonprofits still don'tpay attention that you get
$10,000 a month from Googlethrough their Google Ad grant.
So you know, yes, Corey ismentioning expense with with
relations to ads, but you know,it doesn't mean you need to run
it yourself. You might want tohire an agency to help you do
(13:50):
that, but it's a great way alsoto quickly learn what people
actually care about with regardsto the content you're creating.
And so I think that's reallycritical. But I love what you
said about simplifying andinvesting in one channel to
really create kind of this longform content piece and then
(14:10):
disseminating it across, becauseyou'll very quickly know my
audience is here. They're nothere. So why am I spending
effort on here? Like, why am Ispending effort on this social
media channel? Because I'mgetting way more comments and
engagement on this because it'ssimilar content that's being
shared, similar messaging that'sbeing shared. It can just help
you with understandingconversions in a situation where
(14:30):
we maybe are losing that thatdata due to privacy policies.
Corey Morris (14:36):
Yeah, first off, Google Ad Grants, yes, I 100%
agree. I've had for nonprofitsand organizations we worked with
where we've started with, youknow, thought we wanted to be
able to go do the full spectrum,a full feature of, you know, a
paid account, but, but it'slike, okay, that's fine. If we
know we have a paid account orwe're going to use it, let's at
(14:58):
least make sure we're doing 10.Testing and learning as much as
possible, and maxing out thefree account alongside it, and
not just taking that forgranted. Yes, it's a little bit
more restrictive, but why wouldyou not take advantage of that?
But when it comes to thedifferent channels, what we're
seeing and so full disclosure,my background earlier in my
career was I was an SEO and camefrom the search side of things
(15:22):
before getting into more broadlydigital strategy and integrating
all the different channels. But,yeah, yeah, social has been more
fragmented from the start, withdifferent networks and others
have emerged, everything fromTiktok to others, and then it's
like, well, which you know, andthen you know, all of those have
kind of disrupted, and it's beendisrupted from the beginning as
(15:46):
as a marketing channel, ordigital marketing channel.
Search was that way, or for along time, but then Google
became the behemoth, and now,you know, we can, we're seeing
the trend of Google, you know,losing some, some, search market
share. Now, yes, we're talkingabout single digit percentage
points. It's not losing itovernight, but the emergence of
(16:11):
AI search functions and otherthings are doing some similar
things in terms of diversifyingthe sources of where people
might find us, a term I've useda lot over the past couple
years, is is be found, quote,unquote, and that's what we
want, whether it's in social,whether it's in search, whether
(16:31):
it's in you know, anythingthat's top of the funnel is that
we want to be found. And eventoward the bottom of the funnel,
if they enter and they're readyto engage with you right away
and convert in some way. That's,you know, we want to be there
where our audience is. Sothere's a new level of going
beyond just some traditionalpersonas. Or, you know what we
(16:54):
thought, you know, what we thinktoday, or what we thought last
year about who our audience is.We have to go further and really
understand where they are and beon the lookout for for some of
that evolving pretty rapidly indifferent niche down
communities, different trafficsources and places they might be
(17:16):
now that feels overwhelming attimes that now it's like like a
Facebook and Google or LinkedIn,all these different sources now
you're telling me there's more,and it's getting even crazier.
Yes, it is, but it also givesyou an opportunity to focus on
quality versus quantity and notnecessarily cast as wide of a
net. So it's going to reallyhelp us, because we're going to
(17:39):
get forced to have morediscipline around thinking about
who we're talking to and why,and giving us a permission to be
more one, one to one, and how wethink about and communicate with
audiences, versus feeling thepressure to be everything to
everyone. Yeah,
Sami Bedell-Mulhern (17:56):
that's so good well. And it leads me to
kind of like, you know, we're asmall company. We choose to be
that way, and so part of that isI'm always kind of connecting
with other people and gettingcreative and learning from other
people. It's part of why I lovedoing this podcast, because
while I'll have people on thatare doing similar work, where
(18:18):
some people might say, aren'tthat your competition? It's
like, but no, but just theconversation sparks creativity
in me and helps me kind of thinkoutside the box and ways that we
can support our clients andthings like that. And so to your
point earlier that you said,don't let the marketing plan
live in the head of one person.I think also when you share that
plan with your team and investin that person communicating and
(18:42):
networking with other marketingprofessionals like you, start to
learn some of those creativeways that you can be more
specific, so you can say, I'mgoing to show up in this way and
do this thing on this oneplatform, and that's going to be
good because we're doing thingsa little bit differently, having
fun with it, instead of beingeverywhere to all people. So I
kind of love that flip in yourmindset of, you know, dare to be
(19:06):
different, dare to do somethingdifferent and make the most of
the channels where your audienceis, as opposed to just show up
everywhere.
Corey Morris (19:14):
Yeah, I'm big on not just doing things for the
sake of doing things, you know,and so I love to challenge
tactics, mindsets or tacticsfirst activities, whether it's
in social whether it's insearch. I've written for, you
know, I write for Search EngineLand and Search Engine Journal.
(19:36):
And I can't think, I can't name,remember the number of times I
mentioned, it's not about, youknow, SEO is not about a
checklist, and social not aboutyour content calendar, but it's
about the what and why behind itand what it produces on the back
end of it, it's not, you know,do three posts, three blog posts
a month, and, you know, sevensocial media posts a week, just
(19:58):
because somebody said you shoulddo that. It's about doing things
with conviction and withpurpose. So I had the
opportunity to write my firstbook, The Digital Marketing
Success Plan. It came out inJuly of 2024, and basically put
together a five step frameworkthat's That's an acronym. It's
called start but intentionally,the first phase of that, or is
(20:22):
strategy and tactics is second,and that is very intentional,
and that seems like maybe abasic thing or a no brainer. But
what I love is the beauty ofgoing through challenging, you
know what you've been doing, thewhat and why, and going through
the exercise with all of thestakeholders together. So
there's conviction around thedecisions we make in the what
(20:44):
and why and what's in the mix,and really getting out on the
table what ROI means. You know,whether it's, you know, for
profit or nonprofit,organizations have similar
challenges when it's the numberof stakeholders, and sometimes
nonprofits can have even morewhere we have, you know, so many
different things, from, youknow, development to advocacy to
(21:08):
whatever it might be for thecause or the purpose of the
organization. And they're allworthwhile, and they all need
fuel and to be funded or to haveengagement. But it you know
whether you're how you'resolving, what your priorities
are, or how you're connecting itto the organization or
businesses outcomes, versus justbeing marketing. KPIs is what
(21:30):
makes the difference in so manydifferent plans. You know, it's
one thing to say, Hey, look atall the engagement we got. But
then, if you can't answer thequestion for whatever
stakeholder might be in the roomof how to move the needle for
us, then you're missing themark. Or if you're just tossing
a report or a dashboard or somemetrics over the fence and
hoping somebody else is going toconnect the dots, it's not going
(21:54):
to be, you know, as effective asit would be if it was connected
to those business ororganizational outcomes. Yeah,
Sami Bedell-Mulhern (22:01):
so good. And I think also what I love is
giving yourself permission thatyour business is going to ebb
and flow as far as the strategygoes. So don't just go into the
year saying, Well, this is whatwe did last year, and it worked.
Doesn't mean that's going towork this year, because you
might be in, you know, maybeyou're running a capital
campaign and all of a sudden youhave a very different funding
process that you're going after,or maybe you're launching new
(22:22):
programs, or maybe this year,you're just, you know,
maintaining status quo, and youjust want to kind of keep brand
awareness like your goals arechanging all the time, so your
strategy should not stay thesame. So I like that, that way
of thinking and pushing yourstakeholders, because, yes, in
the nonprofit world, there are alot of people that have a lot of
opinions about how you arerunning your organization. So by
(22:45):
doing what you're saying, you'regiving yourself the backup to be
able to say, No, this is whywe're not doing this. Or yes,
that's a great idea. That wouldreally fit well, you know, maybe
adding things, adding thissocial media platform, would fit
in really well, because it seemsto make sense. And we already
have this content that we're,you know, like, it's easier to
make those decisions.
Corey Morris (23:04):
Yeah, when you have a defined plan, I kind of
mentioned this a little bitearlier, but when you have a
defined plan, I mean, I lovegoing through this process, you
know, it's strategy, tactics andthen application, which is
making sure you have the assetsyou need, which your website's
the biggest one, that sometimesbecomes an afterthought until
you're already running acampaign, then you realize maybe
it has some deficiencies orchallenges review, which is so
(23:28):
that's the R in the processthat's making sure you can
report on and properly trackeverything all the way to ROI,
not just, you know, some KPIs onthe marketing side of things.
And then the transformationphase is a big, lofty term,
because that's how it all comestogether. And you have it
documented, you lock in theresources you need, and you make
sure that you don't put it onthe shelf two months in because
(23:49):
things got really busy and youwear a lot of hats or there was
a distraction or disruption. Butbecause those disruptions will
come, and so I like to callthose trigger events, sometimes
they're internal. Because, toyour point, a minute ago, you
know, maybe a new program islaunching, maybe a new new thing
is happening in our industry, oran event, or we're going to host
(24:11):
a new event that we didn't havein our plan at the beginning of
the year, or something externalchanges, an opportunity comes
our way, or a social mediaplatform launches, or there's a
big, newsworthy PR event that wecouldn't have accounted for in
our industry or in our in oursphere of influence. And so at
(24:32):
this point, whether it'sinternal or external, that's a
point where you say, time out,even if it's a five minute
questioning of, okay, let's goback to the plan. It's on paper
or on digital paper somewhere.How does this change it? Does it
change priorities? Do we changehow we allocated budget? Do we
need to go research thisaudience or this topic or this
(24:53):
event and factor it into theplan, versus letting us kind of
flow? And go chase that for aminute, and then chase something
else, and then the plan. Youknow, we did the plan for two
months, and then we did some nondocumented version of a plan,
and we're all over the place,and at the end of the year, it's
really hard for us to quantifyour efforts. Yeah, those things
(25:16):
will happen, those distractions,changes, trigger events will
happen all the time. That's theguarantee
Sami Bedell-Mulhern (25:22):
there's a lot of great ideas out there.
And throughout the year, a lotof great ideas will come to you
from your board, from yourstaff, from your learning and
and so I think, you know, weneed to have somebody who's
championing our marketingstrategy that it doesn't just
live within their head, that thewhole team knows. But also, I
(25:42):
think as leaders, we have to bevery aware of these things take
time, and consistency is theimportant piece, right? Because,
like you just said, you can'ttrack anything if you if you
don't have consistency in theactivities that you're doing.
And so how do we kind of fightthat urge? I know the steps, the
steps, the steps in a little bitinto mindset and away from
(26:04):
digital marketing, but how doyou, as you're building and
growing your organization, kindof fight that urge to be like,
Oh my gosh, I love this idea. Ireally want to do it. We
literally have no capacity inour staff time or budget to be
able to do this. But I, youknow, like it's, it's, I feel
like it's easier to add thingsin and be like, we're just going
to do it because it's super cooland we'll figure it out. But
it's harder to then say, but weneed to let this thing, other
(26:26):
thing go in order to make thatwork.
Corey Morris (26:29):
Yeah, that's a great question that hits home
when you're asking mepersonally, because I'm the
worst at this. Well,
Sami Bedell-Mulhern (26:37):
that's why you're the engineer of your
company.
Corey Morris (26:40):
Yeah? So, so over the years, I've moved more, much
more from the operator andintegrator to the visionary, and
so I have to rein in my ownideas and thoughts and or check
myself and go reread parts ofthings I've written to hold
myself personally accountable.But um, chat GPT has become one
(27:03):
of my best friends. And that'seither sad or exciting,
depending on how you look atthat. But in areas where, two
years ago, I was consideringlike a virtual assistant to do
things for me and go do researchor track things down or help me
ideate, it's amazing what I cando now, again, varying opinions
(27:24):
and people's experiences with itand where the world's going, but
I've at least embraced it'shere. I might as well use it,
but that's one thing. When itcomes to research, ideas,
efficiency, I'm not there's alot of trust, but verify there
too. I'm not saying I justblindly trust it, and it does
everything. And in fact, itdoesn't write any of my content.
I originate my content myself.But there's a lot to having
(27:51):
intentional time to test andexperiment built in. So even
whether you're just trying torein in yourself, like I am, or
you have other stakeholders whoyou know are going to bring
ideas to the table, some greatideas, some you might question,
but you're kind of wadingthrough, how do you quantify and
(28:13):
validate some of those things,leaving yourself budget in room
and or resources to test andpermission to test is important.
I'm not saying it needs to belike 50% of it, but if you've
got five, 10% that you can carveout and hold on to for testing,
then you don't have to say no tothat and be to yourself or to
(28:34):
others, and you can go validatethings even further than just
having your plan that's backingyou up when it's documented, and
you have the what and why not inyour head and on on paper.
Sami Bedell-Mulhern (28:47):
That's so good. I love the having a little
bit of your budget to be able totest, and I would add to that
knowing, like, assuming it'sgoing to fail, like, without,
without stress of what theoutcome might be, right? So that
you know that I'm going to testsome things, and if it works out
great, that's awesome. And if itdoesn't, that's okay, like we we
need to figure out what's goingto work for our company. Not so
(29:09):
I love that, and I appreciateyour honesty about your
struggles with but I alsoappreciate your self awareness,
because I think the hardest partis when you're dealing with a
leader who is not self aware, tounderstand that about
themselves, and continues topush and so I think if that's
the situation you find you'rein, then you're find yourself
in. Then going back to whatCorey was saying earlier about
really making sure you could beintentional about your tracking
(29:31):
to support yourself and havingthose conversations and what
marketing activities you do. Soas we wrap this up, we are
almost done with q1 as this isgoing live. How often do you
like to, kind of review yourmarketing activities to see
what's working and what's not?Because we don't want to do it
(29:52):
all. We want to stay on top ofthings, but, you know, we don't
want to make decisions too oftenor change things too often, but
we don't want to just let thingsrun for too long, like you
talked about it. Earlier. So howoften are you and your company
evaluating your efforts and kindof and talking through it as a
team?
Corey Morris (30:07):
Yeah, it really depends on the organization. So
I'm not going to take the cheapway out here and say it depends
and just leave it at that, butit really depends on your
business marketers like to do.If you It depends on the seasons
you operate on, and thecampaigns and initiatives and
timing of that. So if you haveyou know events or campaigns or
(30:30):
different themes or topics thatyou're talking about, you could
almost look at those as littleprojects or microcosms that you
can do a retrospective on beforeyou do the next either the next
one during the year or the nextyear of that, if it's like an
annual event or something, justlike if there's a giving
(30:51):
campaign or a Black Friday oryear end, or whatever it might
be, you can look at those afterand look at them As almost
little projects. But if you'reevaluating ongoing efforts, like
you've got evergreen types ofcampaigns that are running year
round, I would definitely lookat those. Wouldn't let them get
more than quarterly. But ifyou're high volume in terms of
(31:12):
traffic and conversions anddifferent PR and news and
activities and things happeninglike that all the time, you
probably need to get to,potentially monthly. You don't
want to be in a small samplesize where you're looking at
something daily or in a realtime dashboard and you're just
making quick trigger decisionsbased on that, but definitely
(31:33):
quarterly at the longestinterval, but maybe monthly if
you're doing a ton of things, oryou've got a lot of traffic and
activity, and you don't, youknow, a quarter is not soon
enough in terms of the pace ofhow things might be changing or
getting away from you.
Sami Bedell-Mulhern (31:52):
So if you aren't doing this, at least
start quarterly and then kind ofwrap it up from there based off
of the needs. I love that. Okay,well, Corey, such good insights
today. Thank you so much forbeing here and sharing all of
your words of wisdom we are.Yeah, it's so helpful to our
nonprofit listeners. But ifpeople want to check out your
book, if they want to learn moreabout you, how can they do that?
Corey Morris (32:14):
Yeah, so first, thank you for having me. I
appreciate it. Enjoy theconversation. Yeah, to find any
resources. The book is calledthe Digital Marketing Success
Plan. That's that would be along domain name. So the domain
is the dmsp.com you'll find theframework there. We'll be
adding, continuing to addresources there, and it links
(32:36):
over to Amazon, where you canpurchase the book. So feel free
to reach out there for any freeadvice or consultation. There
won't be any sales pitchesattached to it. Or you can also
find my agency, which is calledvoltage at voltage. Dot digital,
if we can be helpful there.
Sami Bedell-Mulhern (32:54):
Love it, and we will have all of that
linked up in the show notes atthefirstclick.net/292, Corey,
thank you so much for being heretoday.
Corey Morris (33:03):
Yeah, thank you.
Sami Bedell-Mulhern (33:05):
Okay, so what did you think? Are you
ready to evaluate your nonprofitmarketing strategies and really
make sure that you're doing whatyou need to be doing, and
working towards hitting thosegoals and knowing that the
strategies that you'reimplementing are helping you get
there again? Don't forget thatyou can find all the resources
in show notes atthefirstclick.net/292, I can't
(33:26):
believe we're getting so closeto our 300th episode. We've been
working hard on it. It's goingto be a good one. But for now,
please make sure you subscribewherever you listen, so you
don't miss out on a singleepisode. We've already had one
bonus episode. Who knows ifthere's more coming, but if you
want check out that bonusepisode that I did with Patrick
Kirby, and you can learn a lotmore about why we think
(33:48):
community is so important, andwhy do good university could be
the place for you as you'restarting to grow in your career,
or just want more strategies forfundraising better and having
better donor retention and justall the things that you're
struggling with as a nonprofitfundraiser, we are here for you.
We hear you, we get you. Enoughsaid, so subscribe for every
(34:11):
listen, and I can't wait to seeyou in the next episode.
So having a marketing plan is great, but
doesn't mean that it's going tostay the same through the whole
year. So how do you know what tostart? How do you know to stop?
How do you know when to pivot?And all of the things, and that
is the topic that we aretackling in today's episode,
because it can be reallyconfusing. Something doesn't
work right away. Do you stopdoing it, or do you need to give
(00:21):
it a little bit more timebecause it's a longer term
strategy? What are your shortterm strategies? Your long term
strategies? How do you know howto manage it all and understand
the data? So today, I have CoreyMorris here to join us to talk
about this specific topic. Coreyis an experienced industry
speaker, Best Selling Author andowner, leader of voltage digital
marketing agency. His new book,The digital marketing success
(00:44):
plan, is available on Amazon,and details why companies need a
documented, objective andaccountable digital marketing
plan in today's era ofunprecedented change in the
digital marketing industry, heprovides the context for why
having a plan is important realstories and how to content for
creating and implementing aplan, leveraging his five step
start planning process. So Ithink you're getting a lot of
(01:07):
great tips in this episode forhow to really think about your
marketing strategy overall, andhow to kind of plan for when you
might need to make someadjustments, or when to just
keep on going. Things aren'talways going to go super
smoothly, but you can at leastknow and feel comfortable in
some of the adjustments thatyou're making. So give this
(01:27):
episode a listen and let me knowwhat your biggest takeaway is,
before we get into it, I wantedto bring to you a new
opportunity with do gooduniversity. This is founded by
my BFF partner in crime, PatrickKirby, so we started a nonprofit
boot camp together a few yearsago. We've now merged with his
(01:48):
existing platform called do gooduniversity, which is the go to
platform for nonprofitorganizations to get access to
on demand and in person, live,sorry, virtual live, Q and A's
every single week, there'strainings on board, governance,
on grant writing, on marketingfrom yours truly. There's also
Dei, there's also HR. I mean,there's so many different
(02:12):
resources and trainings in heregeared specifically towards you
as a non profit leader and a nonprofit fundraiser. We also go
live every single week, Patrickand myself to answer your
questions and to help you keepmoving forward. So I would love
for you to come check out thecommunity with two weeks free,
and come to some live Q and A'sand kind of see what it's all
(02:33):
about. Check out the back endand see what's there. It's only
$50 a month after that. Now goto thefirstclick.net/d, g, the
letter u so D as in dog, G as ingoofy, U as an umbrella, I don't
know, but thefirstclick.net/dgu,you'll be able to check out all
(02:54):
the information about do gooduniversity and check it out with
your free two week trial. I hopeto see you on an upcoming
workshop. For now, let's getinto the episode.
You're listening to the digitalmarketing therapy podcast. I'm
your host, Sami Bedell-Mulhern,each month, we dive deep into a
digital marketing or fundraisingstrategy that you can implement
(03:17):
in your organization. Each week,you'll hear from guest experts,
nonprofits and myself on bestpractices, tips and resources to
help you raise more money onlineand reach your organizational
goals.
Hey, friends, join me inwelcoming Corey Morris to the
podcast. Corey, thanks for beinghere today.
Corey Morris (03:36):
Yeah, thanks for having me.
Sami Bedell-Mulhern (03:38):
So we're talking all things digital
marketing today, which, ofcourse, is, you know, my jam,
and I love it, so I'm excitedfor this conversation, but
before we jump into somestrategies, kind of, why? Why do
you love digital marketing somuch, and why do you think it's
such an important tool in ourmarketing strategy
Corey Morris (03:55):
toolbox? Yeah, that's a great question. I could
give you the winding story of mycareer, but I'll hold on to that
for now. But a lot of where weare today is the product of the
constant being change in thedigital marketing industry. Even
going back to before digitalbecame the term, when we were
(04:16):
talking about internet andonline marketing, I was excited
about it early in my career,didn't go to school for it. I
ended up in a ad agency, in aproject management role in the
digital department of atraditional agency that
eventually spun off on its own.And what I learned right away
was the exciting avenues we hadto track and measure and get
(04:41):
instant feedback on what we weredoing compared to some of the
traditional channels. And so hadno idea at that time where that
would take me and the wild rideof all the emerging technology
and all the changes, but I wouldnot, wouldn't necessarily
change. It might change a fewdecisions along the way, but
(05:03):
that was a lot of what drove meinto it and has kept me into it
today.
Sami Bedell-Mulhern (05:08):
I love that. Similarly, I do not have a
degree in marketing either, sowe have that in common, but love
it all the same. So let's justkind of jump into we're as this
episode is being launched. Weare nearing the end of q1 so
hopefully you have beenconsistent with some strategies
that you said you were going todo this year, but kind of where
(05:30):
and why would we want to startmaybe looking in, looking at
what we've been doing and seeingwhat's working like, what you
know? What Is there a place thatyou'd like to start first, as
far as evaluating theeffectiveness of your online and
digital marketing strategies.
Corey Morris (05:46):
Yeah, so, yeah. As this year's flying by, we you
know whether it's it's having anannual plan that's based on a
calendar year, or having onethat you know at the right time
you've set up or whatever it is,no matter how static your plan
is or how agile yourmethodologies are, it's always
(06:08):
important to have built in andintentional touch points for
evaluating performance andpivoting balance is probably the
key word there, because if youdon't have a well documented
plan, and you're too agile andyou're changing your strategy
midstream, it's hard to know ifyou stuck with something long
(06:32):
enough to see the effectivenessof it, or if you've changed in
tactics too many times and youdidn't You're two or three
months in at this point, but areyou going to get to six months
in or nine months in on maybe aone year plan or budget or
investment and realize that youdon't have ROI to show for it?
(06:53):
And the opposite is, we don'thave those checkpoints built in,
and we're just blindly runningthe plan. Is it as effective as
it could be? Are we fully reallytaking advantage of optimizing
and being mindful of all thedisruptions in tech or in our in
our competitors, or even inchanges in our audience and
consumer behavior, let alone theones that we might have in our
(07:16):
organizations, from new productsor updates to brand strategy or
sales goals and initiatives andwhatnot. So balance is a
keyword. So if you feel likeyou're running around and you
haven't really anchored tosomething, then it's probably
time to find some focus and putsome measurables down that in a
(07:38):
plan that you can track againstor vice versa. If you haven't
taken time to take a breath andcome up for air and evaluate
your performance as you roundout the quarter, that's a
perfect time to take a step backand look at things. Yeah, well,
Sami Bedell-Mulhern (07:56):
because I love what you said. You know,
marketing, the online space, ischanging constantly. And also
there's we can get more realtime information, and we also
can't control certain things,like we can't control social
media algorithms. We can'tcontrol Google algorithms. So
there's, like, this kind of giveand take, but I feel like in
nonprofits, we tend to makedecisions based off of a
(08:19):
person's feeling or a person'sfeedback versus the data. And so
I love that you're you'resaying, like, pay attention to
what that is and where you canmove quickly and where you
can't. And I think maybe the oneplace that this could be a
really great example for peoplewould be, for example, a long
term SEO organic strategy versusa Google Ads strategy, where you
(08:44):
might need to be more nimble,where they're both very
intricately. That was a hardword to say, connected, but the
strategy behind them is verydifferent. So maybe, how might
we want to look at if that's anexample like where we might not
want to pivot as quickly in SEO,but we might want to pivot more
quickly in an ad strategy,
Corey Morris (09:03):
there's, there's a whole lot of wisdom in in the
question here and the thingsthat you just touched on, to be
thinking about them. The firstoff, thinking about first you
mentioned, you know, personalor, you know, plans. This is one
of the things that drives menuts, is when a marketing or
(09:24):
digital marketing plan is one inone person's head, even if
there's one person who's has themarketing role and wears all the
hats, it's really dangerous foran organization to have it be in
one person's head. You believecompanies do you want to start
over, especially if you'reinvesting in some channels and
content that take longer, or youhave longer sales cycles to see
(09:44):
it through and or it getspersonal, if it gets questioned,
I love to have plans that aredocumented and that are
objective, and even if it's oneperson who wrote it, if you have
sign off on that plan, then anopportunity. If it needs to
change to say, Okay, time out.You mentioned this new
initiative. Here's the plan.What does it change in terms of
(10:07):
priority or expectations? Andit's not just, you know, my work
or my my thoughts or feelingsabout it versus someone else's,
but getting into the your, yourthe other part of your question,
or the actual question, yeah,having a view where you can see
what the different channels aredoing and contributing to each
other is important. Now thereare definitely challenges with
(10:31):
attribution, and we're losingdata, which is kind of funny,
because attribution was abuzzword 1012, years ago, as we
tried to get it, and then we gotsome cool things, so we could
measure things in differentways. And now privacy laws and a
lot of different thingshappening in the fragmentation
there. We're losing some ofthem, but you just mentioned two
(10:51):
channels, organic and paidsearch, that really drive
traffic from the same sameplace, a search engine results
page, yes, the ads are at thetop, or sometimes at the bottom,
or different types of ads wovenin, whether you're shopping or
whatever your type of businessand intent is. But to get there,
(11:12):
yeah, theoretically, you couldpop up an ad account tomorrow
and be or today and beadvertising, while it might take
a bit with an investment incontent and your technical
infrastructure and building upauthority status to get there
for more competitive terms,organically or through SEO,
(11:32):
they're both in the same place.But what's really interesting is
in many cases, I find that thatcompanies or organizations have
siloed, very siloed, eitherstructure or views or both of
different channels, and some ofthe glue, whether it's social
(11:54):
media, whether it's search, andeven if you're advertising, you
need to Have an investment incontent and quality content, and
a lot of shortcuts have emergedwith AI, and I love AI, and I
love using it and how and theefficiencies I've gained from
it, but I what I love even moreis investing in something one
(12:17):
place and be able to use iteverywhere. And if we're
connecting back to brandstrategy and being consistent
with our brand and sharing ourunique aspects of our brand all
the way through to a lead orconversion or a sale, then
leaning into that and investingin content that's consistent and
(12:38):
we're allowing those channels tosupport each other is great.
Yeah, you may find that overtime, you can dial back some of
your ad spend if organic resultsare picking up, but at the same
time, in many cases, thecomplexity of what you can find
based on how well you canattribute all the traffic
together, or how it's working,or your model, especially if you
(13:00):
have a longer sales cycle orcustomer journey these and how
those channels interact witheach other, and the user
behavior that comes throughthat. So you never want to be
guessing or be six months intoan effort where you're spending
a lot of money, where Google orFacebook will take your money,
whether it's working or not, andto have your you know, and
(13:22):
answer a question about, is itworking or not with I think
when, in many cases, you havethe power to know,
Sami Bedell-Mulhern (13:29):
well, and I will say this until I'm blue in
the face, we will say this overand over again on this podcast,
because nonprofits still don'tpay attention that you get
$10,000 a month from Googlethrough their Google Ad grant.
So you know, yes, Corey ismentioning expense with with
relations to ads, but you know,it doesn't mean you need to run
it yourself. You might want tohire an agency to help you do
(13:50):
that, but it's a great way alsoto quickly learn what people
actually care about with regardsto the content you're creating.
And so I think that's reallycritical. But I love what you
said about simplifying andinvesting in one channel to
really create kind of this longform content piece and then
(14:10):
disseminating it across, becauseyou'll very quickly know my
audience is here. They're nothere. So why am I spending
effort on here? Like, why am Ispending effort on this social
media channel? Because I'mgetting way more comments and
engagement on this because it'ssimilar content that's being
shared, similar messaging that'sbeing shared. It can just help
you with understandingconversions in a situation where
(14:30):
we maybe are losing that thatdata due to privacy policies.
Corey Morris (14:36):
Yeah, first off, Google Ad Grants, yes, I 100%
agree. I've had for nonprofitsand organizations we worked with
where we've started with, youknow, thought we wanted to be
able to go do the full spectrum,a full feature of, you know, a
paid account, but, but it'slike, okay, that's fine. If we
know we have a paid account orwe're going to use it, let's at
(14:58):
least make sure we're doing 10.Testing and learning as much as
possible, and maxing out thefree account alongside it, and
not just taking that forgranted. Yes, it's a little bit
more restrictive, but why wouldyou not take advantage of that?
But when it comes to thedifferent channels, what we're
seeing and so full disclosure,my background earlier in my
career was I was an SEO and camefrom the search side of things
(15:22):
before getting into more broadlydigital strategy and integrating
all the different channels. But,yeah, yeah, social has been more
fragmented from the start, withdifferent networks and others
have emerged, everything fromTiktok to others, and then it's
like, well, which you know, andthen you know, all of those have
kind of disrupted, and it's beendisrupted from the beginning as
(15:46):
as a marketing channel, ordigital marketing channel.
Search was that way, or for along time, but then Google
became the behemoth, and now,you know, we can, we're seeing
the trend of Google, you know,losing some, some, search market
share. Now, yes, we're talkingabout single digit percentage
points. It's not losing itovernight, but the emergence of
(16:11):
AI search functions and otherthings are doing some similar
things in terms of diversifyingthe sources of where people
might find us, a term I've useda lot over the past couple
years, is is be found, quote,unquote, and that's what we
want, whether it's in social,whether it's in search, whether
(16:31):
it's in you know, anythingthat's top of the funnel is that
we want to be found. And eventoward the bottom of the funnel,
if they enter and they're readyto engage with you right away
and convert in some way. That's,you know, we want to be there
where our audience is. Sothere's a new level of going
beyond just some traditionalpersonas. Or, you know what we
(16:54):
thought, you know, what we thinktoday, or what we thought last
year about who our audience is.We have to go further and really
understand where they are and beon the lookout for for some of
that evolving pretty rapidly indifferent niche down
communities, different trafficsources and places they might be
(17:16):
now that feels overwhelming attimes that now it's like like a
Facebook and Google or LinkedIn,all these different sources now
you're telling me there's more,and it's getting even crazier.
Yes, it is, but it also givesyou an opportunity to focus on
quality versus quantity and notnecessarily cast as wide of a
net. So it's going to reallyhelp us, because we're going to
(17:39):
get forced to have morediscipline around thinking about
who we're talking to and why,and giving us a permission to be
more one, one to one, and how wethink about and communicate with
audiences, versus feeling thepressure to be everything to
everyone. Yeah,
Sami Bedell-Mulhern (17:56):
that's so good well. And it leads me to
kind of like, you know, we're asmall company. We choose to be
that way, and so part of that isI'm always kind of connecting
with other people and gettingcreative and learning from other
people. It's part of why I lovedoing this podcast, because
while I'll have people on thatare doing similar work, where
(18:18):
some people might say, aren'tthat your competition? It's
like, but no, but just theconversation sparks creativity
in me and helps me kind of thinkoutside the box and ways that we
can support our clients andthings like that. And so to your
point earlier that you said,don't let the marketing plan
live in the head of one person.I think also when you share that
plan with your team and investin that person communicating and
(18:42):
networking with other marketingprofessionals like you, start to
learn some of those creativeways that you can be more
specific, so you can say, I'mgoing to show up in this way and
do this thing on this oneplatform, and that's going to be
good because we're doing thingsa little bit differently, having
fun with it, instead of beingeverywhere to all people. So I
kind of love that flip in yourmindset of, you know, dare to be
(19:06):
different, dare to do somethingdifferent and make the most of
the channels where your audienceis, as opposed to just show up
everywhere.
Corey Morris (19:14):
Yeah, I'm big on not just doing things for the
sake of doing things, you know,and so I love to challenge
tactics, mindsets or tacticsfirst activities, whether it's
in social whether it's insearch. I've written for, you
know, I write for Search EngineLand and Search Engine Journal.
(19:36):
And I can't think, I can't name,remember the number of times I
mentioned, it's not about, youknow, SEO is not about a
checklist, and social not aboutyour content calendar, but it's
about the what and why behind itand what it produces on the back
end of it, it's not, you know,do three posts, three blog posts
a month, and, you know, sevensocial media posts a week, just
(19:58):
because somebody said you shoulddo that. It's about doing things
with conviction and withpurpose. So I had the
opportunity to write my firstbook, The Digital Marketing
Success Plan. It came out inJuly of 2024, and basically put
together a five step frameworkthat's That's an acronym. It's
called start but intentionally,the first phase of that, or is
(20:22):
strategy and tactics is second,and that is very intentional,
and that seems like maybe abasic thing or a no brainer. But
what I love is the beauty ofgoing through challenging, you
know what you've been doing, thewhat and why, and going through
the exercise with all of thestakeholders together. So
there's conviction around thedecisions we make in the what
(20:44):
and why and what's in the mix,and really getting out on the
table what ROI means. You know,whether it's, you know, for
profit or nonprofit,organizations have similar
challenges when it's the numberof stakeholders, and sometimes
nonprofits can have even morewhere we have, you know, so many
different things, from, youknow, development to advocacy to
(21:08):
whatever it might be for thecause or the purpose of the
organization. And they're allworthwhile, and they all need
fuel and to be funded or to haveengagement. But it you know
whether you're how you'resolving, what your priorities
are, or how you're connecting itto the organization or
businesses outcomes, versus justbeing marketing. KPIs is what
(21:30):
makes the difference in so manydifferent plans. You know, it's
one thing to say, Hey, look atall the engagement we got. But
then, if you can't answer thequestion for whatever
stakeholder might be in the roomof how to move the needle for
us, then you're missing themark. Or if you're just tossing
a report or a dashboard or somemetrics over the fence and
hoping somebody else is going toconnect the dots, it's not going
(21:54):
to be, you know, as effective asit would be if it was connected
to those business ororganizational outcomes. Yeah,
Sami Bedell-Mulhern (22:01):
so good. And I think also what I love is
giving yourself permission thatyour business is going to ebb
and flow as far as the strategygoes. So don't just go into the
year saying, Well, this is whatwe did last year, and it worked.
Doesn't mean that's going towork this year, because you
might be in, you know, maybeyou're running a capital
campaign and all of a sudden youhave a very different funding
process that you're going after,or maybe you're launching new
(22:22):
programs, or maybe this year,you're just, you know,
maintaining status quo, and youjust want to kind of keep brand
awareness like your goals arechanging all the time, so your
strategy should not stay thesame. So I like that, that way
of thinking and pushing yourstakeholders, because, yes, in
the nonprofit world, there are alot of people that have a lot of
opinions about how you arerunning your organization. So by
(22:45):
doing what you're saying, you'regiving yourself the backup to be
able to say, No, this is whywe're not doing this. Or yes,
that's a great idea. That wouldreally fit well, you know, maybe
adding things, adding thissocial media platform, would fit
in really well, because it seemsto make sense. And we already
have this content that we're,you know, like, it's easier to
make those decisions.
Corey Morris (23:04):
Yeah, when you have a defined plan, I kind of
mentioned this a little bitearlier, but when you have a
defined plan, I mean, I lovegoing through this process, you
know, it's strategy, tactics andthen application, which is
making sure you have the assetsyou need, which your website's
the biggest one, that sometimesbecomes an afterthought until
you're already running acampaign, then you realize maybe
it has some deficiencies orchallenges review, which is so
(23:28):
that's the R in the processthat's making sure you can
report on and properly trackeverything all the way to ROI,
not just, you know, some KPIs onthe marketing side of things.
And then the transformationphase is a big, lofty term,
because that's how it all comestogether. And you have it
documented, you lock in theresources you need, and you make
sure that you don't put it onthe shelf two months in because
(23:49):
things got really busy and youwear a lot of hats or there was
a distraction or disruption. Butbecause those disruptions will
come, and so I like to callthose trigger events, sometimes
they're internal. Because, toyour point, a minute ago, you
know, maybe a new program islaunching, maybe a new new thing
is happening in our industry, oran event, or we're going to host
(24:11):
a new event that we didn't havein our plan at the beginning of
the year, or something externalchanges, an opportunity comes
our way, or a social mediaplatform launches, or there's a
big, newsworthy PR event that wecouldn't have accounted for in
our industry or in our in oursphere of influence. And so at
(24:32):
this point, whether it'sinternal or external, that's a
point where you say, time out,even if it's a five minute
questioning of, okay, let's goback to the plan. It's on paper
or on digital paper somewhere.How does this change it? Does it
change priorities? Do we changehow we allocated budget? Do we
need to go research thisaudience or this topic or this
(24:53):
event and factor it into theplan, versus letting us kind of
flow? And go chase that for aminute, and then chase something
else, and then the plan. Youknow, we did the plan for two
months, and then we did some nondocumented version of a plan,
and we're all over the place,and at the end of the year, it's
really hard for us to quantifyour efforts. Yeah, those things
(25:16):
will happen, those distractions,changes, trigger events will
happen all the time. That's theguarantee
Sami Bedell-Mulhern (25:22):
there's a lot of great ideas out there.
And throughout the year, a lotof great ideas will come to you
from your board, from yourstaff, from your learning and
and so I think, you know, weneed to have somebody who's
championing our marketingstrategy that it doesn't just
live within their head, that thewhole team knows. But also, I
(25:42):
think as leaders, we have to bevery aware of these things take
time, and consistency is theimportant piece, right? Because,
like you just said, you can'ttrack anything if you if you
don't have consistency in theactivities that you're doing.
And so how do we kind of fightthat urge? I know the steps, the
steps, the steps in a little bitinto mindset and away from
(26:04):
digital marketing, but how doyou, as you're building and
growing your organization, kindof fight that urge to be like,
Oh my gosh, I love this idea. Ireally want to do it. We
literally have no capacity inour staff time or budget to be
able to do this. But I, youknow, like it's, it's, I feel
like it's easier to add thingsin and be like, we're just going
to do it because it's super cooland we'll figure it out. But
it's harder to then say, but weneed to let this thing, other
(26:26):
thing go in order to make thatwork.
Corey Morris (26:29):
Yeah, that's a great question that hits home
when you're asking mepersonally, because I'm the
worst at this. Well,
Sami Bedell-Mulhern (26:37):
that's why you're the engineer of your
company.
Corey Morris (26:40):
Yeah? So, so over the years, I've moved more, much
more from the operator andintegrator to the visionary, and
so I have to rein in my ownideas and thoughts and or check
myself and go reread parts ofthings I've written to hold
myself personally accountable.But um, chat GPT has become one
(27:03):
of my best friends. And that'seither sad or exciting,
depending on how you look atthat. But in areas where, two
years ago, I was consideringlike a virtual assistant to do
things for me and go do researchor track things down or help me
ideate, it's amazing what I cando now, again, varying opinions
(27:24):
and people's experiences with itand where the world's going, but
I've at least embraced it'shere. I might as well use it,
but that's one thing. When itcomes to research, ideas,
efficiency, I'm not there's alot of trust, but verify there
too. I'm not saying I justblindly trust it, and it does
everything. And in fact, itdoesn't write any of my content.
I originate my content myself.But there's a lot to having
(27:51):
intentional time to test andexperiment built in. So even
whether you're just trying torein in yourself, like I am, or
you have other stakeholders whoyou know are going to bring
ideas to the table, some greatideas, some you might question,
but you're kind of wadingthrough, how do you quantify and
(28:13):
validate some of those things,leaving yourself budget in room
and or resources to test andpermission to test is important.
I'm not saying it needs to belike 50% of it, but if you've
got five, 10% that you can carveout and hold on to for testing,
then you don't have to say no tothat and be to yourself or to
(28:34):
others, and you can go validatethings even further than just
having your plan that's backingyou up when it's documented, and
you have the what and why not inyour head and on on paper.
Sami Bedell-Mulhern (28:47):
That's so good. I love the having a little
bit of your budget to be able totest, and I would add to that
knowing, like, assuming it'sgoing to fail, like, without,
without stress of what theoutcome might be, right? So that
you know that I'm going to testsome things, and if it works out
great, that's awesome. And if itdoesn't, that's okay, like we we
need to figure out what's goingto work for our company. Not so
(29:09):
I love that, and I appreciateyour honesty about your
struggles with but I alsoappreciate your self awareness,
because I think the hardest partis when you're dealing with a
leader who is not self aware, tounderstand that about
themselves, and continues topush and so I think if that's
the situation you find you'rein, then you're find yourself
in. Then going back to whatCorey was saying earlier about
really making sure you could beintentional about your tracking
(29:31):
to support yourself and havingthose conversations and what
marketing activities you do. Soas we wrap this up, we are
almost done with q1 as this isgoing live. How often do you
like to, kind of review yourmarketing activities to see
what's working and what's not?Because we don't want to do it
(29:52):
all. We want to stay on top ofthings, but, you know, we don't
want to make decisions too oftenor change things too often, but
we don't want to just let thingsrun for too long, like you
talked about it. Earlier. So howoften are you and your company
evaluating your efforts and kindof and talking through it as a
team?
Corey Morris (30:07):
Yeah, it really depends on the organization. So
I'm not going to take the cheapway out here and say it depends
and just leave it at that, butit really depends on your
business marketers like to do.If you It depends on the seasons
you operate on, and thecampaigns and initiatives and
timing of that. So if you haveyou know events or campaigns or
(30:30):
different themes or topics thatyou're talking about, you could
almost look at those as littleprojects or microcosms that you
can do a retrospective on beforeyou do the next either the next
one during the year or the nextyear of that, if it's like an
annual event or something, justlike if there's a giving
(30:51):
campaign or a Black Friday oryear end, or whatever it might
be, you can look at those afterand look at them As almost
little projects. But if you'reevaluating ongoing efforts, like
you've got evergreen types ofcampaigns that are running year
round, I would definitely lookat those. Wouldn't let them get
more than quarterly. But ifyou're high volume in terms of
(31:12):
traffic and conversions anddifferent PR and news and
activities and things happeninglike that all the time, you
probably need to get to,potentially monthly. You don't
want to be in a small samplesize where you're looking at
something daily or in a realtime dashboard and you're just
making quick trigger decisionsbased on that, but definitely
(31:33):
quarterly at the longestinterval, but maybe monthly if
you're doing a ton of things, oryou've got a lot of traffic and
activity, and you don't, youknow, a quarter is not soon
enough in terms of the pace ofhow things might be changing or
getting away from you.
Sami Bedell-Mulhern (31:52):
So if you aren't doing this, at least
start quarterly and then kind ofwrap it up from there based off
of the needs. I love that. Okay,well, Corey, such good insights
today. Thank you so much forbeing here and sharing all of
your words of wisdom we are.Yeah, it's so helpful to our
nonprofit listeners. But ifpeople want to check out your
book, if they want to learn moreabout you, how can they do that?
Corey Morris (32:14):
Yeah, so first, thank you for having me. I
appreciate it. Enjoy theconversation. Yeah, to find any
resources. The book is calledthe Digital Marketing Success
Plan. That's that would be along domain name. So the domain
is the dmsp.com you'll find theframework there. We'll be
adding, continuing to addresources there, and it links
(32:36):
over to Amazon, where you canpurchase the book. So feel free
to reach out there for any freeadvice or consultation. There
won't be any sales pitchesattached to it. Or you can also
find my agency, which is calledvoltage at voltage. Dot digital,
if we can be helpful there.
Sami Bedell-Mulhern (32:54):
Love it, and we will have all of that
linked up in the show notes atthefirstclick.net/292, Corey,
thank you so much for being heretoday.
Corey Morris (33:03):
Yeah, thank you.
Sami Bedell-Mulhern (33:05):
Okay, so what did you think? Are you
ready to evaluate your nonprofitmarketing strategies and really
make sure that you're doing whatyou need to be doing, and
working towards hitting thosegoals and knowing that the
strategies that you'reimplementing are helping you get
there again? Don't forget thatyou can find all the resources
in show notes atthefirstclick.net/292, I can't
(33:26):
believe we're getting so closeto our 300th episode. We've been
working hard on it. It's goingto be a good one. But for now,
please make sure you subscribewherever you listen, so you
don't miss out on a singleepisode. We've already had one
bonus episode. Who knows ifthere's more coming, but if you
want check out that bonusepisode that I did with Patrick
Kirby, and you can learn a lotmore about why we think
(33:48):
community is so important, andwhy do good university could be
the place for you as you'restarting to grow in your career,
or just want more strategies forfundraising better and having
better donor retention and justall the things that you're
struggling with as a nonprofitfundraiser, we are here for you.
We hear you, we get you. Enoughsaid, so subscribe for every
(34:11):
listen, and I can't wait to seeyou in the next episode.
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