Marketing Archives - Dodge Digital Marketing, LLC

Improve Your Content Marketing ROI, Don’t Let Blog Posts Die in the Archives

Amanda Dodge Content Creation, Marketing August 5, 2020

One of the biggest challenges the content marketers face is quantifying their return on investment (ROI). As the costs of creating content increase, brands have to justify spending more for an article that a handful of people will read and likely forget. Is the cost worth the expense?

Plenty of SEO professionals will explain that quality content is an important part of ranking well and that top-notch organic rankings take time. You’re not supposed to look at each individual article, but rather the upward trend over several months.

However, it is possible to increase your content marketing ROI in the short run. You just need to stop forgetting about what you wrote after you hit the publish button. Your content can provide as much value as you want if you keep putting it to work. This guide will tell you how.

Repost Content Without Alienating Your Audiences

If you look at any of your blog post analytics, you will likely see a spike in traffic from the day you published it, followed by a few small bumps in the months following. Unless that page ranks well in the SERPs, you’re not going to drive a ton of traffic unless you keep sharing it online and promoting it in your other marketing channels.

This creates a problem for marketers. They want to repost content on social media, but any fans that follow your page closely will be turned off by the stale content.

“You know that guy who tells the same story at every party, and everyone tunes out as soon as he starts talking?” Michelle C y ca asks at Hootsuite. “That’s how your audience feels when you repeat content—like they’d rather be elsewhere.”

The key is to be strategic about it. For example, if a food blogger curates a list of the best donut places in town, they can easily annoy customers by posting the same article four times over the course of three weeks. This is the type of reposting that customers hate and expert social media managers avoid.

However, if that blogger needs a social post and it happens to be National Doughnut Day, then they can easily share the article, especially if it hasn’t been posted in a while. Not only is this repost option relevant, but it is also more effective. The target audience is likely looking for a good donut to celebrate the day, and the blogger provides valuable resources that readers can act on.

To apply this to your brand, look ahead at national holidays and events that are coming up. (This is also a great way to fill in your social media editorial calendar.) Consider which events would pair well with the blog content you have previously written. You can also keep an eye on industry and national news to create brand tie-ins. This allows you to repost content effectively and after a period when most people have already forgotten about the piece.

Don’t Neglect Your Internal Links

Even if you never share your blog posts on social media, you can still make them work for you as you publish fresh content. It is easy to forget about the power of internal linking from both an SEO and user experience perspective.

“Google finds your posts and pages best when they’re linked to from somewhere on the web,” Meike Hendriks writes at Yoast. “Internal links also connect your content and give Google an idea of the structure of your website. They can establish a hierarchy on your site, allowing you to give the most important pages and posts more link value.”

When Google crawls your pages, it looks at both the internal and external links. These links help the search engine “read” your content. For example, it can better categorize the topics covered by the external links. In this case, I have linked to industry experts in the SEO and social media fields. Internal links help group your content into similar buckets. Google can better understand how one piece of content relates to another and how both pieces tie into your brand as a whole.

Of course, any good SEO strategy will also have a human element behind it. Internal links keep people clicking to other pages on your site. They provide background information to the main story or elaborate on an idea that you only have time to briefly touch on. Internal links can drive down your bounce rates and drive up your average time on site as users explore your content and learn more about what you have to say.

Every website has its own guidelines for internal linking. However, a few common best practices include:

Limit the number of internal links to a reasonable range, typically between 2-5 per post.
Keep the anchor text close to the target keyword on the page you are linking to. (Some websites want the exact keyword to be the anchor text.)
Let internal links flow naturally within the body of the article. Don’t try to stuff them in if they don’t seem relevant to the rest of the piece.

You can always go back and add internal links where they are useful. If you regularly publish content without internal links, you may want to audit old posts to add them in.

Get Your Content Into the Hands of Your Sales Team

In complex B2B industries – and particularly for SaaS teams – sales departments spend a good amount of time explaining how their products work and why they are needed. They have to start with the most basic industry questions and need to be ready to answer anything. This knowledge is what separates an effective salesperson from the dozens of others you meet at conferences or networking events.

As a marketer, you can help your sales team. You can provide clear answers and information so they don’t have to go into detail with customers each time. You can also create persuasive materials that win customers over as they crawl through your sales funnel. Plus, this adds elements of expertise to your company. The client doesn’t have to take the salesperson’s word for it, they can learn more about the nature of your industry on your blog.

Review your content to see what materials can help your sales representatives close deals. Identify gaps in the information and place them on your content calendar. This makes your content a greater asset to the company and gives you ideas for the future.

Plus, there is no easier way to increase your content marketing ROI than to make it an essential part of the sales closing process.

Build Content Marketing ROI Into Your Ideation Process

Too many companies create blog content because they think it is an SEO silver bullet or because someone told them to at a conference or on a webinar. As a result, they publish posts and then forget about them. Publish and forget. Publish and forget – at least until something goes viral. However, you can start to plan your blog posts with your content marketing ROI in mind.

Consider which posts you would link to as you develop content during the ideation process. Make a note of any important days or notable events in advance so you can plan to reshare the posts. Fill in gaps in the content you have already created. This will take careful planning at first but will start to come naturally over time.

You will always have some blog posts that drive a higher content marketing ROI than others. However, if you keep driving traffic to your pages and getting the most out of your pages as a whole, then the value you get from your marketing budget will always be on the rise.

Image by StockSnap from Pixabay

Dealing With Difficult People While Leading a Nonprofit

Tiffany Razzano Marketing July 1, 2020

As the leader of a Florida-based literary arts nonprofit, I’ve said on more than one occasion, “The hardest thing about working with the community is having to work with the community.”

That might sound curmudgeonly, but people can be difficult. They can be self-involved, ego-driven and entitled, and when you throw a bunch of artists into the mix, this can sometimes be amplified.

Now, I’d like to stress that 99.9% of the people we work with are lovely, talented, creative, friendly, and appreciative individuals. I’m sure this is the same for many nonprofits.

But that 0.1% can sour the work that you’re doing, especially in the nonprofit world, when you’re giving your all to build up your community. This is particularly true in the case of grassroots organizations like Wordier Than Thou, which is completely volunteer-run. Nobody is making any money. We’re doing what we do purely for the love of books, publishing, and Florida writers.

For this reason, unless we’ve made a mistake (and trust me, we’ve made missteps and always hold ourselves accountable) I tend to embrace a firm, take-no-crap stance when it comes to handling complaints and difficult people. I know I’m not going to win any customer service awards, but I’m ok with that.

Here are a few situations I’ve encountered over the years while leading a nonprofit and how I handled them. These approaches might not work for everyone, but they worked for us.

But Her Emails! Stand By Your Organization’s Values

Within the legal bounds of our nonprofit designation, we don’t raise money or campaign for political candidates. That being said, we also don’t shy away from tough topics and we don’t restrict anyone’s creative expression. We know that addressing certain issues might alienate some of our followers, but we do so because we’re privileged to have a platform that allows us to shine a light onto some of the injustices and issues in the world. Art can be many things and we firmly believe that it can be an important form of activism.

When Donald Trump announced he was running for president in 2015, he immediately stood out as a problematic candidate to us. We thought it would be a short-lived campaign, though, one that would make great fodder for satire. Around Halloween, we asked writers to imagine what his presidency might look like and organized a reading of these stories at an event called Dawn of the Donald.

Assuming he would drop out of the race, as he had in past elections, we thought that was that. When he was selected as the Republican nominee and then elected president, we organized another reading of these fictional pieces on the evening of his inauguration. We later published these stories in an anthology by the same name.

dawn of the donald book Wordier than thou

Along the way, some of our more conservative followers asked me why we didn’t host a similar event or publish a similar anthology inspired by the Democratic candidate, Hillary Clinton.

I explained to these individuals that as a racist, homophobic, misogynist, xenophobe, Trump represented a growing division in our country and we saw the potential for him to wreak havoc on our democracy if elected. (Fast forward a few years and the stories in our collection are strangely accurate.)

One individual pushed a bit further that we should also skewer Clinton with an anthology, because fair is fair and we’re a community organization that needs to appeal to all beliefs. I politely suggested they publish such a book and that was the last I heard about it.

A few of these individuals started coming to our events less frequently after that, but the relationships weren’t entirely severed, as they still come around now and again. Even if those relationships were irreparable, it would have been worth it for staying true to our values.

Sometimes You Can’t Help People If They Won’t Meet You Halfway

In February, we hosted our Tampa Bay Publishing Conference, a four-day event that focuses on the business of books. This conference features panels on various topics as well as authors sharing their personal publishing journeys.

By December, our lineup was mostly complete and looking strong. We were excited about the slate of authors joining us for our third annual conference, which has grown each year.

Enter Entitled Author.

Entitled Author, traveling from outside our region the Tampa Bay area had participated in a small way at a previous conference.

In January, they emailed me asking why I hadn’t invited them to be a featured author this year. They’ve been writing and publishing for decades, they informed me, and felt their accomplishments spoke for themselves. I didn’t know this person well, but based on previous interactions, they came across as high maintenance, so I never dreamed of inviting them to speak at our conference. Why add more stress to an already stressful weekend?

Still, I didn’t want to completely alienate them. Gritting my teeth, I messaged an apology for overlooking them, the schedule had been set for months, we’ll keep them in mind for next year based on our needs, etc.

I took it a step further and told them there was still time to submit a panel for this year’s event. I just needed a short description, title, and the names of at least three individuals who would join them on the panel.

They shot me down, saying they didn’t know any other writers they could invite to be part of a panel. I mentioned that there was room on a handful of panels I’d pulled together if they wanted to join one. They told me they most likely couldn’t get a ride to the conference, though we were more than a month out from the event.

At that point, I knew there was nothing I could offer that would make the author happy. If they didn’t try to meet me halfway, there wasn’t much I could do for them, and by being so difficult, they pretty much guaranteed that I won’t invite them to participate next year.

Know When to Go Above Their Head

Last year, Wordier Than Thou hosted an event at a nonprofit venue we often used. We pre-sold advance tickets and were also selling tickets at the door.

When I arrived, two volunteers scheduled by the venue wouldn’t let me work at the ticketing table by the front door, even though I have always worked the door at our events in this space.

They rearranged the items I set up on the table. They interrupted if I tried to answer questions from guests. They wouldn’t let me handle the cash box and created their own system for tracking ticket sales. They let people who weren’t on the guest list in for free. And I found out after the event that they didn’t accurately keep track of door sales, so I never knew the exact number of people in the audience.

Even worse, while I and other audience members were standing just a few feet from them, they loudly criticized the event and turnout. (We had about 50 people come out on a Sunday evening, not that it makes any difference.)

Their behavior was off-putting enough that the next day I emailed venue staff about it. The venue apologized, and while they couldn’t necessarily fire a volunteer, they could ensure that these two women never worked at one of our events again.

Don’t Give in to Bullies

A few years ago, we hosted a literary program through an online radio station. The station offered a good mix of local programming and syndicated shows from around the world.

The host of one of the other local shows had a reputation as being pushy, abrasive, and self-involved. They were nice enough to me at first and I usually recorded my program right after theirs, so I’d run into them often.

Then, I booked an author friend on our show. A few days later, this other host informed me they had also just booked the same author on their show and that I would need to cancel my booking. When I refused, they went off on me. I was selfish and rude and clearly should let them have the interview.

The author and I explained that the two programs would discuss different topics. Not only that, but the programs would air sporadically on the station and be available for download. There would be hardly any overlap in listeners.

This other host – despite booking this author well after me – still insisted they had the right to the interview. I never backed down, though. They complained some more to anyone who would listen and then they hit the unfriend and unfollow button on Facebook. Good riddance to bullies, I say.

Not Everyone Who Asks for a Refund Should Get One

Over the past few years, I’ve added a no-refunds policy to most events to make our lives easier.

During a recent Fiesta Day street festival in Ybor City, we organized a children’s book fair for the event. We offered booth space to authors for $50, a fair price considering this is one of the area’s largest annual events with around 10,000 people visiting the Historic District for it each year.

In the week leading up to the event, one young adult author emailed us just about every day with questions and expressing her excitement for the festival. She even contacted us the evening before with last-minute questions.

The next morning, she emailed me an hour-and-a-half before the festival started saying she woke up with a high fever and it was probably the flu. Later that day, she emailed me asking for a refund.

I politely denied her request, pointing out the last-minute nature of her cancellation and the fact that all the vendor information stated that the fee was non-refundable. Trying to be nice, I offered to let her use that $50 towards a future event, though.

She told me that “theft is a crime and a sin” and that she would never attend any of our events. That’s fine. She still isn’t getting a refund.

Our nonprofit has a small budget and we use funds from ticket sales and vendor fees to pay for the next event. If people aren’t able to attend something as they had originally planned, barring an extreme circumstance, it isn’t fair to ask for a refund, especially when all event descriptions include our no-refund policy.

That said, I know there are times to make exceptions, so we do evaluate each situation. This spring, our Harry Potter-themed drag show fundraiser was rescheduled due to the COVID-19 pandemic.

A ticketholder emailed me and said they were available for the new date in September, but they were worried about the impact the coronavirus might have on the economy and their personal funds. I didn’t hesitate to offer them a refund given the unprecedented situation caused by the pandemic.

Know When You’ve Made a Mistake and Apologize

It is important to recognize when we make mistakes. I’m always quick to apologize and to take accountability.

I’ve apologized for a lot of things lately, such as moving a virtual event to a different date when I realized the original booking didn’t work with our schedule. I had already set up the event page and began promoting it before realizing I needed to change gears. I know moving things around can be irritating to authors trying to fill their calendar and apologized profusely.

During another recent virtual event, I didn’t realize that the link to the Zoom meeting room had expired a few days earlier. I got frustrated while fielding frantic emails and Facebook messages asking how to enter the event. I apologized profusely for my mistake and worked with the author to find another date that suited them.

Ultimately, handling complaints and responding to tense interactions with creative collaborators and event guests comes down to assessing individual situations. While we believe in making amends when we make mistakes, we also don’t believe in simply giving in to difficult people. I know that not every nonprofit leader will embrace this attitude, but I’m not interested in letting jerks detract from my passion or our mission of supporting Florida’s writers and readers.

Tiffany Razzano is a journalist and copywriter living in the Tampa Bay area. For the past 8 years, she served as an editor at Tampa Bay Newspapers. She also writes regularly for La Gaceta, Watermark, The Free Press, and Creative Pinellas. She’s the founder/president/creative director of the literary arts nonprofit Wordier Than Thou, which supports Florida writers and readers through community events, publishing projects, and educational opportunities.

How to Prepare for a Media Interview

Tiffany Razzano Marketing June 1, 2020

As a journalist for the past 16 years, I’ve endured some awful interviews. Some truly awful stuff that, at times, has even caused me to question my career choice. Why open myself to such torture?

Throughout this journey, I’ve covered just about everything from small-town Florida governments driven by a good ol’ boy mentality to the cutthroat Manhattan real estate industry and everything in between.

I’ve interviewed everyone from kindergarteners to celebrities to state senators. Want to guess who was the easiest to deal with?

I am writing this with the hope that some of my most frustrating experiences offer a learning opportunity for public relations teams, CEOs, and other industry influencers who want to improve their media presence. Here are a few things to keep in mind during a media interview – you’d be surprised how much of it comes down to basic etiquette.

Be considerate of your interviewer’s time

It sounds simple, but many people can’t seem to handle being on time for a media interview, whether it’s by phone or in person. It’s frustrating to set up an appointment in advance just to have the individual you’re interviewing not show up.

This is an estimation, but at least half of the people I’m scheduled to speak with don’t pick up the phone or are unavailable when I call them at our pre-determined time. Some eventually call me back within an hour, but I’m forced to reschedule about a quarter of these calls.

Don’t keep your interviewer waiting in person, either.

I once interviewed a restaurant owner who had just reopened after a tragedy. We chatted for a while before she excused herself to handle a question from her waitress and she never returned. She never even glanced in my direction. Five minutes turned into 10. Ten turned into 50. I had other things scheduled that day, so I left before we finished the interview and she didn’t even notice as I walked out the door. We were never able to reschedule.

As a reporter, I’m juggling multiple stories at once. Missing our scheduled call or showing up late can throw off my entire schedule.

Learn who you’re talking to in advance

I’ve had individuals spend a decent chunk of our scheduled time asking who I am and which publication I am writing for. This is information that can be found in advance. You’re doing a disservice to yourself by wasting time that could be used to discuss your business or issue and dig into your story. If we have just 30 minutes carved out for an interview, using 10 of them for you to ask about my newspaper and my background is a waste of precious time.

Learn the difference between on-the-record and off-the-record

If you are speaking with someone who has identified themselves as a reporter, unless you utter some variation of the phrase “this is off the record,” assume that whatever you’re saying is fair game for them to publish. Even idle conversation and small talk is on the record if you don’t say otherwise while speaking with a reporter

When something is on the record, then everything in the conversation can be published and attributed to you with your name, company or organization, and job title. If something is off the record, then none of what is said may be published or attributed to you. (It can be used as background information for the reporter’s research, though.)

If you don’t want something that you’ve said published, make it very clear to your media interviewer. I once interviewed a small-town mayor who was ranting and raving about something petty that annoyed her. When she was done, she said, “And that’s all off record,” but that isn’t how it works. As a longtime politician, she definitely should have known better. Still, she wasn’t happy when portions of our conversation made it into my article. It was all on the record, though.

Let us record you

I’ve encountered some folks who bristle at the thought of my recording our conversation. Usually, these individuals simply haven’t had any experience being interviewed and the idea of a recording device makes them nervous. Others have balked at recording as a way to assert their dominance and are trying to control the narrative.

Really, though, allowing your interview to be recorded is in the best interest of everyone. It ensures professionalism, accuracy, and accountability from both parties.

Know the story you want to convey

You know your own story better than anyone else, so be prepared to share it. Before your media interview, review the details you want to focus on. You don’t want to be over-prepared to the point where your answers sound like a canned statement, but you also want to ensure that all the important details are covered. If necessary, take notes before your interview or use a press release as a guide.

You also want to express yourself clearly and eloquently. Use full sentences and offer lengthy, interesting responses. Some of my most frustrating interviews have been with people (including a Saturday Night Live alum) who managed to only answer “yes” and “no” to open-ended questions. It’s not fun having to pull information out of interview subjects.

Also, you might be asked tough questions

No matter how much you prepare for a media interview, the reporter you’re speaking with might ask you some tough questions that you would rather not answer. Don’t get angry at them. They’re just doing their job. You can politely defer answering or simply tell them you would prefer not to comment.

You may want to consider being transparent and upfront, though. If you refuse to answer (or worse, lie) you won’t be painted in a favorable light if the truth comes out later on. Over the years, I’ve worked on several stories where local government leaders have refused to answer questions or flat out lied only to have the public records I pulled prove them wrong.

It might be your story, but ultimately you don’t control the narrative

Even though it’s your story being shared, the reporter is in the driver’s seat. Any publication worth its salt won’t let you review an article before it goes to print. You also don’t have the right to direct the story’s narrative in advance. After publication, changes will only be made to a story if something is factually incorrect, in which case a correction will be published.

You can guide the story’s direction, though, based on the information you share with your interviewer, which is why it’s important to be prepared.

I once wrote an article about a small bagel chain that opened a new location. The company was founded years earlier by a married couple who later divorced. I met them for an interview and we had a lovely conversation about how the business started.

The day the article came out, I received an angry call from the man’s current wife. I hadn’t mentioned her by name, just the fact that he had later remarried.

He hadn’t talked about her in great detail during the interview or indicated that she helped with the business in any way. She didn’t understand why I couldn’t rewrite the story and give her a bigger role in it. She tried to contact my editor and publisher, but her complaints fell flat.

The follow up is just as important as the Media interview

During your conversation, you might not immediately have responses to some questions. Maybe you forgot a name or a date or need to get more details from someone more intimately involved with a specific aspect of a project. Take notes and follow up with this information in a timely manner after your interview. Don’t hold up deadlines with missing information.

Also, art is an important aspect of any article. In your follow-up email, include any photos, logos, or other images that you feel represent your company or story well.

Taking these steps before and after your media interview can increase the chances that the journalist you work with will get the facts right, paint the best possible narrative and most importantly (in the world of marketing and PR) call back again in the future.

What I Learned About Marketing a Nonprofit After Leading One for 8 Years

Tiffany Razzano Marketing April 29, 2020

Grassroots nonprofits don’t typically have a wealth of resources behind them. Most work is done by a small staff or volunteers passionate about their cause. Often, with little support, these individuals do anything possible to further their mission in their communities.

I know this mindset well. Eight years ago, I founded Wordier Than Thou, a literary arts organization in the Tampa Bay area with no funding and few resources. Today, we still operate on a shoestring budget, but we host up to 10 events each month and reach thousands of readers and writers every year.

As a journalist with a deep love of books and stories, I had to learn the best ways to promote our events and engage our followers. Though I’m admittedly still learning the best practices for marketing a nonprofit, I’ve learned a few things along the way.

Creative Partnerships Are a Key to Success

From the start, our creative partnerships – with authors and artists, bars and arts venues, and other nonprofits, particularly non-literary ones – have been vital to Wordier Than Thou’s success. Our foothold in the Tampa Bay community wouldn’t be what it is today without the relationships we’ve formed over the years. We learned a long time ago that we’re a stronger, more impactful organization thanks to our work with others.

We launched our group in 2012 as a monthly storytelling and prose-only open mic series. During our first two years, we worked our way through several venues. This wasn’t due to any fault of our own. These early bars and cafes were eager to work with us but were short-lived operations that didn’t stay open for very long. Every few months, it felt like we were forced to look for a new home.

Then, we were introduced to the Studio@620, one of the preeminent arts venues in St. Petersburg. This relationship elevated our events and helped us reach new audiences.

Through the Studio@620, known for saying “yes” to new ventures and providing opportunities to up-and-coming artists and organizations, we connected with their membership, a large base of arts and book-loving individuals, many of whom learned about our mission for the first time through this partnership.

Six years later, we continue to host our open mics at the Studio@620 every third Tuesday of the month. Sometimes, I jokingly refer to this regular event as our gateway drug. It’s how many of the Studio@620’s members discover Wordier Than Thou. After getting to know us through these open mics, many attendees have sought us out on social media and joined us for other bookish events throughout the region.

We also often partner with other local organizations for one-off themed events. We especially enjoy working with groups outside the literary world because it introduces us to a new audience.

In January, we hosted a feline-inspired storytelling event, Tell Me About Your Cat, at Cage Brewing. We joined forces with Friends of Strays Animal Shelter for this event, which we used to raise funds for their animal advocacy and rescue work while raising awareness of both their mission and ours.

Despite little promotional work(other than briefly boosting the event’s reach on Facebook), nearly 70 people turned out. For about two-thirds of those attending, this was their first time at a Wordier Than Thou event. We collected dozens of emails that day and I’ve seen several of those in attendance at other events since. A few have even reached out to me personally with questions about our work or the publishing world.

Be Ready for Anything

Over the years, I’ve learned the importance of adaptability when it comes to marketing events. There are so many moving parts that are out of your control and you need to be ready for anything.

Adaptability not only allows you to keep things on track for success, but it can also help you capitalize on the unexpected twists and turns of community organizing.

One of Wordier Than Thou’s signature events is our annual Read No More Gulfport Murder House. This immersive theater project, held every October around Halloween, is a literary take on the classic haunted house. Each year, we rent a home in Gulfport for several days for local writers and actors to stage different short, scary plays in each room.

This event has grown into a fan favorite over the past five years. Even with its popularity, though, tickets never fully sold out. Until last year, that is.

I began planning the 2019 haunted house a smidge earlier than normal. Four months before it was scheduled, I created a Facebook event page with little information about the tours. I considered it a placeholder so I could keep track of our calendar for the year.

Within a few days, the page had reached several thousand people and had a few hundred RSVPs. Many were asking for more information.

Intrigued by the unexpected interest, I made tickets available to purchase before I had even finished booking our writers and performers. Ticket sales trickled in immediately, and quickly gained momentum. As tours sold out, I added extra days to accommodate the interest. By the end of October, our event page had reached nearly 50,000 people without spending any money.

With so much organic interest in the event, I never sent out traditional press releases to regional newspapers, magazines, or online calendars. Despite this, the Tampa Bay Times still found Read No More and promoted it as a must-do Halloween event and a local morning show invited me on-air as a guest.

By the week of the event, there were only a handful of tickets left, which sold out the day of each tour.

As I had to regretfully inform people that we were sold out, I realize our organization had an opportunity to build on this interest.

I decided we would host our first-ever Christmas-themed haunted house, Read No More: Haunted Holidays. I acted quickly to book a house, set up the event page and put tickets on sale.

Though our Halloween event was sold out, instead of turning people away entirely, I offered them tickets to our Christmas event, instead. We also promoted the Haunted Holidays tours outside our Gulfport Murder House and sold tickets then, as well.

Though we didn’t sell out during the Christmas haunted house, we sold about two-thirds of the tickets, which I consider a success for a first-time event held during the busiest time of the year. We’re already planning out 2020 holiday events, tweaking the concept a bit, and will start promotions this summer.

Another example of adapting our programming and marketing came last month, in March, as the COVID-19 pandemic began to affect day-to-day life in the United States. I felt helpless as we were forced to cancel one event, then another, and another. Before we knew it, our spring calendar was empty.

With many people forced to shelter in place or choosing to social distance themselves, I pivoted Wordier Than Thou’s programming to the virtual realm. Even while isolated, we want to keep our fans and friends connected and creative through this crisis. This will also make for an easier transition when we move back to in-person events, hopefully later this summer.

For the past five weeks, we’ve used Zoom, Facebook Live and YouTube to host daily programming – personal library tours, open mics, author chats, readings – reaching hundreds of writers and readers weekly. An unexpected bonus has been engaging author friends and readers beyond the Tampa Bay area for these events thanks to the technology available. As life returns to normal, we’ll likely continue hosting some of these virtual events, they’ve been so successful.

Know Who You Are

If you don’t have a solid mission as a nonprofit, it will be difficult to build a consistent base of supporters.

Wordier Than Thou’s mission is simple: we are a resource for Florida writers. We offer fun ways for authors – from emerging voices to experienced wordsmiths – to hone their craft, connect with audiences and get their books into the hands of readers.

Beyond this mission, though, we also have a strong sense of our organization’s personality. We’re fun and off-beat, but smart, and also irreverent, eschewing the more traditional notions of the capital “L,” literary community. We don’t always take ourselves 100 percent seriously – our name is obviously tongue-in-cheek – and we want our fans to feel like they’re in on the joke.

At the same time, we’re committed to our passion for books and stories. We’re proud of our programming and have offered opportunities to talented writers at all stages in their careers. Our work in the community is important to us.

That might sound a bit fractured, but it really isn’t. We balance both pieces of our organization’s personality – the serious and silly sides – nicely in our social media and email marketing. This makes us more authentic and accessible to the average person, and we tend to draw both avid readers and people who wouldn’t typically attend a reading or author event.

Vary Your Platforms for Engagement

When I first started Wordier Than Thou, I was still new to Florida. I had been in the Tampa Bay area less than two years when I organized our first open mic and I didn’t know many people.

Like many people my age (late twenties at the time), I relied on Facebook to connect others (and still do, to an extent.) As I met people at networking meetups, bars, and at community events, I would exchange contact information with them and also send them a Facebook friend request.

This is the base I relied on for our early open mics. I threw together a Facebook page for Wordier Than Thou, created my first open mic event page, and then invited all the acquaintances I had made, hoping for the best. Luckily, they turned out, and they even brought friends.

As I began to market Wordier Than Thou’s events beyond the people I already knew, I realized that not everyone is on Facebook. Other social media outlets have gained popularity since we started and the demographic using Facebook has changed, as well.

While Wordier Than Thou uses a variety of alternative platforms to reach writers and readers (follow us on Instagram!) we’ve found the most success with Meetup.com. This seems to be the landing spot for many of the anti-Facebook folks, the people who are interested in book events and other gatherings but don’t want to feel like they’ve sold their soul (and information) to Mark Zuckerberg.

Meetup costs about $200 annually, but it’s well worth the money. We have nearly 4,000 Facebook followers and a little over 2,000 Meetup members. There isn’t much overlap between these two fan bases, which means those are 2,000 people who never would have found us if we relied solely on Facebook to promote our programs.

We also started sending out promotional emails in 2018. We’ve collected more than 2,000 emails at various events and through ticket sales over the years, but had never used them until then. And yes, I realize how stupid that sounds since we’ve been doing this work for nearly a decade. But as a grassroots organization, it comes down to prioritizing your to-do list – your exceptionally long to-do list – and for years typing up our email list never quite made it to the top of my list.

As we organized our 2018 Tampa Bay Publishing Conference, an event with more cost involved than our other programming, I knew I needed to reach more people. So I compiled the emails of everyone who had attended the previous conference and sent out an email blast. That same day, several people registered for the event. This inspired me to finally look at the stack of email lists from six years of events. I typed up the email addresses and sent out a second email blast. More people registered through the link included in that email.

Ever since then, I’ve promoted our bigger events with email blasts. I try not to overwhelm our followers with too many emails and do my best to target their interests. For instance, if someone attended our Banned Books Week burlesque show, there’s reason to think they might be interested in our Harry Potter-themed drag show.

In-Person Connections are Just as Important as Social Media Fans

Face-to-face connections with potential supporters are just as important, possibly even more so, than social media and email marketing.

This goes beyond being friendly and sociable at your own events, though that first impression for someone new to your organization is key.

I also go out of my way to bring Wordier Than Thou into the community outside our own programming. The Tampa Bay area, St. Petersburg especially, has a strong “shop local” mentality and those who live here go out of their way to support indie small businesses. This means there are plenty of markets, street fairs, and community events with vending opportunities.

Often there are fees involved with setting up at these events, but usually there are lower prices or waived fees for nonprofits. We sell books, t-shirts and other items at these events to make back those fees and then some.

We’ve attended all kinds of events from Pride street fairs to comic and sci-fi conventions over the years. Our favorite to attend, though, is Shopapalooza in St. Petersburg. More than 10,000 people attend this annual market, which is the largest holiday shopping event in Florida.

There is real value in making that in-person connection with someone who has never heard of us before. We’re excited about our work and we get to convey that excitement through conversations with those who stop by our booth. Often, these shoppers turn into new supporters of our organization. After each market or fair, we see an uptick in Facebook likes and follows, as well as ticket sales for upcoming programs.

These are just a few of the lessons that I’ve learned through my experiences with Wordier Than Thou. We’ve seen significant growth as an organization over the past two years, and we look forward to building on that. The only way we’ll continue this success, though, is by consistently following the marketing best practices we’ve established.

Marketing