Mighty Big Day 2019 Key Takeaways
It’s done! Our first conference, Mighty Big Day, is in the books. It was a day of connection, education, and inspiration.
In case you missed it, here are the key takeaways from the 2019 Mighty Big Day:
Prove your value with a communications plan.
In her “Building Your 2020 Communications Plan” session, Mighty Citizen’s CMO, Rachel Clemens, demonstrated why mission-focused organizations need a comprehensive communications plan and what, exactly, makes one effective.
Every good communications plan includes these four sections: an organizational summary, a market analysis, your audiences, and your goals. Your communications goals should ladder up to your organization’s annual strategic goals. If you can draw the lines connecting how the work you’re doing (or proposing) will help your organization accomplish its strategic plan, you’re proving the value of communications and generating buy-in along the way.
Make the most of your content by utilizing the pyramid approach.
Content Strategist Andrew Buck posed the question: How can we make our marketing content work harder for us?
One technique, borrowed from the content guru Gary Vaynerchuk, is a “pyramid approach.” The idea is to create long-form pieces of content, and then slice and dice that content into smaller pieces to make it go further. On the bottom of the pyramid, you have your less frequent long-form content (ex. white paper, podcast, video, etc.). In the middle, you have short-form versions of this long-form content (ex. articles, images, quotes, memes, etc.). At the top of the pyramid, you have your content for distribution (ex. email, web, social, etc.). For example, your organization might post one monthly piece of long-form content such as a podcast. Then you’d build three to four blogs based on that content. Finally, you’d send those blog articles in an email and share memes (created from the same content) on social channels. We talk about a similar content strategy using the Bite, Snack, Meal approach.
Perform the “five-second test” on your website.
Mighty Citizen’s User Experience Director, Mike Steckel, brought 19 years of UX experience to his presentation, “Anatomy of a Mission-Driven Website.” Attendees learned about developing compelling content, improving engagement, and cognitive ease. The “five-second test” is a good way to know if your website is sending the message you intended—and clearly. If someone were to look at any page on your website for five seconds, what would they remember? Would they recall who the organization serves? Why they should join? Donate? Every page should have a clear, intentional message and purpose. Don’t let your website work against you!
Make your audiences feel, not think.
The human mind is an amazing thing. In Andrew Buck’s “Hack the Mind” presentation—about using psychology to boost engagement—he talked about emotion vs. reason and their roles in audience engagement. Emotion is responsible for every decision we make. Logic doesn’t hold a candle to emotion when it comes to behavior. Andrew told a tale of two anti-smoking campaigns: one appealed to emotion and the other to reason. A later study found that teens who had been exposed to the emotional campaign were 66 percent less likely to smoke, while teens who were exposed to the non-emotional logical campaign were 36 percent more likely to smoke. The gist: You want your readers feeling, not thinking.
We’re proud of the work our attendees put into their 2020 planning and marketing during our conference! If you found this recap beneficial, check out Mighty Citizen’s tools and insights for more on the topics we touch on here.
