Craft Calls to Action That Get You to Goal

Believe me. Your audiences so often see nonprofit campaigns that lack any call to action so, no matter how compelling the issue or message, they have no idea how to get involved. I know, because I see them too.

Nancy Schwartz

Nancy Schwartz

Those campaigns (and I hope yours aren’t among them) make it so hard for folks to support the cause or organization, when that’s the very last thing you want to do.

In fact, our call to action is what connects your supporters with your org. The clearer and more doable the call to action, the greater the level of engagement. Today I’ll help you get there.

Let me start with sharing some definitions of what comes first:

  • Organizational goals (a max of three at a time) are the steps to take over the next year that will take your organization closer to achieving its mission.
  • Marketing and fundraising goals are the best ways you can put market and fundraising to work to help achieve those organization goals.
  • Calls to action come into play only after you have your goals in place and have identified your target audiences—the three or fewer groups who can do the most to help you reach those goals, and/or who are most likely to do so.

Learn what’s likely to be acted on, before you ask
Once you hone in on your target audiences, your next step is to get to know them via conversations, surveys, how they interact with your emails, websites and social media channels and more.

These are your calls to action
Only then can you outline the specific actions you want them to take. Define a series of incremental, doable actions you’ll ask them to take. Make sure that each is linked clearly and strongly with your organization’s goals.

Ask in the right way, at the right time, in the right place – Ask your audiences—early, clearly and repeatedly—to act…to register online, participate in a program, give or share their stories.

Highlight what’s in it for them, and address any obstacles likely to be in the way of their actions. And finally—be as specific as possible so it’s easy to act with the least effort possible.

Follow these guidelines and I promise you, you’ll see results!

More guidance on setting useful goals:

The preceding is a guest post by Nancy Schwartz, Speaker-Author-Strategist, GettingAttention.org. Nancy helps nonprofits like yours succeed through effective marketing. For more nonprofit marketing guidance like this, subscribe to her e-update at http://gettingattention.org/nonprofit-marketing/subscribe-enewsletter.html.

Filed under: Communications

Nonprofit Hub

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August 22, 2013

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