Digital Marketing Magic for Nonprofits - and For Profits [Beth Hammock Interview]

I have always thought that businesses can learn a lot from successful nonprofit marketing. The idea is that if a nonprofit that is strapped for resources can connect with their community, you should be able to connect with your own.

This episode is all about nonprofit digital marketing, but in a similar vein, the advice here is applicable for all.

It is an honor to have my Digital First Mastermind Community member, and someone that I can now call a friend, Beth Hammock on today's episode. Beth is CEO of Hammock Communications and is an expert in both Nonprofit and Higher Education marketing, and I think you will genuinely enjoy her advice as well as our conversation.

Some of the digital marketing "magic" advice that Beth has includes:

• Illusions: Social media strategy - influencers, awareness, acknowledgement, appeals
• Sleight of hand: Google ad grants - getting them and using them. How tos and examples of success. 
• Magician's choice: Video storytelling - how to accomplish this on a nonprofit budget

Key Highlights

[02:00] Introduction of Podcast Guest, Beth Hammock

[05:54] How Beth Got Into Nonprofits

[06:55] The Difference Between Educational Institution and Nonprofit

[08:15] The Core of Digital Marketing for Nonprofits

[14:30] Increasing Brand Awareness and Appeals

[15:52] How to Create Perfect Facebook Ads for Nonprofits?

[16:38] Are Social Media Platforms Effective for Nonprofits?

[18:51] The Ideal Google Ad for Nonprofits

[20:55] Successful Campaigns Stories from Google Ads

[21:44] The Concept of Nonprofit Membership

[23:00] Nonprofits Incentives and Businesses

[24:39] Leveraging Resources In Your Community

[28:00] Beth's Magicians Choice

[28:49] Accomplishing Video Storytelling for Nonprofits

[30:40] Services Offered By Beth

[31:45] Connect With Beth

Notable Quotes

• So nonprofits, rely on grants, community business support, events, a lot of them, that's where they get their funding, but really, in the United States, a majority of funding comes from individuals. And if they can just get connected, that's the marketing piece, build brand awareness, engage people to start building those relationships.
• I think you start with the core principles of marketing, which storytelling is the core. And you can tell stories if you don't have a lot of money.
• So development communications, you want to show the impact of giving. To illustrate that has a little bit of content and a call to action of giving now.
• I think that nonprofits can really improve though on their exclusivity is, especially the way that they message it, if you just would say one benefit, and shout it and it's something really good.

Connect with Beth Hammock

• Hammock Communications: https://hammockcommunications.com/
• Beth Hammock on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/bethhammock1/

Learn More:

• Join My Digital First Mastermind: https://nealschaffer.com/membership/
• Learn about My Fractional CMO Consulting Services: https://nealschaffer.com/cmo
• Download My Free Ebooks Here: https://nealschaffer.com/freebies/
• Subscribe to my YouTube Channel: https://youtube.com/nealschaffer
• All My Podcast Show Notes: https://podcast.nealschaffer.com

Transcript

Neal Schaffer: 0:00

Whether you are a nonprofit or not, there's a heck of a lot that any business can learn from how nonprofits can and should be doing digital and social media marketing Listen up, because we're gonna go deep into nonprofit digital marketing magic on this next episode of The your digital marketing coach podcast. Digital social media content, influencer marketing, blogging, podcasting, blogging, tick tocking, LinkedIn, Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, YouTube, SEO, SEM, PPC, email marketing. Whew. There's a lot to cover. Whether you're a marketing professional entrepreneur, or business owner, you need someone you can rely on for expert advice. Good thing you've got Neil, on your side, because Neal Schaffer is your digital digital marketing coach, helping you grow your business with digital first marketing one episode at a time. This is your digital marketing coach. And this is Neal Schaffer. Hey, everybody, Neal Schaffer, here, your digital marketing coach. Welcome to episode number 238 of my podcast that just happens to have the same name. I actually ended up taking last week off. That was Thanksgiving week, don't know when you're going to be listening to this. So if you listen to my previous episode, tune in at 37, where I was wishing you a happy Thanksgiving, but you didn't hear it until after Thanksgiving, you're not alone. And it was really a great week to just completely unwind as a family went on a little road trip. And it was a reminder that sometimes we just need to completely unplug as much as possible, from social media, from digital marketing, from our daily job, whatever it is we do just to get recharged, re energized. And I don't know if you heard my voice, but I definitely feel that way right now. All right. Today we're going to be talking about digital marketing magic for nonprofits with my good friend Beth hammock. Beth has become a good friend of mine, because she is a member of my digital first mastermind community. She is an expert, multiple decades experience in digital and social media marketing for both nonprofits. And for higher ed, she is also a video marketer, and she just comes with a plethora of experience and knowledge that I think you're really all going to enjoy. She is also a joy to have in my mastermind community, just an example of the caliber of people that we have, that are not only learning together, but also giving back and making our communities stronger than ever. So if that's something that interests you, make sure that you go to Neal schaffer.com/membership. To find out more details about it. Before we get into today's episode. I also want to announce the landing pages not up yet. So if you're interested, make sure that you go to Neal schaffer.com, sign up on one of the many widgets or pop ups that you see. If you can't find one, just tag me in social media, send me an email to Neal at Neal schaffer.com. But I am going to be announcing my first workshop. But for those of you that know me, my business has primarily been consulting and speaking to other businesses. And there are a lot of business owners that or entrepreneurs or just professionals that want to get access and learn from me. I am one of the few that has a podcast that I've yet to release a course for various reasons my mastermind community Digital First was my first entree. I don't know if that's a word. But you know what I mean? My first entourage my first entry point into creating a digital product. And I'm really excited because my next one is going to be a workshop. And it's going to be related to helping you create an entire editorial calendar for your blog for 2022 In two hours or less, completely optimized for SEO, and using all the best practices that I use. I test and I teach all of my clients. Once again, landing page is not up yet. I'm going to be doing this in December of 2021. Make sure that if you're interested, you sign up my list, I want to find a way to create something that can offer a lot of value to a lot of you and make it really easy for you to learn both in terms of the format and in terms of the pricing. So be on the lookout for that. Okay, I'll just stop here. Let's get on to the interview with Beth. She's going to teach us a lot about leveraging digital websites, email marketing, social media strategy, influencer marketing, video storytelling. There is something unique to nonprofits which are Ad Grants that yes, you can get from Google if your nonprofit, we're going to go through all this in a very short period of time. It's going to be a real fact and insightful filled episodes. So without further ado, here's my interview with Beth hammock. You're listening to your digital marketing coach. This is Neal Schaffer. Beth hammock Welcome to the digital marketing coach podcast. Hi, Neil.

Beth Hammock: 5:04

It's great to be here.

Neal Schaffer: 5:06

It's great to I want to say it's great to see you again. But obviously we meet very often in our digital first mastermind community. But I'm really excited about today's conversation. Those that know me know that I have a heart. Well, we all have a heart for nonprofits. Obviously, I've done consulting work with nonprofits actually served in the Marketing Committee for the United Way. Here in Orange County. My first guest, blogger, Amy, Stefan talked about nonprofit for social media marketing, affect Claire Axelrod, who's like another thought leader in this space. And now I have you on my podcast. So really excited to dig deeper into, as you would say, digital marketing magic for nonprofits. And I want to say even if you're a nonprofit, I think you're going to get a lot out of this. I think that nonprofits offer a really, really good use case scenario that for profit businesses can learn from so I'm going to stop there, Beth, tell us how you got in all this?

Beth Hammock: 5:54

Well, I started working in nonprofit development and communications in 2005. At my alma mater, the University of Missouri, Columbia, that's after I'd had a career as a journalist, TV news producer, mainly. And then I've had the vice president position at University of Montana Foundation, came back to my home area of the Midwest. And now I am doing work for nonprofits all over St. Louis, and educational institutions. We have a lot of private schools here. So everybody who needs to raise money. That's my core audience.

Neal Schaffer: 6:25

So I was gonna say you have a mix of nonprofit and higher ed, but the common theme is fundraising.

Beth Hammock: 6:31

Correct? Yes. And smaller institutions. I mean, a big universities like the ones I worked at, they have robust staff, they have videographers, they have everything you need, like their own in house agencies, but smaller institutions, they don't, and they can use my services.

Neal Schaffer: 6:46

Gotcha. And obviously, today, we're gonna focus on the nonprofits, but from the educational institution versus what we call a nonprofit. Are there any big differences we should understand, other than that difference in infrastructure, when it comes to fundraising, and leveraging digital marketing?

Beth Hammock: 7:02

Sure. So the reason I'm calling this digital marketing magic for nonprofits is because when I was at the educational institute, at the universities, we had really big gifts, I mean, millions of dollars of gifts, okay, and most nonprofits can't imagine that. So that's the magic illusion, like you have to use your imagination first. And I actually have chills while I'm saying that because it feels so good to see people giving millions of dollars to your institution, you know, and that they have this vision of an art museum, you know, or have a Center for Native students, things like that, that are gonna really help people. So nonprofits, they rely on grants, community business support, events, a lot of them, that's where they get their funding, but really, in the United States, a majority of funding comes from individuals. And if they can just get connected, that's the marketing piece, build brand awareness, engage people start building those relationships.

Neal Schaffer: 7:59

So my experience in nonprofits, and it's gonna be funny for a lot of digital marketers listening, just a lot to do complete lack of resources. management doesn't really understand, especially when we talk about social media, where where do you start?

Beth Hammock: 8:15

I think you start with the core principles of marketing, which storytelling is the core. And you can tell stories if you don't have a lot of money.

Neal Schaffer: 8:24

So you're saying just go on and start a blog, start to post about it in social media? Or how would you sort of break that down?

Beth Hammock: 8:33

Sure. So I mean, time management is extremely important. And it's just really challenging to figure out what to do. And I think blogging is really time consuming. Personally, I mean, I think it's important to but it might not be the top of your list, or you might need to get guest bloggers from your board members, community members, if you're a youth organization, ask your youth to blog. So yes, I want to see. And actually like when I worked at Kati College, a small organization, we outsource blogging, and then we also did all those things I just talked about, at students like I had an intern, and I had her write a blog. So it's just telling your story every way you can and getting better at it. And I think that's what I have to offer that I work with people to help them be better storytellers, because of my journalism background, like a lot of people that's not their background, so they don't really understand it. So

Neal Schaffer: 9:25

if you have resource, you can outsource the blogging if you don't have resource somehow bring in interns to help. Is that really the gist of it? Or you just got to invest that time knowing how important it is to get the word out?

Beth Hammock: 9:39

Well, I mean, that's just in the blogging. I mean, you can have your CEO writing blog posts, a lot of different people from write blog posts. I don't think it's the marketing manager probably doesn't have the time. But social media is you can do that relatively quickly compared to blogging, I think, but I mean, it would be taking the pictures that are good instead of just relying on graphics, or having video on there, where you are asking people to submit videos that are your constituents and your supporters, and just being a way more aggressive, assertive about getting those videos, and I've been getting ready to talk to you looking around that there are so many videos on Facebook for nonprofits that I've seen lately.

Neal Schaffer: 10:24

Yeah, and I think that's a general I mean, what you talk about is like leveraging user generated content, like businesses, getting your fans to talk about you submit videos, it's, it's really the same thing. But I guess with nonprofits, that lack of resources, is really what makes it even more urgent of a matter, doesn't it?

Beth Hammock: 10:40

Yeah. And it's probably, I mean, I've tried various, it's hard to get people to submit sometimes, too, I'm not sure if you have some good tips about how businesses are doing that I did where we gave away tickets to a homecoming game to alumni. And we got, you know, we had some submissions that way. I mean, I've even like dangled like $1,000 for submit a video to students and didn't have a good response. I really got two responses. We got some videos. But yeah, what have you seen as a good way to get people to submit them?

Neal Schaffer: 11:08

Yeah, I mean, it all comes down to wi I fm what's in it for me? Right. So I mean, I suppose they have to understand what the nonprofit is what your causes, they have to be a believer in it. And if they are, the money really shouldn't be the big thing that drives them. Right. So it's a, it's sort of a chicken and egg, right. Without the awareness, you're not going to get the video, but without the video, you can't build the awareness. So I guess you're just gonna have to I work with nonprofits. And I'm sure you would attest to the same thing with businesses. I mean, events give you a grand opportunity to create content for your storytelling, right. And even with COVID, they're still like events that nonprofits do, my daughter goes to a Christian high school, and they do lots of these collaborations with nonprofits. And obviously, you need to get approval under 18 to appear in a photo on social media. But nevertheless, there's lots of events that every nonprofit does. It's in their nature, that's how they help people. And so there's, I think there's lots of opportunities there. And as we talked about, before, we started the podcast, the mindset of creating Instagrammable moments, right? Of not just creating them, but actually recording them. and publishing them, it part of it definitely is mindset. And when you have that mindset, I think you can create a lot more content.

Beth Hammock: 12:23

Yeah, cuz to me that my experience with any kind of volunteerism, that if you just put out this blanket that says, hey, we're looking for volunteers to work with the PTA, Chillida, they're not that many people are gonna volunteer, but if you go ask five people, they're gonna volunteer. So one good experience I had, when I was working with Girl Scouts of Southern Illinois, we think donors with individualized videos, which is like individualized stewardship is what I call that. And so I had a list of our top donors, and I asked one girl scout leader, to ask her troop to record videos for each person got a name? And they did it. Okay. I mean, and so that is more effective than or even if you're with employee influencers, I like that. If you just put out a call, Hey, would you submit a video thanking our donors, they're probably not going to do it. But if you actually orchestrate it, set up a camera, ask them to come by, and maybe you give them chili pepper, chili, or whatever, this holiday season. So there's tons of ways to engage you we have to be really personal. I mean, ever, like the very first PR conference ever went to that was my biggest takeaway is like to talk to people at the water coolers. And that was back when people smoked more than they do now. But go talk to the smokers, they know what's going on, because they stand around and talk to each other. So it's really Yeah, building those relationships internally with all your constituents. And that's how you get your content.

Neal Schaffer: 13:47

So this gets down to before we talked about the topic of today, you wanted to talk about getting back to the theme of digital marketing magic for nonprofits of illusions, sleight of hand magicians choice. So this, I guess, gets down to some of the illusions. So the social media strategy piece, you mentioned, influencers, awareness, acknowledgement, appeals, so the influencers, your donors, could be influences your employees might be influencers. So those student interns might be influencers in their own community. So I think that that's a very broad, we can go very broad with that. And you talked about the acknowledgement there acknowledging everybody personally in the value, what about the the awareness and the appeals? What are we missing in that equation about the illusions?

Beth Hammock: 14:30

Sure, on the awareness, I mean, we talked about how maybe people didn't submit to those video contests because they just didn't feel that connection here. Brand awareness. So there are tons of organizations that you might not know about that do great work. So my the organization I think, is doing the best work in the field. I haven't seen everyone that's for sure. They haven't entered my realm of brand awareness. Right. But Heifer International, I think is amazing, their digital marketing, and they got on my radar. They stay and touch. So keeping me aware of what they're doing, they change it up every year. But that's where you might want to be using paid social media ads.

Neal Schaffer: 15:10

I was gonna ask if you if you're not known, how do you get known? Right? So

Beth Hammock: 15:13

right, yeah. So it would be I was trying to think of how I got to know them, but I'm not sure. But anyway, basically, I think that using ads for increasing brand awareness on Facebook, Instagram, wherever else might be appropriate. Beyond LinkedIn, it's worthwhile, essentially, I mean, was that a good ROI? Most of the nonprofit communications managers I've worked with when I've been on staff, as the Development Director, they just boost that boost posts, which mean that you're only reaching your friends that way. So that's something that you know, that's a point of education.

Neal Schaffer: 15:50

There's an opposing hisses from the audience in the background here. How would you craft the perfect ad? Like the perfect Facebook ad for a nonprofit? What would that potentially look like?

Beth Hammock: 16:00

It would have a face of one of your constituent one of the people impacted by your organization, if it's youth serving, it would have one child. And ideally, it would be a video of the child saying thank you, or what they get out their involvement. So development communications, you want to show the impact of giving. So illustrate that have a little bit of content and a call to action of give now.

Neal Schaffer: 16:29

So you'd still even though I like to say social media is made for people, not for businesses. And, and obviously you get like things in the mail, like give, give give. Do you think for social media? That's still, I guess, number one, appropriate? And number two, I suppose is effective? If you're giving that advice? I'm assuming you've given it before. And it's work. Yeah,

Beth Hammock: 16:48

no, it is effective. Although I think that I've gotten more success from Google Grants. Because it takes most nonprofits aren't going to spend the kind of money it takes to make a huge impact on Facebook. Okay. I mean, you'll get some I mean, any ROI is better than no, I mean, if it's positive, you know, is better than nothing. And you're building brand awareness. But on Google, you can get a 10,000. This is what I call in the sleight of hand category, because it's behind the scenes, you don't know how much these organizations are getting from what they do on Google. So you get every organization is eligible for $10,000 monthly grant from Google,

Neal Schaffer: 17:27

every not register every nonprofit, yeah, go one three CI

Beth Hammock: 17:31

lined, you have to be like legit, like registered 501 C three. But that's a really nice chunk of money. Most of them can't spend it because you have to compete for the space. But yeah, you can get on there. And my advice for that is that you need to get somebody to help you with your Ad Management, which you can get for one to$2,000 a month. It's been my experience. I don't know what it's like in your area, but it varies, I'm sure. But you'll get a lot better results because people try to manage those in house like this overburden communications manager is who doesn't really isn't Google certified or anything is trying to manage the ads, but so that I've seen some really good results in membership increases, so and fundraising membership is ground floor, like you want people to be members, and they become big donors eventually.

Neal Schaffer: 18:23

So how Okay, so we talked about the illusions and, and sort of the the social media strategy part. And I love the idea about that Facebook ad, it's it's raw, authentic, it's what we crave today, instead of having like the Director of Communications, talking about the organization, you know, yeah, people can't see the video, that's face. But you know what I mean, so the slaver have the Google Ad Grants, there are so many ways of targeting keywords. And then there's so many ways of sending people to various parts of your website. And you talk about membership. So what would that we talked about what the ideal Facebook ad for nonprofit but look like, what about the ideal Google ad for nonprofit? What would it look like? What's the message? Where is it sending people?

Beth Hammock: 19:01

So I mean, it depends what your goals are, of course. So that's the truth of any of these kinds of ads. But I'm saying that your goal is membership. And it would be members get a advance can get into our special event, three hours before the other people get a sneak peek of the new baby panda zoo, something like that, you know, and then they would just click on it, it would basically not be talking about membership, but it would take them to a landing page, which is really needs to be well done. If you have a video on your landing page, you may be getting 80% higher conversion rates is the data. Oh, wow. That's pretty awesome. So pay attention to your landing page. You need professional assistance with that most likely,

Neal Schaffer: 19:46

and what would that video be of? Would it be the same as that Facebook ad video or is this something more targeted towards the incentive

Beth Hammock: 19:55

actually having the answers

Neal Schaffer: 19:59

I suppose depends on the campaign. And then oh,

Beth Hammock: 20:01

yeah, yeah. Honestly, like I always like hire somebody you might not. That's my expertise. I know enough about hire people.

Neal Schaffer: 20:07

Yeah, no, that's my so. So the Google app then is some sort of incentive for becoming a member, get invited to our end of your Gala. You're so you're basically and it's funny because one of my clients, they do Google ads, and every single Google ad is a coupon. That's all they do. 10% off. 20% off. Yeah. Right. So it's a similar approach in terms of really getting people to click. And once they click and get on your landing page, assuming that the wording was relevant, you probably have a pretty good chance of converting, it's probably the thought process, right?

Beth Hammock: 20:39

Yeah, it's the with them, just like you were saying earlier, what's in it for me? So because these people on Google, they're not your supporters yet. But this is you're casting a net. And you're having those keywords that are going to attract them? Because you have an expert helping you with that.

Neal Schaffer: 20:55

So what are do you have any, like examples of what one of the successful campaigns

Beth Hammock: 21:02

for Google ads? So I went to Powell Gardens, Kansas City's botanical garden, and we started using what we had Google ads before when I got there, but it wasn't professionally managed. And so we hired this company that I'd worked with before, and our membership increased 25% in one quarter. Okay, like, that's huge. And then we also got, I think it was 80 More reviews on Google, which is huge. So everybody wants more reviews, and they are positive.

Neal Schaffer: 21:33

And what did those ads look like? We asked them for reviews where, you know, they weren't remember

Beth Hammock: 21:39

reviews? It was? No, it was the beginning of the year. So it was like an annual membership. And so it was talking about it being a family attraction. It was just like explaining the benefits. Essentially, it didn't have a coupon. I honestly, I actually don't I

Neal Schaffer: 21:56

think, well, I'm assuming if you're a member, you know, become a member today and explore the Botanical Garden throughout the year.

Beth Hammock: 22:03

Yeah. I mean, you get benefits and that you get a discount as well, I think honestly, okay. I just had to think about spent a few years

Neal Schaffer: 22:09

and then when you say membership, I'm assuming that it's, you know, 999 a year or 1499 a year, which becomes automatically renewable unless they cancel that sort of, maybe not automatically renewable, but it's the concept of an annual,

Beth Hammock: 22:24

right? Yeah, no, it wasn't, I mean, we don't like nonprofits are nicer.

Neal Schaffer: 22:30

If he was like,

Beth Hammock: 22:32

yeah, right now, I mean, it was a big deal that we had to make sure that, you know, that was part of our job, as those are, you know, you don't want to have lapsed members and making sure that people do renew and, you know, we reminded them, but it's also a chance to kind of upgrade people on any contact that you have is good, even a bill basically. But we did have a coupon it was for a snow cone, or some kind of treat at the concession stand, which wasn't a very big coupon, but was something and people really liked that treat that we had there. So no stinking of them.

Neal Schaffer: 23:01

Gotcha. So once again, we're thinking of some sort of incentive. And, man, if nonprofits can create these incentives and businesses, it's really easy for you to create incentives for everybody listening, when you think about it, right?

Beth Hammock: 23:12

Yeah, I actually so I have, if we were doing this on video, I would show you this huge postcard I got from Walmart yesterday about I used to be a Walmart Plus member, and they are trying to get me to come back. And they are touting that I could do my Black Friday shopping early. If I come back. I mean, that's a really good incentive. So we just need to think of things that that's why I was kind of going with come early to the zoo. You know, like, I just went to this big events at the St. Louis Zoo. And if I, all the members got to go there for two hours while nobody else is there. That'd be pretty nice.

Neal Schaffer: 23:43

Yeah, exclusivity is another big thing, isn't it? And it's funny, because, well, that's gonna cost us a lot of money. But then you think about the ineffective advertising money that's out there by offering up something that actually might be way more cost effective than when you add it with effective advertising, then obviously, exponentially increases the ROI for you. So that makes a lot of sense. And once again, that the parallel between for profit nonprofit is right there.

Beth Hammock: 24:09

Yeah, I think that nonprofits can really improve though on their exclusivity is, especially the way that they message it, if you just would say one benefit, and shout it and it's something really good. Like what I know, at the universities, we would have a whole list of benefits for the President's Club members. And none of them were really that exciting, honestly, you know, he just couldn't really come up with something good to get invited to exclusive events, which that is the main thing I think, that sells.

Neal Schaffer: 24:39

And I want to throw this out there that I recently did a presentation completely different for real estate agents. But when I was talking about leveraging resources in your community, one thing I talked about was like, not just college interns, but high school interns, more and more high schools require, for instance, intern hours. My daughter and my son are both in these business cohorts. So they actually have to have intern hours until they graduate. And most high schools now have public service hours. So there are smart nonprofits, my daughter is actually very heavily involved with assist teams, which is the assistance League, their thing for teenagers, the organization that they have managed by parents, obviously. But I think that there are tremendous opportunities for nonprofits, and for businesses to tap into that most high schoolers that my daughter knows are actually they're all starting their own nonprofits. They're not really I mean, it's an Instagram account with a cause. And it might look good on their, you know, common application when they apply to university. But the fact of the matter is that I think that society sees that that, you know, volunteering for nonprofits is an important aspect of of being a good citizen. And I just think that there are tremendous opportunities there to systematically, you know, you talked about those private institutions of having conversations, how can we, we want to better serve the community, your students need volunteer hours, is there something we might be able to do together? Visa be social media, right? And my message for the agents that were new to all this is like, have your kids teach you how to do it? If you were to look at the pot, and I shared this in my presentation, if you were to look at the podcast images, for my school of influence podcast I do with Amanda Russell, every single one of those images was created by my daughter using the Canva template, and she's still in high school, and she has not like she's not like a graphic designer or anything like that. So I think there's a whole there's a huge resource out there, that and I think it's a lot easier for nonprofits to tap into that for those reasons I just gave. I'm just curious, is this something that nonprofits try to do? Or is it something you also think it's something that they just haven't thought of? Well, universities

Beth Hammock: 26:44

definitely do that. Because there are a lot of students around. And definitely, I haven't heard of nonprofits doing it. I did think of doing that when I was at Girl Scouts, obviously, you know, that the older there are older girls, you know. And so all of that takes organization. But it's it is a great idea. And it's also like along the lines of saying that I had an intern write a blog post. I mean, she was from Ethiopia, and she had a great story. Everybody has a story, obviously, like if you had all of your older girl, it could be people in the community to the way high school students connect with their community organizations. I could write about that. Yeah, it'd be great.

Neal Schaffer: 27:23

Yeah. And I think that I found this with companies with employee advocacy and getting people internally to blog. No one, if you ask people to blog, they're going to go, I don't know how to blog. So just record them, telling their story. transcribe it, repurpose it, no blog post, right. It really, really easy to do. And you could do it from a video as well or not. Yeah.

Beth Hammock: 27:44

That's really cool. Yeah. Oh, well, I mean, I like that idea. And what I did was just afterwards, just write her story. You know, I'm, like, telling me about her life. You know, I didn't say, I don't know what's much, you know, everybody's used to doing that, I guess, in a short period of short amount of words.

Neal Schaffer: 28:00

Yeah. So we talked about the illusions. And the sleight of hand, the magicians choice, your magicians choice is

Beth Hammock: 28:09

video storytelling.

Neal Schaffer: 28:11

I talked about that earlier. Yeah. And how to accomplish that a nonprofit. But is there anything else we missed in that or pretty much leverage the people around you, you know, it's funny, I did a podcast interview that's yet to be published on your digital marketing coach, it soon will be. And it was with someone who specializes in basically paid social. And she works with a lot of brands in their Facebook and Instagram ads. And she's like, You don't, you don't need a ring light. You don't want to ring light. You don't want an external microphone, it's your iPhone, because that's what people are using in social media. That's what people are creating reels with and tic TOCs with, you don't want to go above and beyond that. It's as easy right as literally talking into your iPhone, potentially.

Beth Hammock: 28:49

Definitely. I think everybody needs to be doing that. It's so much easier. I'm going to start doing that myself. But I'm going to do just short little greetings to people because yeah, it's a ton easier. And you just need to be using video. And that's how to do it. I mean, the other thing is that when you're talking about these volunteers, you can have volunteers like from high school, my son knew how to make high school videos in high school. That's his thing. He would make videos for nonprofits or the other thing is you can pay somebody like my company to come in and do it just for a one day shoot. And we can make a whole bunch of short little videos out of that, you know, and I like stock video. I think that's what we did a cottey college we had a lot of videos by some professionals that we just kind of reuse.

Neal Schaffer: 29:31

You know, makes sense. And I'd say if there's one tool you might want to consider for your video. Big fan of Pat Flynn. So he has this product called the switch pod. And the switch pod is basically it's very sturdy, it becomes a tripod, but it also allows you you can like hold your video far away from you. I know it's hard to see on

Beth Hammock: 29:53

a selfie stick. They are like Uber selfie stick, a boomer

Neal Schaffer: 29:57

self. Well, yeah, but it's Yeah, but it is allows you just with the grip, it allows you to hold it, it's very, very sturdy allows you to hold it really far away with the angled house. Plus it becomes that tripod. So I carry this with me wherever I go, so that I'm ready if I ever want to vlog. It's really a great blogging tool, but that's like$100, you know, piece of hardware you can get on Amazon. But that would be something that if you wanted something to make it easier for you. I think having a tool like that would definitely make it easier.

Beth Hammock: 30:22

I think people should put that in their budget for 2022. Hmm, there you go.

Neal Schaffer: 30:27

Yeah, you know what, we're gonna throw an Amazon link right there in the show notes. Why not? Okay.

Beth Hammock: 30:32

That's a good idea.

Neal Schaffer: 30:34

This has gotten pretty silly. Beth, thank you so much for sharing all of your knowledge, your experience your expertise with us. Tell the listeners a little bit about, you know, how you help companies and how people can reach out to you,

Beth Hammock: 30:45

sir, there are three different ways. One is I'm a fractional cmo for nonprofits that I will be your chief marketing officer for part of the time and get you going on the road to having a full time one by helping you grow. And then I also do video production services and did a digital marketing. So it's everything we just talked about. I can help you strategize and or do it for you

Neal Schaffer: 31:09

or your video production services limited to where you geographically we live in Missouri or do

Beth Hammock: 31:14

we will travel I have two partners, and one is a former TV news photographer. And we can also live stream from anywhere we have a live vehicle. So that's pretty cool. And then my son Chris is my other partner and he's in Salt Lake City. So he's got the Rocky Mountain West, but he travels internationally doing video. So we'll go anywhere that you'd like us to come in. Where

Neal Schaffer: 31:36

can people find out more about you?

Beth Hammock: 31:37

You can find me at hammock communications comm

Neal Schaffer: 31:41

that's H A M M O CK communications.com. Yep. Alrighty, Beth, thank you so much. You've been a wealth of knowledge. And I'm glad we had this conversation, because I do think that there's a lot of parallels it with the for profit, nonprofit, hopefully, all of you listening, thought so as well. And I continue, I continue to look forward to seeing our businesses grow in our digital first mastermind community. So thanks for being a continued member of that as well.

Beth Hammock: 32:07

Thank you.

Neal Schaffer: 32:08

Alright, isn't Beth amazing. And it's really amazing have gotten to know her since she's been on my mastermind and see all the wonderful things that she is starting to implement on to grow her business in the future. Hopefully, if you are a nonprofit and you are interested or in higher ed or you just vibe with Beth, please make sure you reach out to her she already told you in the podcast, but in the show notes will also have the link so that you can get hold of her. And nonprofit marketing is something that I've been involved with in my career. And it's something that I wish every nonprofit would do better app because there's a lot of stories to be told. There's a lot of relationships to be built. And I think that there's just a lot more that they can do to get their story out using more innovative techniques, like the things that Beth was talking about. But once again, even if you're not a nonprofit, I hope that you had some great takeaways from this episode. Alright everybody. That's it for another episode. This is your digital marketing coach signing off. You've been listening to your digital marketing coach, questions, comments, requests, links, go to podcast dot Neal schaffer.com. Get the show notes to this and 200 plus podcast episodes, and Neal Schaffer calm to tap into the 400 Plus blog posts that Neil has published to support your business. While you're there, check out Neil's Digital First group coaching membership community if you or your business needs a little helping hand. See you next time on your digital marketing coach.