Digital Strategy

As if you weren’t already busy enough. While producing conferences, recruiting members and volunteers, creating resources, and advocating for your cause, another challenge lands on your desk: we’re in a digital world now.

Your organization has been inching into this digital world for decades. Email completely changed how you communicated with members. Your first website, an embarrassing memory now, was a huge step into the future. You introduced e-newsletters, but kept the fax for nostalgic reasons – and that member in North Dakota. Then the pace quickened: online forums, LinkedIn, blogs, Facebook, search engine optimization, and Twitter. It never ends. Now everyone’s talking about mobile, Pinterest, and gamification. How do you keep up?

Take a moment, catch your breath, and let go of that stress ball. We’re here to remind you to focus on your organization’s mission, goals, and strategy – not the latest buzzword.

In this new online world, everything is connected. Silos are a relic of the 20th century. Nothing works in isolation. Communications, website, advocacy, social media, public relations, conferences, mobile, membership, marketing, online community – they’re all interwoven. You need an online strategy for a connected world.

We’re here to help you figure all that out, so your time and efforts produce results that move you toward your goals. We have over 25 years of experience helping associations and nonprofits make sense of the changes in technology and guiding them on a path to progress. We understand how you work because many of us have been in your shoes; we provide practical strategies and solutions that are tailored to your size, budget, membership, and culture.

If you think your online efforts have been a little haphazard, call us today to find out how we can help coordinate and aim them in the right direction.

We help associations and nonprofit organizations with:

Website Strategy

Welcome home! That’s the proclamation your website is making to potential and current members. Or is it? A definitive website strategy ensures that your website provides a warm welcome, comfy seating, and refreshments – so your members will want to stay a while, and come back often.

Mobile Strategy

A mobile device – smartphone, iPad, or whatever’s next – isn’t just a fashion accessory. For many people, that device is a primary means of connectivity, a resource for anything and everything – including your association. To be sure your members can connect with you, and with each other, anywhere and everywhere, you need a strong mobile strategy. We can help.

Content Strategy

Content strategy is a hot topic in the association community, and for good reason. Members expect your association to deliver fresh, relevant content – articles, blog posts, videos, podcasts, reports – when and where they want it. Your reputation depends on being a reliable, trusted source of content for members and other audiences – prospects, students, new and traditional media, policymakers, consumers. Yet, in many associations, content creation is a constant struggle.

Social Media Strategy

Social media isn’t a toy; it's a serious form of business communication that can help you build awareness, extend influence, deepen relationships, gather data, facilitate relationship-building, share content, and market your events. Learn how social media can be fun and functional with a connected, collaborative strategy that’s aligned to your mission.

Online Community Strategy

Your online community has much in common with a backyard garden. Are you preparing and nourishing the soil, planting alluring flowers, and constantly nurturing your plantings so they continue to bloom? Are you challenged by lack of sunshine and showers that help your garden – er, online community – grow? Not unlike gardening, online community management is part art, part science. We can help you identify the best practices to help your online community flourish.

Website Usability Testing

Like most other things in life, “build it and they will come” is not a good philosophy for your website. That’s where usability testing comes in. Usability testing measures how well visitors find what they need and whether they can accomplish what they came to do on your website. You might have slick design and compelling copy, but if visitors can’t intuitively understand how to use your site, they’ll go elsewhere.

Take the IT Maturity Self-Assessment

What is IT maturity and how does it affect organizations like yours? Helping you advance along the path toward IT maturity is our way of helping you accomplish your mission. We help you grow beyond a point where everything functions, to help you actually put technology to work for you and help you advance your organization – and your industry. That’s what we call the innovative state. You can get there, following the guidance of our IT Maturity Model for Associations & Nonprofits.

First, find out where you are on the IT maturity spectrum, and how you compare to other organizations. Answer a few questions in our quick self-assessment to find out if your technology is restrictive, functional, effective, or innovative. You’ll get a full report with suggestions for improving your IT, to help your organization prosper.