This post is a continuation of a previous article about how to start and carry on a conversation with online visitors and communities about your nonprofit entity and it’s mission. Below are 8 more ideas and strategies to add to your list of possible action items to leverage the power of the Internet!

7. Speak to your visitors/users at their level. Let them determine how quickly and at what stage they choose to become involved with your organization

8. Develop a marketing strategy that will win over your website visitors, making them friends, and turning those friends into donors, and grow those donors into loyal donors. This form of marketing is a process; it provides the kind of stability needed within an increasingly cluttered Internet.

9. Develop a fundraising and acknowledgement application that encourages, affirms, and leverages recent and past online donations. Provide an integrated, personalized “story telling” system that describes saved and changed lives. By applying basic database marketing techniques learned in your direct mail program, tell your donors how their dollars are critical to your organization’s success; do the work necessary to grow them into loyal donors.

10. Update your homepage and the general content of your site daily. Blogs are GREAT for writing regular columns on such subjects as donor feedback, advisory board decisions, how lives are being changed and saved, and your future organizational goals. A website can become a gravesite if you do not refresh its content regularly. Give them a reason to return regularly. 

11. Consider an appropriate use of bonuses (books, booklets, contests, tapes, CDs, etc.) as gifts for a visitor/user’s response to a survey, donation, or participation in an online focus group. Tailor this strategy to the uniqueness of your mission.

12. Invite interactivity by providing an online calendar that highlights your nonprofit’s events. This calendar could include the promotion of a speakers bureau, Web casting, podcasting, overseas trips, conventions, weekend briefings, internal strategic staff meetings, etc. Ask people for their email address whenever and wherever you can, and use it to update them on changes or additions of new events and activities on your calendar.

13. Create “testimonial” opportunities for your friends, donors and other advocates. Video and audio testimonials are extremely effective as opposed to traditional text. This allows them to give you feedback on how your organization is relevant in their lives in a more personal, from the heart, way. Giving time and resources to help others is important; it is equally important to ask for “stories” from those people who make your mission or cause possible.

14. Create a “wish-list” of gifts or in-

kind items your organization needs to further its mission, such as food, clothing, cars, school supplies, building supplies, etc. Begin implementing this critical involvement content and you will be communicating with your donors more intelligently and effectively.

You will also start seeing results because you have initiated meaningful connections where future donors suddenly give you permission to continue the conversation.

However, you still may ask, how will these people remember the mission of our organization? How can we cut through the Internet clutter and be seen and remembered as unique? How can we make sure our new friends return again and again?Important questions and that’s what an effective brand strategy is all about!

Stay tuned for an INCREDIBLE EXAMPLE of a nonprofit that incorporates much of the strategies we offer in this article that GutZy Women discovered just the other day. The site is incredibly creative, visually appealing and incorporates much of the new Web 2.0 capabilities that sets their organization apart from the crowd!

“This ebook was created after receiving yet another email from someone in debt & desperate.

Let me save you getting to that point. I went there…. and I don’t recommend it!”

Diane Corriette…founder of Women Internet Marketers

Her experience with that desperate person was what started this mission to share with others the mistakes we made as we ventured into the internet marketing world so that you might learn from our mistakes. We all make mistakes when we start and even more as we get in deeper. That’s just the nature of business.

But the point of having teachers and mentors is to learn from their mistakes and their wisdom so that we can side step the pitfalls, focus on what works and follow the systems they have developed, which, if we follow faithfully, the chances of succeeding far exceeds the norm.

So it just made sense when Diane came out with an ebook that described the 7 top mistakes she made when she was just getting started on the internet, so that those who read it would know what NOT to do, saving them time, money and demoralizing frustration.

When I got her email stating she recieved such positive response and feedback from her book that she was looking to include other’s experiences and advice to come up with a more comprehensive list of “What Would You do Differently?”, I knew I had a responsibility to share mine.

So I swallowed my pride and wrote about a few “faux pas” I made myself, as did other experienced internet marketers and I’m writing this post today to let you know how to find this valuable resource if you want a head start when it comes to marketing your business or nonprofit on the internet.

There’s some GREAT stuff if you’re just getting started. Even if you’ve been online for a while, we can all use some pointers now and then. Below is the link…see if it’s something you can use to make your life easier:

My Internet Marketing Mistakes

I met Diane when I got back from Next Internet Millionaire. Actually, she found me and through social networking, a teleseminar interview, some phone conversations and a mastermind group, I have found her to be an incredible teacher, mentor, internet marketer, writer and friend.

I highly recommend you get to know her…she takes part in my GutZy Women Virtual Clubhouse often and has so much to offer!

 In the last article I wrote about how nonprofit entities need to engage people they want to attract to their organization in conversations that their readers want to engage in. So here’s 6 smart content ideas that can help you develop a comprehensive involvement strategy…

1. Capture email addresses from your visitors and send a regular, relevant, motivational enewsletter that describes the excitement of what is happening in your organization—one that invites involvement. Once you have captured a visitor’s email address, you’re on your way to turning those visitors into friends of your organization.

2. Ask your visitors to become offline and online volunteers. Online volunteerism is an innovative way to get people involved. For example, an online volunteer could be asked to become an e-advisory board member, giving your e-advisory board the privilege of shaping your online strategic direction. The secret here is to develop meaningful connections that encourage regular involvement.

3. Create online polls. Use technology, such as Instant Messaging and Chat, for the facilitation of online focus groups and benefits testing. Use surveys to solicit both general and specific information from anyone who logs on to your site. Your friends want to give you feedback, however you must first politely ask for it.

4. Tap the power of viral marketing. This is where you click on a box that asks “Would you like to share this article with a friend?”—after which the person types in his or her friend’s email address. This promotes great interactivity and exposes your site to someone who you, in all probability, never may have reached.

5. Keep it personal. When you solicit comments from visitors, make sure the user addresses a real person. When you solicit comments from visitors, make sure the user addresses a real person…not webmaster@, info@ or support@… Instead, it must be attn: Chris@…or Melissa@…etc.

Your website is your ultimate direct marketing vehicle—and your unique opportunity to stay up close and personal. A basic principle when implementing new technology is that it should enhance the facilitation of conversation with people, not put up “techno walls” that make it more difficult to carry on a conversation.

6. Develop communication strategies at all levels within your website with:

Visitors Friends

Volunteers

Members

eNewsletter and other eCampaign recipients

Donors

Annual Donors

Mid Donors Major Donors

Corporations and Foundations

Planned Giving

Stay tuned for the next article where I’ll give you even more great ideas and read more here:

My post today honors the power of social networking on the internet to bring women together across the world…Women of the same mind and the same heart.

Women who are passionate about lending a hand to others…especially to other women to gently help them overcome their fears, challenges, mistakes, limitations, heartbreaks and economic frustrations…AND to celebrate and promote their strengths, talents, skills, passions and products.

Even better…
……women who
love life,
revel in nature and beauty,
live to experience the unusual,
expand horizons daily,
get excited by an unlimited field of possibilities,
live purposefully and
vow to be true to themselves,
as well as their origins…
this is my testament to the sheer power of the web to
connect human beings and develop powerful friendships,
establish mutually beneficial business relationships,
and make bold plans for the future of our planet.

As a result of my journey into social networking, I have made some incredible friends. One such woman is Hayley Solich from Australia.

Hayley is an extremely gifted communicator. She has a way of talking about herself, her experiences and her passions in a way that I marvel at her honesty, insight and humor…especially in the light of the challenges she has faced and overcome in her life.
She has a strong desire to help other women through tough challenges they face and has focused her skills, talents and energy into creating support and solutions for women on several different fronts.

One of those fronts is a nonprofit organization she’s founded by the name of Women Can International…an innovative women’s association based in Australia, with a vision to enhance the lives of women across the world.

As a part of that effort she creates and publishes a quality newsletter that includes stories about an “Australian Woman of Spirit” as well as an “International Woman of Spirit”. These are women Hayley feels exemplify the spirit of Women Can.

Needless to say, I am humbled and grateful to be chosen and presented in a revealing article published in this months edition of Hayley’s Newsletter as Women Can International’s “International Woman of Spirit!”

What humbles me is that I’ve ended up in the same company with the woman she chose as Women Can’s “Australian Woman of Spirit”…Ros Worthington, who founded The Breast Cancer Foundation of Western Australia, as well as other important causes. You can learn more about Ros here

As much as I have represented and advocated for women, starting grass root movements for something as large and important as Breast Cancer is the real deal.

I encourage you to take the time to read about and get to know a few more of the incredible women living halfway across our world who are taking part in the gathering of life giving, life sustaining, nurturing, feminine energy that has the ability to positively change our world.

Discover fascinating women, including Hayley,  in her newsletter now by clicking here

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Debbie Ducic of www.GutZyWomen.com interviews Sandra Yancey, founder & CEO of eWomenNetwork along with special guests, Mary Pearsall, Executive Managing Director of the Colorado Springs Branch and Alecia Huck of Maverick And Company.

In part one of this video series, Sandra talks about what eWomenNetwork does to help business women think BIG as they build their businesses by networking with successful women who are willing to share their knowledge and connections.

Gutzy Woman’s purpose for this video series is to get the word out about the eWomenNetwork’s Annual Conference and Business Expo that fills the Hyatt in downtown Dallas with close to three thousand business women every summer.

If you are a woman and own your own business, this conference is the ultimate networking event!

The interview has been broken up into shorter segments for your convenience, since time is what we women have the least of. However, we suggest that you watch and listen to the whole series at www.gutzywoman.com