The word marketing is usually associated with profit generating tactics; however, inbound marketing is focused on organic growth. The goal is to attract people to your cause based on the relevance of the information you offer your specific target audience. Outbound marketing consists of reaching out en masse in hopes of generating leads.

As opposed to traditional outbound marketing, inbound marketing is like a puzzle – but not because it’s confusing. It’s a puzzle in the sense that it’s made up of many pieces. To truly succeed online, businesses need to have a comprehensive strategy inclusive of all the pieces, including:

• Blogging 
• Social media engagement 
• Search engine optimization (SEO) 
• Landing pages 
• Email marketing 
• Video marketing 
• Strategic website design.

These inbound marketing tactics, when orchestrated in unison, can drive traffic and interested leads. But the “in unison” piece is the key to success.

With that said, the web allows for almost total traceability, which means most marketing tactics and campaigns are instantly measurable. This allows for easy replication of success and fast learning from mistakes.

Advantages of Inbound Marketing

There are a lot of advantages that inbound marketing offers over outbound marketing. In its…

Welcome to Research Friday! As part of a continuing series, we invite a nonprofit scholar, student, or professional to highlight current research reports or studies and discuss how they can inform and improve day-to-day nonprofit practice.

A few months ago, I was embroiled in a weeks-long interaction with one of the largest government agencies. As I sought to work out the kinks of my issue, my calls were shuttled from office to office and officer to officer. It seemed that my issue might linger indefinitely with this shall-go-unnamed agency, until one day, when a customer service representative took me off hold and turned out to be an especially attentive, thorough, and service-minded individual. She gathered my information, gauged where I was in the process, and assisted me through the close of the issue. At the end, I thanked her profusely for her assistance, and hung up mulling over the question of engagement. Why is it that some employees DO feel this commitment to their work, and others suffer from a sense of disengagement that cripples their effectiveness as employees?

Last year, Opportunity Knocks commissioned a report1 to evaluate this question of engagement across the nonprofit workforce. They sought to understand individual commitment to mission, management, and emotion in the workplace…

This post is a continuation of Seeds for a Future Part 1: Getting your NGO off the ground.

When starting a nongovernmental organization (NGO) in a community other than your own, it is important to recognize that there are cultural barriers (try to call these "opportunities") to consider. Men, women and young adults live within age and gender roles that are deeply ingrained into their communities and ways of life, which can affect your operations.

Before you invest too much time and financial resources into your NGO, it is wise to get to know the community and participants: identify potential leaders among the men, women, and young adults, and adjust your cultural orientation to see things through their eyes. Hold discussions with participants and find out what will work for them, and in which motivated community members are afforded opportunities to put their vision on the table. Draw people on the exterior of the circle into your discussions. It is not that they do not have ideas, but rather, that they need to feel safe in putting their ideas on the table. Small, intimate round table discussion among peers using a talking stone can lead to a lot of insight and consensus building.

When we first began work in Chocolá, our consulting anthropologist and community resident insisted we work principally with the elders of the community to win their…

One piece of advice that aspiring nonprofit professionals should consider is to participate in an internship program.

I’m in the public relations/communications/marketing industry, and internships were not required in either my undergraduate or graduate degree programs, but speaking to professionals in this field, they are definitely encouraged. I have since had the opportunity to work at multiple nonprofit organizations as an intern, where I learned what I was good at, improved on many of my skills, and learned what makes a good internship program.

You can do it!...

All of the organizations I interned with had faith in me. They all gave me fairly substantial responsibilities that would have a public impact on the organization. Press releases, social media, and websites were just a few of my responsibilities, all of which are highly visible, and nowhere in my work did they put “made by our intern.” The fact that the organizations trusted in my abilities enough to hand these responsibilities off to me boosted my confidence level immensely — which is really important for someone who is in his or her first real career-related job.

An intern is not someone who is there just for you to pass off the tedious, boring projects that you don’t want to do (okay, I did get a few of these, and I accepted them with a smile on my face!). I really felt that these…

Welcome to Research Friday! As part of a continuing series, we invite a nonprofit scholar or practitioner to highlight a research report or study and discuss how it can inform and improve day-to-day nonprofit practice. We welcome your comments and feedback.

As many of you know, we are now officially collecting data for the forthcoming edition of our Nonprofit Compensation and Benefits Report. This will be the ASU Lodestar Center’s fifth such publication; we released the first one (then entitled the “Wage and Salary Report”) back in 2001!

A lot has changed in the nonprofit world in the eleven years since our first report. The recent economic recession has been particularly challenging for nonprofits, bringing a tightening of resources coupled with an elevated need for services. And since nonprofit services are almost always provided and organized by people, these challenges and conditions affect organizations’ human resource practices — sometimes dramatically. So for this report, we’ve expanded our questions on nonprofit benefits practices, including questions asking how nonprofits are responding to various issues.

Click here to fill out our Nonprofit Compensation and Benefits survey!

Health insurance coverage

In our 2010 Nonprofit Compensation and Benefits Report, 94 percent of responding…