Two weeks ago, our Senior Consultant Sara Cederberg took a train to Chicago for the Netroots Nation conference, the largest annual conference for progressives working for political campaigns, advocacy organizations, service organizations, and causes. The gathering draws thousands of attendees from across the country and around the world.
I will never pass up an opportunity to head to Chicago — but in all seriousness, my last Netroots was in 2015, long before I joined the ranks of Fresh Eyes and our amazing clients. It was wonderful to see so many friends, former colleagues, and clients — and to reflect on how far digital marketing has come to help activists and causes drive meaningful change for our communities.
I attended several incredible sessions and some pretty cool happy hour events as well (every party is better with drag queens). Here are my top three takeaways:
Declines in online fundraising revenue are a concern — but like always, there are bright spots.
As we saw in 2022, online revenue was a winding road through the first half of 2023. Nonprofit organizations weren’t alone: political campaigns and organizations felt it too.
But you know what gives me hope? Dramatic ups and downs are forcing marketers to pull back the curtain on tired tactics, identify ethical ways to build email lists, develop new strategies to engage (and keep) supporters, make email templates more accessible, and think more holistically about how other channels contribute to the success of email campaigns.
We may have to work harder to earn every dollar, but I’m confident that doing it the right way is cool again.
The race to integrate artificial intelligence (AI) into content marketing efforts is on.
As marketers, we already know AI is intertwined with our work — like the machine learning targeted online advertising tools use to tailor ads to specific users. So it was only a matter of time until artificial intelligence entered the content marketing chat.
Like many of the attendees I talked to at Netroots about AI — which was also a topic of conversation at multiple sessions and product demos — I’m of two minds on this one. New tools like Quiller offer the potential to help capacity-strapped political campaigns and nonprofit organizations scale up email campaigns quickly, but still require a human touch to add quality and detail to AI-drafted and -coded emails. On the flipside, we’ve heard a lot about AI’s potential, but it’s too soon to fully understand the nature and scope of the risks. Will these tools be used to cut down on marketing budgets and staffing costs? What data and privacy concerns might it introduce? And for data analytics and reporting AI, what nuances might it miss in the data that might affect your understanding of your email program’ performance?
Either way, I’m reminding myself to approach the potential of AI with an open mind — just like any marketing innovation that has come before it.
Break down your organizational silos!
I was absolutely blown away by Jay Carmona’s training on breaking silos through diagramming and planning processes at the outset that put deep supporter engagement back at the center of both digital and organizing programs. Check out Jay’s planning and process diagram that puts deep supporter engagement at the center of digital and organizing programs to break down silos and streamline your outreach.
It’s easy to forget how capable we are of driving monumental change — if we can manage to get out of our own way.
If I chatted with you at #NN23, I may have already followed up with you to say hi and explore how we might collaborate in the coming months. (And if I haven’t yet, my email is coming!)
And if you’re hoping to catch a Freshie in the wild soon, we’re headed to National Harbor (just outside Washington, DC) for the Bridge Conference next week. And we’ll wrap up the summer conference circuit with the Engaging Networks Community Conference in Washington, DC from September 11-12.
As always, if you want to chat about some of our #NN23 takeaways, or your EOY fundraising plans (gasp, we know) please drop us a line to let us know – we’d love to connect!
