As the end of my reading is nearing, I had to read the last two chapters of “Measure What Matter.” The chapter that highlights how to measure for nonprofits discusses how to measure behavioral change. It states, “member behavior can take many forms: renewals, donations, web traffic, e-mail responses, phone calls, attendance at trade shows, votes, and so on.” It is key that the following costs are measured monthly and are compared to media activity. The following are areas that can be measured. I hope you find them as informational and important as I do.

1.       Cost per donor acquired

This is the area where you count the number of new donors each month. Then you take that number and divide it into the total amount that will be spent on those donors.

2.       Cost per volunteer acquired

Track the number of new volunteers that are added each month and divide that into the total amount that was spent on recruitment.

3.       Cost per contribution

How much revenue comes in with every solicitation you send out? Track the cost of solicitation itself along with labor and marketing efforts.

4.       Cost per attendee

Count the number of people that come in daily or weekly to your nonprofit. Also, track the amount of traffic coming in after certain marketing and communication activities.

5.       Return on investment of a website

Track the cost of the website along with its maintenance and the donations that come in from the website. Subtract this number from the total amount of donations coming in overall. When you make changes to the website this makes it easier to measure the ROI.

This information is very important for the nonprofit organizations. I hope you all find this information helpful when working with nonprofits and measuring the amount of change in action with the organization.

Elephant Love

As you can probably tell from the header image I have a deep love for elephants. This love started for me in about second grade. I distinctly remember learning about the areas certain animals live in and having to create that biome for a specific animal. I chose an elephant and that is what started it all. I was trying to figure out what to do for my next post and it just came to me. I wanted to share with you all some of the fun facts I found along with some images of adorable elephants. Enjoy!

1.       African elephants are the largest land mammals on the planet.

2.       Females African elephants undergo the longest pregnancy of 22 months.

3.       Elephants do not like peanuts despite what all the television shows say.

4.       Asian elephants do not run. They keep at least two feet on that ground at a time.

5.       They can recognize themselves in a mirror.

6.       Elephants can get sunburned. They throw sand on their backs and head to keep bugs off and prevent sunburn.

7.       They have evolved a sixth toe that starts off as cartilage, but as they grow it becomes bone.

Video Marketing Statistics

Video content has been increasing online and businesses are wanting to take advantage of this opportunity. Videos are more expensive to create, but are more flexible when creating images. The style of videos range from advertisements to how-to videos and product demos to fun videos that catch client’s attention. An article on Social Media Today contains an infographic with some of the stats found about what businesses are using video marketing. I just wanted to share a few of these with you all.

1.       The number of video views that take place on a desktop is 86 percent, while only 14 percent are on mobile devices.

2.       The number of videos published by businesses is on average 18 each month.

3.       Over half of the videos published last year were under two minutes long.

4.       The top five percent of videos retain an average of 77 percent of the viewers to the last second.

5.       The number of businesses that use intermediate or advanced analytics to measure performance is about 35 percent.

It is interesting to see these number and be able to reflect on times when I have watched some of these videos and how dominant they are becoming in today’s society.  I highly encourage all of you to check out the rest of the statistics in the infographic. Feel free to comment your thought or opinions below!

Relations in the Local Community

After college, I want to work in a small town building up local businesses through design and public relations. I find it fitting to discuss some of the things I learned from this week’s reading in Measure What Matters. I hope you find some of these as helpful as I do.

1.      Determine who your neighbors are

It is important to note that communities are no longer just the people around you, but they can be virtual groups of people as well. Neighbors can be a variety of people including: customers, vendors, partners, external advocates, nongovernmental organizations, and others that your company has a relationship with.

2.      Know how relationships influence your organization

It is key to ignore those relationships that put you at risk or in danger. If you lose the trust of the community it can be hard to regain. It can be done though through an apology and admission of wrongdoing. When you have a good relationship with the community, they can be a support system and back up your business in time of crisis.

3.      Focus on the key publics

The key publics can include anyone from customers to financial analysts to the media. It has become expected that business have a global outreach program in place. If an organization does not have a good metrics plan in place, then it is easy to assume everything is fine and dandy. It is not until something goes wrong that you notice things should have been determined ahead of time.

With the desire to work in a small community, this information is great to keep in mind. I hope you all find it as informative and important as I do.

Pinterest’s Move to Get Rid of the Like Button

Pinterest recently announced that they are going to remove the “like” option off their site. This could mean big things for those that track likes as part of their performance. The following quote is taken from the article on Social Media Today. It states, “There are lots of reasons why people like Pins on Pinterest. But because we have both a Save button and a Like button, it hasn’t always been clear how they’re different. After doing a bunch of research with Pinners, we found Pinterest is easier to understand when we remove the Like button altogether.”

They explain the difference between liking a pin and saving a pin. When you like a pin, it is moved to a different tab that only you can see, but when you save a pin, you add it to a board and anybody can see it.

Pinterest found that nobody really cared about the option and decided to get rid of it. They are also starting to move away from being common social media network. They state, “While other companies want you to live in a virtual world, Pinterest encourages people to live in the real world. We like to say, be yourself and not your selfie. There are many services out there with the mission of helping you connect and share with friends; we’re the one app exclusively in the visual discovery business.” Pinterest is starting to move away from social and is focusing now on the eCommerce potential.

Personally, I am in favor of this new change. I like the idea of just being able to save pins. I was more confused when I realized there was even a save option on Pinterest. So, what do you think? How do you feel about this change? Feel free to comment below!

Softball and Puppies

As the end of the semester is quickly appearing I find it important to take the time to do the things you love and to relax a little before the overwhelming stress kicks in. Last Monday I got the chance to go out to Robb Park with my father and hit some softballs. Softball has always been a huge part of my life, but sadly this is the first year I have not played. Being able to go and be on the field again was such an amazing stress reliever.

Not only did I get to do what I love, but we also found a lost puppy. For those of you that do not know, Robb Avenue in Lima is an extremely busy street. I was able to catch the pup before she ran into the street. The first thing I looked for was her tags, which she did not have. Then we started looking around to see if anyone appeared to be looking for her. That failed us as well. After about an hour or so we decided to call the dog warden and ask what we should do. The final decision was to take her to the Allen County Dog Warden and hope the owner look for her.

In the two hours, the puppy was with us, she never made a sound and was very scared. I was able to run and play with her, which made both of us happy. She was such a sweet girl. All I can hope for her is that her family finds her, or she gets adopted by an even better family.

Just remember that no matter how stressed out you may get, it will all be over soon. Do the things you love to do. Oh, and puppies make everything better!

Pinterest’s Newest Infographic

Pinterest just released a new infographic that covers the new data on their audiences. They are a growing marketing option that may not get the attention that they deserve. Statistics show that

Pinterest now has over 175 million monthly active users and could possibly get $500 million in ad revenue this year alone. I just wanted to share a few of the new statistics that were released. Enjoy!

1.       The number of people that look at saved content while in stores is 67%. With this people are two times more likely to say time on Pinterest is well-spent.

2.       Pinterest is being used by seven in ten millennial women in the United States.

3.       It is now being shown that Pinterest is being used highly by men and women. Women account for 68% of people that use Pinterest and men account for 40% of new users.

4.       Pinterest is mainly used on a mobile device via the app. This mean that 80% of Pinners use the app.

I found these statistics highly interesting as I am one of the women that use the Pinterest app daily. I hope you found this information interesting as well and I encourage all of you to follow this link and check out more of the information that was shared.