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When it comes to reaching and engaging target audiences, distribution is only part of your marketing equation. In addition to choosing the right channels for generating visibility and making members aware of new opportunities, organizations need to develop compelling messaging and increase goals around newsletter subscriptions, new member sign-ups, existing member renewals, and donation. This process, known as conversion optimization–known in the for-profit world as the act of transforming website visitors into first-time customers and first-time customers into repeat buyers—is one of the pillars of inbound marketing.  

And one of the central tenets of conversion optimization is that you need to plan before you launch a marketing experiment, which you will iterate upon before deploying a new initiative in full. It’s a dedicated commitment to learning that connects all of these aspects of your audience acquisition and engagement strategy. That’s why it’s essential that you to identify and build marketing programs around this audience segment.

Not sure how to find your most engaged members and donors? Here are some concepts, inspired by inbound marketing methodology, that will help provide guidance:

Learn as much as You Can About Your Audience Database

Log in. Click through records. Learn about the people you’re aiming to reach on an individual level. Pinpoint qualitative patterns that you can validate with quantitative information.

After you’ve skimmed your database, come up with a list of segments that make it possible for you to categorize every single person to whom you’re marketing. From there, come up with a member or donor persona list and then conduct even more in-depth research around members who fit those audiences.

At this point, you’ll want to connect these insights to clear action items: you’re going to need to rank-order your segments from most to least valuable based on success criteria that you determine (i.e. engagement rates, donation rates, membership duration).

This process will allow you to create messaging that is truly impactful among your audiences. By segmenting your databases, you’ll create more engaging content, nurturing, and newsletter programs. Bonus: in completing this step and putting your findings on paper, you’ll have created an organization-wide blueprint for your nonprofit’s inbound marketing strategy.

Audit and Streamline Your Operations

As you skim your audience database, you’re likely going to catch some problems. For instance, your member records may exist in multiple systems. You may not have a customer relationship management (CRM) platform that integrates with other tools and software.

This process may feel like teeth-pulling, but it’s one of the most important steps that your nonprofit marketing team can take. The reason?

Inbound marketing is, ultimately, a framework for driving growth. If you grow too quickly without taking care of your housekeeping, you’ll put a tremendous strain on your systems. By auditing your audience database early, however, you can take preemptive steps to ensure that all systems are aligned.

Here’s what you’ll want to keep in mind during your audit, along with steps that you’ll want to take to ensure that your systems are in check:

• Unify your systems with your CRM at the epicenter. Learn how to do it by following the tips from this webinar, which teaches corporations how to unify their marketing and sales.
• Ensure that you have systems to track different aspects of your member journey including email marketing performance, social engagement, and interactions with particular content pieces and offers. Learn how to do it by following the tips in this article on email analytics and this article on tracking content ROI.
• Prepare to start tracking website activity by monitoring what content audiences are reading and what web pages they’re browsing along the path to making a purchase decision. Learn how to do it by reading this piece on tracking marketing data.
• Track interactions with the offers that you’re publishing on your site so that you can see what your most engaged members care about most. Read this article on lead generation to get a sense of some of the tactical best practices.

As you start this process, your systems will likely be piecemeal. Don’t strive for perfection just yet: focus on identifying your strengths and weaknesses so that you know where to make investments in your marketing programs over time. Sooner is better, but an inbound marketing strategy is something that you can develop at your own pace–which is an especially important trait for organizations that are budget-strapped.

Look for Opportunities to Engage Your Top Members

After conducting a membership and technical audit of your database, you’ll have a better idea of who your top members are and how you can engage them. Now, you’ll be in a strong position to execute upon the strategy that you’ve handcrafted over time. Here are some steps that you can take:

• Build dedicated email lists with your top members. Focus on these groupings heavily, and deliver your most personalized and refined marketing programs here. Your most engaged audience deserves your time and attention–they’re the ones sharing your content, combing back to your nonprofit, and making investments in your organization’s future, after all.
• Test out new web copy on key pages that attract your most valuable audiences. Conduct qualitative research to uncover messaging opportunities, and try them out to see if you can increase conversion rates.
• Seek out testimonials and contributed content: these resources will give your website a sense of community and give your audience a chance to become a part of your cause and brand.

Building a Feedback Loop

When you find and actively market to your most engaged audiences, you’ll build a self-sustaining and ever-growing feedback loop that creates new efficiencies and opportunities for your community to become more valuable. The first step begins with understanding your long-term strategy so that you can put the right structural foundations in place. From there, rely on research and a constant learning process to build your acquisition and engagement drivers.

We all know that sources of website traffic can vary greatly from business to business. While some businesses are social media powerhouses, driving thousands of visits through Facebook, Twitter, and more, other businesses are organic search specialists, and derive most of their traffic from scrupulously optimizing pages and posts.

And while there’s no single right answer when it comes to driving traffic, the head of HubSpot Research, Mimi An, wanted to know: What does the average traffic breakdown look like for HubSpot’s 15,000 customers? Where is their traffic coming from?

I took some key data points from the resulting report — Average Traffic Sources for Websites: Benchmarks From 15K HubSpot Customers — and turned it into the infographic below.

Note: You can download the full report (for free!) via the HubSpot Research website at research.hubspot.com.

Have any website traffic insights you’d like to share? Sound off in the comments section below.

Did you know that it only takes a tenth of a second to make a first impression?

In other words, when you meet someone for the first time, you need to be on your game from the very beginning. This includes being aware of everything from the words you choose to the body language you convey.

Whether you’re meeting new connections, team members, potential employers, or customers, I’ve put together a list of tips designed to help you put your best foot forward and make a killer first impression.

9 Tips for Making a Great First Impression

1) Pay attention to your body language and posture.

Effective body language goes beyond simply standing up straight and having a firm handshake — although those things are definitely important, too. When you’re meeting someone for the first time, keep an open posture (don’t tightly cross your arms or legs), lean in when you talk, and don’t be afraid to take up some space at the table. These nonverbal cues can make a powerful subconscious impact, so be aware of your body language and posture during meetings in general, but particularly initial pitches or interviews. 

What behaviors should you aim to avoid? It’s smart to refrain from tapping, touching your face too often, placing objects in front of your, blinking excessively, and sitting or standing too close to others (respect the bubble, people). (Read this post to learn more about body language.)

2) Modulate your pitch and tone of voice.

A high-pitched tone of voice can make you seem childish or nervous — especially if you tend to “uptalk” or use a rising inflection at the end of your sentences. In fact, it has been shown that people perceive those who have a rising intonation as viewed as less knowledgeable, no matter what they are actually saying.

Not sure if you’re guilty of this? Try practicing your presentations or simply reading aloud into an audio app with playback. You’d be surprised at how different you sound to others versus in your own head.

On the other hand, faster speakers are considered to be more confident, according to a study performed at Brigham Young University. And of course, you should avoid using filler words such as “um,” “ah,” “like,” and other similar phrases whenever possible, as it shows hesitation.

3) Choose your words wisely.

Words matter even more than you think — especially the differences between specific types of words. Positive and persuasive words and phrases will often open doors and make people feel comfortable in your presence, which can ultimately make them more willing to work with you.

For instance, let’s take a look at many marketers’ favorite show: Mad Men. Some of Don Draper’s best pitches (e.g., Carousel & Lucky Strike) were all about the positive language. That said, positive language doesn’t need to be cheesy or new-agey as Don illustrates. It can uplift your audience by being clear, simple, and emphasizing future good feelings.

4) Put some thought into your appearance.

What you wear matters, regardless of how little you personally care about fashion or style. This means that while you want to look clean and neat, it is also important to match or slightly exceed the relative level of formality of the person or business you are meeting with — whether that is business formal, highly casual, or something in between.

“You are your brand, especially if you are a business owner, so making sure that your look communicates your best self is important,” explains Laurel Mintz, CEO of Elevate My Brand.

If you want to show off your personality, including one accessory that could be considered a memorable item or even a conversation piece is helpful. This could be anything from a unique piece of jewelry to a unique tie to a pair of fun socks.

Keep in mind that appearance trumps fact when it comes to making first impressions, according to the Society for Personality and Social Psychology, so following this advice can easily help you spin flaws into positives.

5) Make eye contact.

Turn off your phone (or at least mute it), turn off email and instant message alerts on your computer, don’t doodle, and most importantly, focus on the person or people you are speaking with. Make sure you make some eye contact with everyone in the room as well — it’s hard to get to know someone when you’re looking down at a screen.

However, eye contact can also backfire, according to this study by the University of British Columbia. If people aren’t already persuaded or inclined to be on your side, they may focus more on your mouth or any presentation materials you’re showcasing instead of your eyes, making attempts at eye contact a moot point or even weirdly creepy or antagonistic.

6) Know your audience.

Do your research. If your meeting is planned in advance, you should know plenty about the person or business that you’re meeting with before you arrive. This might mean that you Google the people you’ll be meeting with, the company founders/co-founders, their history, their competition, their main products, and any other relevant info before you walk into the room.

Looking for a helpful tool to help you gather some background information? Check out Charlie App. This app scans hundreds of sources to uncover information about the person you’re meeting with and sends you a one-pager with all the details. Pretty cool, right?

7) Come prepared.

There’s nothing worse than an unproductive meeting. To make a great first impression, be sure that you’re respectful of everyone’s time and schedule follow-ups as necessary. If you’re meeting with someone working remotely, plan accordingly. (Read this post for 12 helpful tips for better remote meetings.)

That said, if you’re being productive and everyone has the bandwidth, it might be okay if the meeting runs long — just make sure you check in with the group before making the call.

Meeting time management is a key aspect of building an engaged group of clients or colleagues. Plus, it shows respect for their schedules.

8) Don’t try to be someone you’re not.

When you’re meeting someone for the first time, don’t try to be someone you’re not. If you don’t know the answer to something they ask, don’t fake it — the ability to lean in to your weaknesses shows that you are self-aware.

However, be sure not to over emphasize your shortcomings. It might be seem shockingly simple, but avoiding the “report card problem” or highlighting weaknesses and how you might fix them could cause you to only showcase the negatives, or at least make them the biggest part of your overall impression. So while you don’t want to hide any weaknesses (people will likely figure it out anyways), you do want to be honest and move on to the good stuff — especially at the beginning of a business or any other kind of relationship.

9) Don’t forget to follow-up.

After an initial meeting, don’t forget to follow-up by sending any necessary information — notes, presentation docs, next steps, and so on — or sending a thank you note.

These small gestures will help prove that you’re on the ball, and that you’re making them a priority — not just another task to check off your to-do list. Whether that is true or not, make them feel special by sending any necessary info right away, rather than waiting until the end of the week. 

Sending out updated information after a meeting can also be a way to get a second chance at a first impression by showing another side of yourself or your business. In fact, a Stanford study has shown that adding more external factors can mitigate the effect of a negative first impression.

Don’t like a negative first impression get in the way of your ability to get to know someone. Follow these nine tips above to ensure that the first time you meet with someone won’t be the last.

What are your best tips for making a great first impression? Share them below.