534. How It's Built: How to Create a Winning Digital Strategy for Exponential Audience Growth - Alicia Cepeda Maule, Innocence Project

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Overview

Meet Alicia. Since 2015 she’s been at the Innocence Project, now as the first Digital Engagement Director. The Innocence Project works to free the innocent, prevent wrongful convictions, and create fair, compassionate, and equitable systems of justice for everyone. Her team has won over 10 awards🏆 for the Innocence Project including Webbys, Tellys, Shortys, and Comnet’s Clarence B. Jones Impact Award.

She’s joining us to kick off the How it’s Built Series. We’re exploring the intricate and often overlooked elements that go into crafting impactful change. Alicia is walking us through how to build a winning digital strategy for exponential audience growth. Here’s your playbook for modernizing your nonprofit, step-by-step. Let’s go🏃‍♂️

💡Learn

• Innocence Project’s Digital Strategy

• How to Build a Winning Digital Strategy for Exponential Audience Growth

• Pro Tips + Lessons Learned

Today’s Guest

Alicia Maule, Digital Engagement Director, Innocence Project

“I came to the Innocence Project with the goal of bringing a top notch digital program based on what I had learned on President Obama’s campaign and MSNBC, both internally so people understood how digital could help accelerate their goals, and externally, so we can grow this engine. ”

— Alicia Maule, Digital Engagement Director, Innocence Project

Episode Transcript

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Episode Highlights

• Alicia’s story and journey to where she is today (3:05)

• Overview of the Innocence Project (5:50)

• How It’s Built: Innocence Project’s Winning Digital Strategy (7:10)

• Lessons learned throughout building their digital strategy (20:20)

• How to bring people around a shared vision through strategy (23:15)

• A powerful moment of philanthropy in Alicia’s life (28:05)

• Alicia’s One Good Thing: Compassion for people over everything. (30:00)
  
  

Impactful Quotes

“When you invest in digital, the returns are massive.” -Alicia

“We were considered a place for people who wanted to stand up for racial justice.” -Alicia

“I came to the Innocence Project with the goal of bringing a top notch digital program based on what I had learned on President Obama's campaign and MSNBC, both internally so people understood how digital could help accelerate their goals, and externally, so we can grow this engine.” -Alicia

“From an external perspective, I wanted to treat the Innocence Project like a newsroom where we are breaking anything related to our purview of wrongful conviction.” -Alicia

“The website is a canvas for the stories of our clients.” -Alicia

“You have to have new and relevant content.” -Alicia

“It's about creating relevant new content that speaks to the issues of wrongful conviction in a way that's relevant to today.” -Alicia

“Everything should be easy, shareable and seamless and make you want to come back.” -Alicia

“We've broken down the traditional team silos, and we see digital as one across these these different departments.” -Alicia

“Don't stop looking at your reports to see where people are coming from and don’t be tardy for the party.” -Alicia

“The livelihood of our clients is number one. This grounds you in how you operate and move every day.” -Alicia

How the innocence project built a Winning Digital Strategy 👇

1. Build an amazing team

   • Everything would not be possible without a brilliant team internally.

   • Your advocates and digital community are a part of your team

   • Winning digital strategies are built through the collective contributions of everyone 

2. Get your infrastructure + systems in order

   • Make sure all of your systems connect

   • Check the infrastructures of your data, email, and ads

3. Treat your nonprofit like a newsroom

   • Share stories frequently across social media, your website, and email to engage audiences.

   • Not every story is your case, but it is part of the overall narrative

   • Nonprofits are rich in story

4. Evaluate your website - is it a canvas for the stories of your clients?

   • Create relevant and new content

   • Find ways to keep people on your pages as long as possible and focus on making donations very easy

   • Everything should be easy, shareable, seamless and make people want to come back

5. Invest in ads

   • We have a lot of work to show who we are to the billions of people in the world, ads help you in an ongoing way to find people who start to like your content and move them to become email subscribers and eventually donors

6. Create a comprehensive email system

   • Create a welcome series

   • Look at your best performing emails from the year - what makes someone want to get involved?

7. Create a team across departments

   • View your digital strategy as ONE across your different departments

   • Digital teams look at all of the holistic goals of the organization - (policy, communications, fundraising goals, and more)

   • Share a content calendar between all of the departments

   • Break down traditional team silos

8. Constantly report and show the impact of your work

   • Study the data + analytics

   • Know what stories are resonating the most with your audience

9. Create customized experiences based on your supporters’ interests 

   • Tailor your communications and media based on the different actions that people took to get to your organization

10. Don’t be tardy to the party!

    • Study your analytics

    • Don’t overlook any moments

    • Know where your community is and go there

11. Prioritize + Plan Ahead

    • Your development team will be sensitive to breaking news, plan ahead but also prioritize activations that can strengthen your donor base

    • Plan ahead and know what is coming

    • Create a combination of concentrated campaigns, tentpole campaigns

    • Meet in a cadence to review analytics and review the roadmap + align on goals

12. Leverage helpful tech tools

• Alicia’s current favorite tools:

  • Phone to Action example - leveraging SMS communications

  • Strive Messaging

• Pro Tip: Anyone who gives you their phone number really loves you!

CONNECT WITH innocence project + Alicia

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