Episode 102 – How Facebook Ads Can Transform Nonprofit Marketing with Dana Snyder

[00:00:00] Stephanie Skryzowski: Hey there. If you’re looking for the 100 degrees of entrepreneurship podcast, you’re in the right place after a hundred amazing episodes, we’re changing things up to serve you the most inspiring content in a fresh new way. Thanks for being here and keep listening.

Welcome to the prosperous nonprofit, the podcast for leaders who are building financially sustainable and impactful nonprofits and changing the world. I’m Stephanie Kowski, a Chief financial Officer and founder and c e O of 100 Degrees Consulting. My personal mission is to empower leaders to better understand their.

To grow their impact and their income. On this show, we talk to people who are leading the nonprofit sector in new, innovative, disruptive, and entrepreneurial ways, creating organizations that fuel their lives, their hearts, and their communities. Let’s dive in.[00:01:00] 

Hey everybody. Welcome back to the show. I’m really excited to share today’s episode with you today because I have an absolute marketing genius who really thinks differently about the way nonprofits are reaching out to and connecting with their supporters, and she specializes in social media. So Dana Snyder is on the podcast, and you may remember her if you were a longtime listener from the a hundred Degrees of Entrepreneurship Podcast.

She was with me on episode 49, and so she’s back again today. But we are talking specifically about how nonprofits can leverage social media, both organic and paid social media to grow their audience of supporters. And so I told her on the. I don’t see a lot of organizations spending money on Facebook ads, on social media marketing, and I see their budgets and I see their [00:02:00] expenses, so I know they’re not spending money there.

And she explains today on this episode why that’s actually really, really important. So, Dana’s brilliant, and I’m excited for you to hear from her today. So let me tell you her bio and then we’ll get right into it. So Dana Snyder is a speaker, podcast host and digital marketing strategist. Missions to Movements is her podcast and go listen to it.

It’s. Are really good and she has some amazing guests on there. So Missions to Movements. As a founder of Positive Equation, her mission is to teach nonprofits how to use social media ads to transform their online experiences through digital marketing and reach a diverse set of donors through monthly donor programs.

Dana frequently speaks on innovative ways for nonprofits to increase their online fundraising. With guests on her podcast, missions to movements based in Atlanta. Dana has worked with Ember just for success, U S T A Honest Company, sports Illustrated, American Idol, the Global Food Banking Network, hashtag lunch bag, LA 84 Foundation, and many, many [00:03:00] more.

So she has this beautiful combination of experience in the corporate sector. Plus experience in nonprofit and, um, she just really brings her creativity and shows up for nonprofits. And so I love how she just demystifies like all of my concerns with Facebook ads. Like it has to be expensive, it has to be hard.

And, um, Really shares her strategy for using social media as a tool for engaging with supporters, not just checking a box. So she’s amazing. Listen to this episode. I think you’re really gonna enjoy it. And I think if you have that feeling that like, Ugh, social media ads, I don’t wanna do that. It’s too hard, it’s too confusing.

I think Dana might change your mind. So let’s get into our episode.

Hey everybody. Welcome back to the show and I’m super excited to have Dana Snyder here on the podcast with me again. Dana, welcome. [00:04:00] 

[00:04:00] Dana Snyder: Oh, hey, good to be here again. Thanks for having me. So 

[00:04:03] Stephanie Skryzowski: I would love if you could just tell our listeners a little bit about who you are, what you do, and this is kind of a long question, and also like where did you start?

What was the path that got you to what you’re doing right now? 

[00:04:13] Dana Snyder: Yeah, of course. So my jam is, I love working with nonprofits on amplifying their missions and their messages through social media advertising on Facebook and Instagram. and really building sustainable communities of supporters for them through monthly giving programs.

So that’s through my monthly giving Mastermind. So those are my two jam forte. I say within the nonprofit sector and. I had my business positive equation for coming up on six years this year, which woo. Congrats is so crazy every time that I say it out loud. Um, and it, I mean, it’s morphed, right? Like I think all businesses tend to do over time and.

I started working for a nonprofit right outta college, and so I was in the [00:05:00] position of being on a small team. There’s only four of us. It was an organization based in Sarasota, Florida. If anybody vacations there, now I realize it’s such a vacation. city. I was very lucky to live there. did not take full advantage of the beautifulness.

That Sarasota is, but, so I worked for the nonprofit, then I worked for for-profit companies in New York City and did the agency world, and realized after years of doing that, that my heart was still in the nonprofit space and I really wanted to take all of the experiences that I had working for the.

Sports Illustrated and the Honest companies and Delta Airlines of the world and put those practices into place in the nonprofit sector. And so I left New York City, moved to Los Angeles because why not move to the West Coast and start a company? Yes. obviously there. Yeah. There was really no reason besides, I was like, I’ve never lived on the West Coast.

Why not try amazing? [00:06:00] And yeah. And then I’ve never looked. 

[00:06:03] Stephanie Skryzowski: That is awesome. I love that you have experience in both worlds because I think that just makes you so incredible at what you do. And you were working, if you’ve run your business for six years, you were working in corporate prior to that. So like lots has changed in the social media Yes.

World in the last six plus years. But what are a couple maybe like even strategies or mindsets, um, that you were seeing in the corporate space, in the advertising or. Marketing world that you were working in that you don’t see often in the nonprofit 

[00:06:34] Dana Snyder: sector? I think the biggest one is, I would say 99% of for-profit companies have a dedicated social media person.

Hmm. Um, and that is huge. I think we often in the nonprofit sector where this badge of, I wear so many hats. And it comes, I think, with, uh, stress for sure , yes. But [00:07:00] also there might be a little bit of, I don’t know, we can’t hire someone for vegetarian reasons or, or whatnot, or we don’t need a separate social media person.

And that is not the case. And a lot of times I have a, I wrote a blog post about this, like five signs. You need to hire a social media manager because, If you don’t have somebody dedicated and it’s not your skillset, if you’re not passionate about it, that’s gonna show through and it’s gonna become secondary or third or fourth or whatever, really far down on your priority list.

So I think overall mindset is for-profit companies realized very quickly that we need to. A dedicated social person, and I think it, that mindset’s even changed where I think it used to be, okay, let’s hire the 22 year old straight outta college, or let’s have them an intern run my social media versus now over a decade later, [00:08:00] it’s, we need somebody senior.

We need somebody who understands strategy. We need somebody who understands analytics. On my podcast, missions to movements. I just released an episode recently with Haley from the Red Cross, the American Red. And Travon Williams from the naacp. And a big part of our conversation was around staffing.

Mm-hmm. was around having the team to be able to really get your message out there and do it well. And they said that was important for us. We needed to think about how do we create those budgetary line items, how do we deliver that message to our board members and make sure they know that this is a very important position for us for X, Y, and Z.

And that’s not only on the. Amplification of the message for acquisition, but just as important on retention, right? Mm-hmm. , if somebody’s messaging you on social and there’s crickets, what is that saying about your organization? So it goes twofold. So I would think that really is the biggest [00:09:00] difference that I see between the two.

Mm-hmm. . 

[00:09:03] Stephanie Skryzowski: Yeah. That investment, um, in that social media person. And it’s so interesting that you said that like organizations are like, let’s hire the 22 year olds, or like the college intern. I legit have had those same thoughts for like, for my company, because I don’t particularly love social media and I don’t know any of the like, Things that I should be doing.

So I’m like, lemme just hire a young person. Like they know how to do that. But actually, no, just because somebody is young in age does not mean that they are a specialist in a, like a particular marketing strategy. Because using it for your, you know, for your friends and for your personal use is a lot different than using it.

Yes. Strategically. So, okay. So if an organization is sort of pushing back or wearing all the hats and saying like, I’m just gonna do it myself, like, why is social media so important for nonprofits 

[00:09:53] Dana Snyder: right now? Oh my goodness. For , numerous reasons. The first thing is [00:10:00] just think about your own personal life, right?

If a friend recommends. I made this a restaurant or a hotel or a product, anything. Usually you are going to one of two places. You are searching for their website online, or you are looking for them on Instagram or Facebook or YouTube or mm-hmm. , whatever platform is your favorite of choice. And so usually it’s a first impression.

Mm-hmm. . And if you’re not there, there becomes. Maybe subconscious lack of credibility. Mm. Who say, or if they do have a profile, but nothing’s been shared in a long time, it’s like, oh, do, do they still exist? Are they still around? Mm-hmm. What are they actually doing? But if there’s continuous content and it’s updated and there’s engagement happening and there’s conversations, it’s like, oh, okay, this is neat.

This could be something that I wanna be a part of. Like, let [00:11:00] me dive in and do some more research. , that’s number one, I think. Mm-hmm. is just having something that’s a first impression. Two social media, and I think we forget about this because oftentimes we’re just like pushing content out all the time and we’re not doing the engaging part.

Mm-hmm. We’re forgetting the social part of social media, essentially. Mm-hmm. . Mm-hmm. . And it’s having those one-to-one relationships and communication. Supporters. And a really powerful instance of this is, so I had a virtual baby shower, um, with a bunch of work colleagues mm-hmm. . And as they went around and introduced themselves and they were asked the question, how did you meet Dana?

And it was so funny, Stephanie, I think like 75% of them said, Instagram, Instagram. And they’re like, and we haven’t even met in person. Mm-hmm. . And they’re like one person I actually mentioned, which it’s funny cause I’ve hired her numerous [00:12:00] times and I’ve worked with her on like client accounts and she was like so funny.

She’s like, I never pictured myself attending a virtual baby shower for someone I’ve never met before. . She’s like, but it actually feels like I’ve known you forever. . Mm-hmm. . So you can truly build those really unique relationships. I think another example, , and I’m just speaking for personal experience here, but during Giving Tuesday, I was looking for organizations to support within the fertility space.

Mm-hmm. and. So I came across Revolve, and so they’re an organization supporting fertility and providing education, and I was like, okay, I’m going to give to this organization. I did my research. IA first went to Instagram, liked what I saw. They had something relevant about giving. Tuesday, I went to their website.

Then I did a whole reel about why I donated to them and why it was important to me and my identity that led to them reaching out to me. as a dm. Can [00:13:00] we re-share your reel? Mm-hmm. , and it led to, Hey, I really like what you guys are doing. I’d be interested in being on your board. Can I get in con, like that whole dialogue took place on a social media platform.

Mm-hmm. . So I think we oftentimes have this. Surface level approach to thinking we’re just going to post and put it out there and people are gonna see it without thinking about all the possibilities of a deeper relationship that can be built. So I know I just gave you a long-winded answer, but , I think it’s a really powerful resource, especially in how virtual our world is now.

A hundred 

[00:13:40] Stephanie Skryzowski: percent. I agree. I mean, yeah, I, I feel the same way. I definitely have people I would consider legit friends that I have met on Instagram and other platforms. Yeah. So I am totally with you a hundred percent. And I think that it can feel like social media is just checking a box, but it really is about, and, and that’s, I [00:14:00] feel like what you’re talking about.

Let’s just put content out there. We check the box, we’re good. But it is about so much more than that. And I love. Talked about the real and then, you know, on the board and that sort of chain of like building a relationship. Because somebody I just interviewed for the podcast yesterday was talking about how her organization, she’s an ed, um, have built like.

Multimillion dollar corporate partnerships starting with social media, Absolut. Absolutely. 

[00:14:27] Dana Snyder: That happened. So absolutely powerful. I had Cubby Graham, who’s the social lead at Charity Water, um, on missions to movements and he gave a great example cuz the whole premise of the show, which you know, is to take people behind the feed sharing marketing strategies.

And so I asked him, they did this brilliant campaign for World Water Day, um, in 2022 and with Pantone. As a corporate partner. And I was like, that was such a great idea. Going to like the color of different water types and like what that means. Very visual. [00:15:00] And I was like, how long did that take? And he’s like, Dana, it happened through Instagram dms two weeks before World Water Day.

And we rushed and got it together and like those are the things that you would never. Think about, right? You’re like, oh, they must have planned this for months. And it’s like so corporatey and they must have gone through so many red tape, right? No, they reached out through an Instagram dam. Cause I thought it would be a cool idea and it took place.

[00:15:27] Stephanie Skryzowski: That’s amazing. That’s amazing. So do not sleep on. Do not sleep on social media. Yeah. I feel like you, and this your social media, you are such a good example I feel like of obviously this is your job, but you’re also really good at it for your own business and your own thought leadership and your own work.

I’m always, every time you post something, I’m like, man, she is so timely and so relevant and so insightful. I feel like. Every time I go on LinkedIn, I’m like, wait, this just happened, like out in the world yesterday and already she’s got this like amazing, [00:16:00] like very insightful post about this. So you are killing it.

Um, tell me all of your secrets. . 

[00:16:07] Dana Snyder: Oh wait. Honestly, yes and no. Tell me. , honestly, a big one, and this is for anyone, is I. Really have focused on, and I teach this too, a primary and secondary social platform. I am not on all the things. Mm-hmm. , you don’t need to be on all the things. I think that tends to, we get overwhelmed and so consumed with the next hot thing.

I am not on Twitter. I explicitly have a pinned tweet and in my bio it says, I am not here. , come find me on LinkedIn. And that’s 

[00:16:43] Stephanie Skryzowski: a good idea though. Yeah. Like you’re not just not there. You tell go, go find me where I’m at. 

Okay. 

[00:16:47] Dana Snyder: Love it. Exactly. I did the same thing for my podcast actually. So I figured, okay, people might search for missions to movements on Instagram.

So I took the handle missions to movements. Mm-hmm. . And there’s one post that [00:17:00] is the podcast cover. , but it says like, thanks for showing up to watch the show, but I’m not here. Follow positive equation. Mm-hmm. is where I give all of my show updates. Mm-hmm. . Cause I didn’t wanna have multiple Instagram accounts cause that’s headache.

Yeah. Um, but how I, I’m a very big data person. I didn’t just randomly select what was gonna be my primary and secondary. And I will tell you they are YouTube and LinkedIn and actually Instagram is a. Oh, interesting. Yeah, and the reasoning for that is I use Google Analytics, which mm-hmm. anyone can use. Um, it’s totally free.

Just go to search Google Analytics. You can set up an account if you don’t have one yet. and there’s a section called acquisition. If you click on that, you can dive deeper into how people are getting to your website. And there’s a social section. Mm-hmm. . So if you click social, then it dives down even deeper and it will show you the breakdown of what [00:18:00] channels are people coming to you from.

So for me, Facebook is usually always first, and I caveat saying that because I run social media ads. Mm-hmm. So that’s why that’s happening. That’s not a totally accurate representation, but I’m not just looking at the first number you’re going to see is the traffic. Like how many people, how many unique people are coming to your site from that channel, I’m not actually as interested in that number.

I’m interested in what channel is sending the most quality people, and you can find that by looking at which channel has the lowest bounce. So meaning people aren’t coming to your site and then immediately leaving. Mm-hmm. , anything that’s below 50% is usually great. So low bounce rate, and I’m looking at what’s the time spent on my site.

So if somebody’s just coming for 30 seconds, that’s not a real quality engaged person. How long [00:19:00] are they staying? So I realized when I was doing the research on people who came from YouTube were spending upwards of five minutes. On my website. Wow, that’s huge. And they were looking at multiple pages.

Mm-hmm. 3, 4, 5 pages. So although YouTube was lower on the amount of people, that’s because I haven’t been doing a ton of YouTube videos. Mm-hmm. consistently. So that was a note for me to be like, okay, like this makes sense when you’re on YouTube. People are searching with an intent. They’re finding my content, they’re finding it valuable.

It’s a long form. They’re trusting me. They’re there for going to my site and spending time. Mm-hmm. . So that’s how, I mean, same thing with LinkedIn and then Instagram I kind of love, which is playing with mm-hmm. . So that’s how I think about my strategy. I’m not trying to be everywhere and then, . Once you identify those [00:20:00] platforms that you should be on by looking at that data, then I’m asking the question of, okay, what is that platform specifically trying to do?

Mm-hmm. , like from a business standpoint, right? Mm-hmm. , what are their, what are their leaders doing? What are their new products? What are their new features? So reels, Aren. Aren’t that old when you think about it. Mm-hmm. . And the reason for that was because Adam, their like head guy, came out and was like, our biggest competitors are TikTok and YouTube.

Mm-hmm. , what does that mean? That means they’re gonna start to prioritize video content. Right. So really thinking about not just. Peppering every social platform with the exact same content anymore. That copy and paste, copy and paste, copy and paste. But thinking strategically about what, what content works best, where mm-hmm.

um, who is my audience there? What’s gonna serve them best? Like, [00:21:00] I’m not gonna, I’m not gonna post the same thing to LinkedIn that I’m gonna post to Instagram. Cause it’s just a different mm-hmm. different demographic. And those platforms are completely different. Mm-hmm. . 

[00:21:11] Stephanie Skryzowski: I love that because as someone who is not like super huge fan of social media, like the thought of having to get on Twitter makes me like, I don’t know, very anxious.

Um, yeah, so, so I can understand, especially with nonprofits with limited resources, like we can’t possibly be amazing on every single platform. So I love choosing a couple, choosing two. With nonprofits, I know every single organization, it’s different. Everyone’s goals are different, but are you seeing, like most nonprofits have this as their primary, this as their secondary, or does it really, like, is it truly dependent upon the organization?

[00:21:54] Dana Snyder: I’d say it’s truly different, although I would say probably the most [00:22:00] common that I always still hear are Facebook and Instagram. Mm. , although I think people are definitely missing out on YouTube. Mm-hmm. , because it’s owned by Google and that’s, it’s a, it’s not, YouTube’s not really a social media platform.

To be fair. It’s a search engine and if you are, the reason that I bring it up is when you are Google searching for something, you’ll notice YouTube videos will often pop up. Mm-hmm. . So if you have. A cause you are thought leaders, you are experts in that cause area. You could be ranking for certain phrases and keywords.

Mm-hmm. utilizing YouTube. But I, I, but I, the most common that I see all the time are Facebook and Instagram. Mm-hmm. . Yeah. 

[00:22:48] Stephanie Skryzowski: That’s really interesting. Okay, so now our organizations have identified their primary and their, their secondary platforms that they’re going to spend time on and work [00:23:00] on, not just posting, but also engagement.

What now? I know that there’s obviously organic social where somebody is posting, engaging. It’s actually someone, someone is actually doing it kind of one by one. It feels slightly more manual. And then we have paid, um, Tell us about, like, tell our listeners about the difference between organic social, paid social, and when makes sense to start thinking about paid.

[00:23:28] Dana Snyder: Yeah, of course. So I mean, organic is most of the time going out to your current supporters. The caveat I will say to that is, real’s specific to Instagram are designed to. Outside of your supporters, especially if you’re just posting them to the reels feed and not to your own feed, there’s an option for that when you publish.

So you’re thinking about nurturing your existing audience versus paid does an [00:24:00] exceptional job at allowing you to customize the audiences that you want to reach. Mm-hmm. So that can be reaching out to. Brand new, I re I relate to ’em as cold audiences. They don’t know you likely. Mm-hmm. , but you can kind of filter and go down from the 300 plus million people that we have in, in the United States, or, I mean, you can target all over the world technically.

Mm-hmm. , but let’s just say it’s the United States. And I could filter and say, okay, I want to reach people who have an interest in charity and philanthropy and who have an interest in. Animals or dogs or wildlife or whatnot or whatever your cause area is. Mm-hmm. , I was just working with an organization yesterday, and in their case it was, it’s around education and mentoring and students.

And so that would be kind of what they’re looking for. And you can also build lookalike audiences with Paige. So [00:25:00] let’s say you have a good amount of. Instagram engagement or followers or on Instagram, or you have an email list you can upload. You can create lookalikes from those people and Facebook will go find similar people that have similar interests to those that you can reach out to with your message.

The other thing that I like to say about ads is organic is. Uh, one to 3% maybe of your supporters actually see your content. Mm-hmm. . So you might think you are sharing the same message over and over again, and you sound like a broken record, but I promise you mm-hmm. that people are missing it. Mm-hmm.

With social ads, you can really target the right audience with the right piece of content at the right time that you want them to see it. For example, it’s a great funnel progress. So I like to teach this progression [00:26:00] of let’s do a video to raise brand awareness and visibility and education about your organization.

Then you can actually retarget people who watched your video for X percentage. So let’s just say people that watched our video, 50% of our video. So now you have a much smaller subset and you can retarget them with your next message. And then you can retarget them again within the ask, right? So you can kind of build this funnel, this pipeline.

So there’s so many cool things you can do with ads dependent upon what your goal is. There was an organization that emailed me, which I loved when these things happened. She was like, Hey, I’m on your email list. You don’t know me, but I’ve taken your, the webinar, you taught about lead generation ads and.

She had like over 600 leads for less than 50 cents Elite It. Amazing in building her email list. So you can grow your email list strategically. You [00:27:00] can do donations, you can grow your visibility. You can sell tickets for an event. Like there’s so many different objectives. Mm-hmm. that you can look to, to kind of like.

Amplify things through ads.

[00:27:14] Stephanie Skryzowski: Have you been spinning your wheels trying to figure out how some nonprofits have three or six months of a cash reserve while you’re barely scraping by to make payroll every two weeks? I’d a venture to guess that one of the reasons you feel overwhelmed and nervous about your cash situation is because you don’t have a forecast.

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I have to say, I obviously work with a lot of nonprofits and I see all of their financials, and because of that, I know that literally none are spending any money on Facebook advertising. Why? Why is that fascinating? Yeah. Why, why ? Is that? Just like, do I have a weird sample size of people that aren’t doing it, but like, I don’t know of any literally known organizations that are doing Facebook ads.

[00:28:30] Dana Snyder: I think there’s a lot of myths that go into it. Um, one of them being ads are expensive, and I can tell you like one of the teachings that I teach is visible reach in a week. It’s a $27 course and I am, uh, about to launch a challenge with it right now. So I’m running them, myself and Stephanie. It’s amazing.

So basically in this, this Reach campaign, and I’m gonna look and give you real numbers, right now in my Ads Manager account, I have [00:29:00] spent $14 and 89 cents. Okay? , and I have reached over 12,000 people. My cost. For reaching per thousand people is a dollar and 17 cents. Now, you can’t get that with stamps.

Right. Good. 

[00:29:19] Stephanie Skryzowski: I, oh my gosh, yes. Just thinking about direct mail. You’re 

[00:29:23] Dana Snyder: right. You can’t, can’t, you can’t. And so that right there alone is like proof in the pudding. It’s, I’m less than $15 everyone, and that’s 12, 12,841 people to be specific that I’m reaching. And so I think we have this mindset of ads are expensive, ads are expensive.

they’re not gonna work, is another one. And the reason, the biggest reason why ads don’t work is because in my experience, most of the time, organizations want that quick donation. Mm-hmm. . So they’re running donation ads to a cold [00:30:00] audience who knows nothing about them, and they’re asking for. $50 and it’s like, of course they’re not gonna give to you.

They have no idea who you are. This is the first time they’ve ever seen you. Mm-hmm. . But then we think they don’t work. No. Mm-hmm. they don’t work because would you, would you donate like the first time you ever heard from somebody? Probably not. So we need to warm them up, right? That that’s why there’s this like cadence of building ads and.

Doing that lead generation, get them, get their email first, then you can give them this lovely welcome sequence into who you are, right? Do the video first so they can watch it. Then retarget people who watch the video. So there’s lots of, there’s lots of strategies that come into play with that. I would say also for anybody who is running ads, something to note is if your ad, and this is going a little bit into data, If your click through rate is [00:31:00] high, so there’s a stat called ctr, click through rate, which means they are leaving the ad, they’re leaving Facebook, they’re going to your website, wherever you’re sending them to right now, if it’s above 1%, that’s pretty good.

If they’re leaving Facebook and you’re not seeing conversions, the problem’s, not your ad, the problems where you’re sending them to. Mm. Is your form too long, right? And that’s a whole other like website conversation of friction. Oh my gosh. I mean there’s, I would say know that ads do not have to be expensive.

I think there’s, I could talk about ads forever.

they don’t have to be expensive. Once you get in there, I think the look of Ads Manager can be intimidating, but once you get rolling, it just becomes like, oh, I get it. I select this. I don’t select this and keep going. Mm-hmm. . Um, and you just get into a groove and a. . 

[00:31:55] Stephanie Skryzowski: Mm-hmm. , I feel like. in [00:32:00] the entrepreneurial space, and we have worked with a lot of like online businesses, online course craters.

The messaging around ads like five or six years ago was like, it’s like an a t m, basically. Mm-hmm. You, mm-hmm. , you put money in and then it returns like three x what you put in and then your millionaire, and that was like, Seen it with my own eyes. That is legit what was happening like five or six years ago.

That’s not the case anymore. And it sounds like the way that you’re describing it, it’s really a long game. It’s not an a t m, it’s a long-term strategy for. Getting more people into your orbit, and I think you’re right, that even if people who work in the nonprofit space don’t know about what Facebook ads was doing five or six years ago, it’s still like you’re saying, I think that people are expecting a quick win, but it’s not, it really sounds like.

It’s a long game cuz what you described, like, okay, let’s bring these people, sort of let [00:33:00] them know about us and then the email sequence informing them about who we are and what we do and then asking for the donation like much, much, much, much later after we know each other. That doesn’t happen in like the course of a couple weeks and I feel like, yeah, if people want the quick win and this is not, I dunno if there are any quick wins, right?

Everything’s about building relationships. Yeah. But 

[00:33:19] Dana Snyder: I would say there are ways, so you do have an existing warm. Built. Mm, mm-hmm. . So you can just target that warm audience first. So if you do have an event, but then again, you gotta remember, okay, let me talk to these people like they do know who I am. This is not the first time they’ve heard of me.

So you can target your Facebook followers, people who engaged with you so they know you. So there’s an example I ran for my monthly Giving Master in program and I did see 27 times return on in. . Wow. Because I wasn’t looking for mass quantity of applicants, right. I just wanted to fill this like small group.

Mm-hmm. , I sent out very [00:34:00] targeted, specific ads to my warm audience. It cultivated enough of what I needed. to get the result. So in that case, yeah, it can be a quick one. Mm-hmm. , and that was over a couple of weeks. So it just really depends on your strategy. That could be similar for an event. So let’s just say, look, you’re sending out all the emails, but emails get lost, right?

In spam, or they bounce or we just are inundated. Um, we send out our direct mail responses, but maybe I just don’t take action. Right. The Facebook ads can be that extra reminder of, oh yeah, I meant to do that. , right? Mm-hmm. , and you’re just retargeting your warm audience with that direct click. Boom, buy my ticket.

Done. So, mm-hmm. . It definitely can be, I think it can work both ways. . Mm-hmm. . 

[00:34:45] Stephanie Skryzowski: That’s interesting. And well, I just think about like, yeah, it being that sort of extra reminder that’s cheaper than the US Postal Service and you know, you mentioned that before, cuz maybe, maybe you would’ve sent some sort of postcard reminder, but that’s gonna be more expensive than, [00:35:00] you know, than running a Facebook ad.

I feel like. Yeah, I always heard track. Yeah. Oh, right. Po Yeah. Male . Yeah, . Yeah. Yeah. That’s so interesting. Okay. Our listeners are sold, I’m sold. I’m like, okay, we need to talk offline. Tell me what I can do with ads for my company. Um, so our listeners are sold. They’re like, okay, I can see the use of ads. It doesn’t have to be expensive, but I still feel like a little bit intimidated on who’s actually gonna set these up, who’s gonna manage it?

Do we need to hire somebody to do this? Or how do we kind 

[00:35:37] Dana Snyder: of get rolling? So you can, so a couple different things that I like to suggest. A, if you wanna go the d i y route, um, I do have very step-by-step courses for. Visibility. So reach ads, lead generation ads and donation ads. So if those are three of your goals, those are all accessible on positive equation.com.[00:36:00] 

If you wanna learn and run them yourself and they’re all very doable, like an hour or less for each of those, just because they understand time and bandwidth. . Mm-hmm. , if you are someone who is like, that’s fine and dandy, but I will never do it. Or I really want somebody that has greater e. Then I highly recommend utilizing a third party.

Mm-hmm. , whether that’s a consultant or an agency or part-time support, right. For that, but I would recommend. I think the other reason why I would just recommend the courses is so you can be a little bit more dangerous in understanding mm-hmm. , what they’re doing. Mm-hmm. . So I will say I have looked to hire people and I’m like, you don’t know what you’re doing because I know mm-hmm.

because you have ads and I’m, I’m, I know enough mm-hmm. to be like, oh, you shouldn’t. You shouldn’t be in this business. [00:37:00] Yeah. And that’s scary. And that happens. And I think the feeling of getting burnt is real. Mm-hmm. . Um, and if you are just all entrusting and because ads can have this lingo that can be confusing, you oftentimes like Yep, they know what they’re talking about.

I’m just gonna give you my money. Go. And I’ve had a friend in. Theme entrepreneurship space where who spent like 15 grand and saw nothing like that happens. That happens. It does. It does. And I don’t want that to happen to you listeners. I do not want that to happen to you, . So I do recommend educating yourself enough, even like listening to this podcast is probably beneficial, like, but take it a little step further to ask yourself, okay, what do we want these ads to do?

Mm-hmm. , what are our goals? And then ask that person. To explain, how are you gonna get us there, right? Mm-hmm. , who are we? Mm-hmm. , like talking about targeting, talking about objectives. That’s why I [00:38:00] even think watching courses so that you can be like, okay, I understand what I’m looking at here when they’re providing you a report, and you can ask those details because.

You mean you’re, you’re looking at the financials, right? You wanna make sure that the money that you’re spent is going towards a good place. The other thing I will say is I run, I do like v i P ad days occasionally throughout the year for organizations where I do help run them. Mm-hmm. and ads need testing.

Mm-hmm. , it is rare when you have an immediate hit that just rocks. Mm-hmm. , what we are always looking to do is test audiences, test copy, test content. And see what is going to work. And that’s the same for my business too. I’ve run ads that don’t, they don’t work, and, but then I ask why. Mm-hmm. , and then I can do some detective work.

And I am totally honest with clients about that too. It’s like, Hey, we’re gonna test this. We usually do a lower spend. We’re looking to see, okay, we’re testing our audience here. We’re testing our copy here. Ooh, this [00:39:00] one, this one did really well. Let’s go ahead and amplify that one and add more spend. Mm.

That I would say would be my re recommendation is if you’re down to d i y, do that, educate yourself even if you don’t want to DIY it so that you can be educated about the process, um, to work with somebody else. 

[00:39:20] Stephanie Skryzowski: Mm-hmm. , when you were talking about the person that was burned and dropped, like 15 grand on a Facebook ad company and ad.

I relate real hard to that. 

[00:39:31] Dana Snyder: Oh, I’m so sorry. 

[00:39:33] Stephanie Skryzowski: Yeah, literally like nothing. And this spent so much money and so much time. Um, and I realized exactly what you said because this was like a pretty well known company and this is not my wheelhouse. And I just sort of like, was like, well, this is not my wheelhouse.

This is your wheelhouse. So, Take my money and, and do what you need to do. And I learned after that though, I think I did buy some sort of like, you know, [00:40:00] Facebook ad for beginners, so I at least could understand like, what are we even talking about here if I were ever to do it next time? So like, yeah, I did it in the wrong order.

Um, anyone listening should do it in the other order where you educate yourself first, um, before you think. Hiring somebody because Yeah, that was, I’m still kinda sore about that. And that was like, well over a year ago. Oh, 

[00:40:22] Dana Snyder: I’m so sorry. That’s awful. Oh, such 

[00:40:24] Stephanie Skryzowski: a bummer. Yeah. No fun. Um, but it doesn’t have to be like that.

And you have, you have, you have a resource or like a mini course or tell, tell us what you, what resource you have specifically, um, for 

[00:40:35] Dana Snyder: nonprofits. Yeah. I would say start with if you are brand new to add visible reach in a week is a 30. Course to increase your visibility in literally seven days, your budget is a dollar to $3 a day, very low risk.

The course itself is $27. Again, very low risk. It is meant to, and what I always hear from [00:41:00] people is there’s three videos. That’s it. It is not meant to not be completed. I think , yeah, that’s the biggest thing, is I want you to watch the videos and complete the process and what everybody says is this completely.

Eliminated my intimidation of Ads Manager. I now understand what I’m looking at. I feel comfortable in the platform and I understand like the step-by-step components to build an ad, and that’s what it’s meant to do. It’s meant to get you that, that’s the campaign I was talking to you about where I’ve only spent $15, um, and I’ve reached many people.

It’s literally just to remain top of mind, which we forget so much about. Mm-hmm. all, there’s this amazing graph that I like to show in presentations that has this huge hockey stick where we all run ads October, November, December. Mm-hmm. , because that’s the main giving time of the year. That’s also mm-hmm.

usually when ads are the most expensive because we’re competing. [00:42:00] Against everybody for Black Friday and Cyber Monday and Small Business Saturday and all the things. Mm-hmm. . And so we’re like, again, they’re expensive. Why aren’t they working? And it’s like we forgot about the whole rest of the year. Mm-hmm.

where this is like prep building time, grow your email list, remain top of mind. All the, this is all those people like q1, q2. Is an awesome time to run ads because you just likely had an influx of gifts at the end of the year. You have an influx of engagement of new people supporting you now. Like, let’s retarget them, remember us, remember all the impacts, the cool work we’re doing.

Let me share some cool stories with you. Like, don’t forget about us. Mm-hmm. Hmm. . Um, this is a, and oftentimes, right? Don’t make it an. , let’s just say you were, your executive director was featured on a podcast or did a speaking gig. Show a clip from that. Have the ad be a, um, sending them to the show notes of [00:43:00] the blog of the podcast episode, right?

Mm-hmm. , like it’s continuously building credibility. It’s building trust, it’s keeping people top of mind so that when you are with friends sitting around a dinner table, A topic pops up, you’re like, oh, you know what? That reminds me of that organization because I just, I just saw them on Facebook. Mm-hmm.

Yeah. All right. Or I just saw that ad. Or it’s like, Hey, my birthday came up. Facebook still prompts us whenever we have birthdays to create a Facebook fundraiser. Mm-hmm. , and was like, Hmm, who should I create a Facebook fundraiser for? Oh, you know what? That organization I just saw, right? Mm-hmm. . It’s moments like that of why you run these very low risk, low-cost ads.

So visible reach in week is where I would say to. . 

[00:43:45] Stephanie Skryzowski: That’s fantastic. I think that is such a good point. And the other thing I just wanna like think about is, or just share with our listeners, is like, put this in your budget. Like this is part of your budget. Yeah. This is an investment. This is one of those line [00:44:00] items that has an r o I attached to it.

So like put absolutely some money into it so that it doesn’t feel like, oh, we have to like, take funds from somewhere else to be able to try this out. No, like, Put it in the budget, then you’ve got it, you’ve got this money to, I don’t wanna say play with, but to, um, you know, to try out, because this could be a huge, huge investment.

Um, very worthwhile investment for your 

[00:44:24] Dana Snyder: organization. Yeah, and I love, I spoke with Mark Dobkins a while ago. He’s the founder of Forever Projects in Australia, and he said something so profound to me, they do advertising, and he said, Dana, we kind of have to have empathy. for the platform to be able to, it’s learning.

There’s literally like a, a dot and it says learning next to it cuz Facebook’s, the algorithm is learning about your audience and it’s seeing, okay, like who is, who is engaging with this advocate? Let me go out and find more people like that. You have to give it time. And he [00:45:00] said, we don’t hire someone and fire them the second day that they’re around if something went wrong.

We give them time, we give them empathy. Mm-hmm. , we test different things. We give feedback. Right. And he said the same thing with a platform. He goes, We run an ad and if it’s not working in 24 hours, we turn, like we’re usually turn it off. That is not what you should do, right? It needs time. It needs to be able to reach a certain amount of people to be able to learn.

And so we get a little bit like click happy and be like, oh, nope, turn it off. Like it’s not working before we let it actually do its thing. So I, I just loved his perspective. 

[00:45:43] Stephanie Skryzowski: I love that too. Especially when we think about like some of the low cost options that you were talking about spending like a few bucks a day.

An employee costs way more than that. And we give them, of course, empathy and patience and let them sort of figure out their job. And it’s much more [00:46:00] expensive to do that than it is to let Facebook figure it out for a couple 

[00:46:03] Dana Snyder: dollars a day. And I think what’s fascinating is, and you see this I’m sure on budgets, is organizations will.

five or six figures putting together an event and we’re okay when that event breaks even. Yes. And that is wild to me. Mm-hmm. , I’m like, why Such a good point doing that event. Why? I know. I think about all the time, the time 

[00:46:30] Stephanie Skryzowski: that’s not even counted in that that’s not even 

[00:46:32] Dana Snyder: counted. Right. Of your team that went into producing that.

Versus, oh my gosh. If you had that kind of money and you spent on ad, you would absolutely be getting incredible data back. You could grow a crazy email list. You could nurture all those people. I mean, it’s just, it’s, that’s very interesting. I hope this poses some questions of listeners to think about in their own organizations.[00:47:00] 

[00:47:00] Stephanie Skryzowski: A hundred percent And you’re only with an event that costs maybe a hundred thousand dollars to put on, you’re only getting in front of a few hundred people. Correct. For like a short period of time. Yeah. Three hours maybe. And then those people go home and that’s that. Right. Um, and I have seen that so many times, and I have asked the question because as a C I’m like, the math isn’t math.

Like this is. This is not working. Yeah. And I’ve asked the question, can we just talk about why we’re doing this? That’s the way we’ve always done it. We’ve always done this golf event, we’ve always done this, we’ve always done it this way. Like, well, is that really like the best option right now? But that’s usually the answer.

And let 

[00:47:39] Dana Snyder: me tell you, her team is brilliant. I am a client of the organiz. and it has been a game changer. Having the fractional C F O and going through those and asking those questions, I feel so much more educated about my numbers. And to your point, we’ve built out, [00:48:00] okay, this is what I’m looking to spend on ads, this is what we’re looking for in our return.

It’s, it’s a line item for me. Mm-hmm. , it wasn’t before, before I was kind of ad hoking it. Um, but now because I understand my cashflow and I understand my profit and loss, and I understand all these things, . I’m like, okay, we can, we can work with this amount and we’re still really safe. Mm-hmm. . 

[00:48:21] Stephanie Skryzowski: I love that.

Yeah. When you put it into your plan, it doesn’t feel as risky, right? It doesn’t feel like you’re just pouring money down like the Mark Zuckerberg tube , um, which I hear people talk about all the time, like, no, we have a plan, we have a budget, we’re gonna stick to it. And. Let’s see what it can do. So I love that.

Um, I feel like I could keep chatting with you, but I know we need to wrap us up. And so the one question that I like to ask all of our guests is, what does a prosperous nonprofit look like 

[00:48:51] Dana Snyder: to you? Ooh, what a good question. What does a prosperous nonprofit look like? I think a [00:49:00] prosperous nonprofit invests in their team.

1. Have just done some thought leadership work with an incredible c e o. She just retired from a big organization. She grew it in eight years, from 3 million to over 200 million in annual revenue, and she wait and how, 

[00:49:20] Stephanie Skryzowski: how many years? Eight. 

[00:49:22] Dana Snyder: Oh my god. 3 million to over 200, 220 5 million I believe it is. Wow.

And she did that. I’m working with her on her LinkedIn content strategy cuz she’s starting her own business. And um, she did it. One of the key things was by investing in her team and giving them new trainings with new mindsets, her team and her board Mind you. And I just thought that was b. 

[00:49:51] Stephanie Skryzowski: So brilliant.

I love that. Thank you so much for sharing. I love that example. I have to tell you, I’ve asked that question to [00:50:00] probably like 10 people that I’ve done interviews with for this new iteration of the podcast, and almost every, every answer has been different, but they have almost all come back to. People.

People. I just, I think that’s so inter, nobody has mentioned anything about money, finances, cash reserve, it’s all just like, it’s all the people. So I love that. And that example is, Awesome. 

[00:50:23] Dana Snyder: proof is in the numbers. 

[00:50:25] Stephanie Skryzowski: Exactly. Exactly. Yeah, that’s so true. That’s, that’s an incredible story. Um, Dana, thank you so much for being here.

You have a podcast. Where can our listeners who love podcasts go and listen to your podcast with lots of amazing guests and all kinds of good content on there. Where can we find 

[00:50:42] Dana Snyder: you? Yes, which you will soon be on, uh, missions to Move. And you can find it on your favorite places to listen. So Apple, Spotify, or just check out positive equation.com and you can find it there.

[00:50:54] Stephanie Skryzowski: Awesome missions to movements. Got it. And um, tell us again that the visible reach in a [00:51:00] week is your 30 minute mini ads course, and where do we find that? 

[00:51:04] Dana Snyder: Yep, exactly. Just go to positive equation.com and you’ll be able to find it right on the top. It says courses and you can find it. 

[00:51:11] Stephanie Skryzowski: Awesome. I think that it sounds like a great place to start for anybody who is now adds curious and wanting to dip their toe into the water.

This is an absolute perfect place for you. So thank you so much Dana. I really appreciate 

[00:51:23] Dana Snyder: you being. Thank you, Stephanie. Always great chatting with you. 

[00:51:28] Stephanie Skryzowski: Before you go, I just wanna thank you for being here. To access our show notes and bonus content, visit 100 degrees podcast.com. That’s 100 degrees podcast.com, and I’ll see you next time.