Earn Trust With Quality Content
Donors don’t automatically flock to your organization immediately ready to donate just because your cause is something they believe in. You must build trust with your donor so they feel comfortable giving you their money. A solid foundation of trust will help secure that donor for both new and continued support.
One of the easiest ways to earn, and keep, the trust of your donors is by continuously creating meaningful, quality content through a variety of platforms such as blog posts, newsletters, magazines, or e-letters.
What is Quality Content
Writing content specific to your donors is critical for fostering strong relationships, but simply writing content does not make it quality.
On average, it’s said you have five to seven seconds for someone to decide whether or not something is worth their time.
Quality is subjective. As social media has evolved over the years, so has the definition of what quality content is. There are many components of what defines quality content but, at the end of the day quality content is successful content. For us, quality content is content that sells by giving audiences the value they want and need to make a confident and informed decision.
When your content delivers true value, giving a client what they want rather than selling to them, they begin to view you as a helpful guide. They begin to see that you want to help them make an educated decision, even if that decision doesn’t lead to a dollars on your end. This trust is what, ultimately, makes people more inclined and comfortable giving to an organization.
Determining what success looks like for your specific organization is personal but, we can tell you some of our go-to tips to make sure you’re creating quality content the first time, every time.
3 Tips For Creating Quality Content
When composing quality content, there are 3 main objectives:
1. Write the content for the reader, not for the writer.
It is important to take into consideration what your clients actually want to read about. Here are some questions we ask to make sure we’re creating content for the reader not the writer.
What interests do they have?
What events or news do they follow that you can relate to your organization?
Your audience wants to care about what they care about, not what you care about.
2. Format your content in a way that is accessible and easy to follow.
If you want to get your message across and make sure that people read your entire blog post or page, make your content easy to read. Think about the structure of your text and the words you use. For example, too much text without any headings or paragraphs tends to scare people off, so make sure to use paragraphs and several headings to give your readers some air while reading. Some key components to keep in mind are:
Keep your paragraphs to a manageable size, about 3-4 sentences each
Use bullet points and lists when possible to highlight important information
Maintain consistency with your font choices and how you format your headings/titles for each section
Consider splitting up larger articles to not overwhelm the reader with information that could be better highlighted in a separate article
3. Prove your trustworthiness.
It's important to show your donors why you are to be trusted, especially if they have yet to donate or are new to the organization. Writing in a clear and user-oriented way helps you lay the foundation, but there is more you can do:
Try to stay away from stock photos, as genuine photos create way more trust and give your site a personal feel
Often share the “why” behind your point of view to help donors feel more connected to your goals
Be authentic and transparent. Customers can usually tell when an organization is not being authentic due to mixed or low-value messaging
The takeaway?
Building trust is extremely important when it comes to securing and cultivating new donors, and written content is a good place to start. So why wait? Start implementing these tips to continuously create quality content that inspires your donors to give and give generously.
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