1. Assess your current efforts to achieve workplace diversity, equity, and inclusion, starting as early as the recruiting process.  

• Are you reaching out to diverse communities and cultivating relationships with organizations that have the influence necessary to train and support the type of employees you are looking to hire?  
• Does discrimination in pay and hiring practices exist, and if so, where?  
• Once employees are onboarded, are paths to advancement within the organization clearly and equally communicated? Are workplace policies inclusive?  
• Are the decision-makers in your organization diverse? If so, what was their path like to that position? What changes can be made to expand access to key roles? 

Questions like these should be part of your assessment, which should be conducted at regular intervals (quarterly, annually, etc.). This assessment can be conducted by an outside firm that specializes in DEI audits, or by a panel of employees representing these diverse audiences who are properly compensated for their additional time and effort on the assessment. 

2. Training and mentorship will be vital to instilling a common understanding of how important DEI is to your organization. Your employees are likely already well-versed in your company’s mission, vision, and values. The next step is ensuring that your company’s anti-racism work and DEI efforts are explicitly included in those values. Consider providing additional training on topics such as anti-racism and unconscious bias to further strengthen your shared understanding.  

Mentorship is a key tool to increase the pipeline of diverse candidates for leadership. Examples of DEI-aligned initiatives include: 

• Scholarships and internship programs for HBCU students 
• Outreach to nontraditional students joining your industry 
• Recruiting and empowering disabled employees 
• Mentorship programs ensure that employees who are underrepresented on your leadership team are equipped to succeed.  

3. Feedback will help you refine your DEI program on an ongoing basis. Establish a dedicated email and/or phone number for employees, customers, and other stakeholders to share initiatives that would improve equity and support diversity. As you pursue community involvement opportunities, make it a priority to forge stronger relationships with the Black community and communities of color. You can do this by joining and donating to local civil rights organizations, and learning about the partnerships, initiatives, and investment opportunities they are seeking. 

As the late civil rights leader Congressman John Lewis wrote, “Ours is the struggle of a lifetime, or maybe even many lifetimes, and each one of us in every generation must do our part.” Increasing diversity, equity, and inclusion must be a sustained effort, but a new year presents us with new opportunities to learn from the past, do our part, and be better listeners, advocates, and leaders at work and in the community. 
 

Thirty years ago, on December 1, 1990, Tucker/Hall welcomed its first clients and began three decades of exciting work—devising communications strategies, helping solve crisis situations, and advising community leaders on public affairs problems of all sorts.

Since that first day, we’ve worked on scores of those matters while expanding our reach to help clients throughout Florida and beyond from our offices and outposts in Tampa Bay, Jacksonville, Orlando, Tallahassee, and Polk County. The past years are full of exciting memories of the lasting partnerships we’ve forged with companies large and small, community-focused not-for-profits, and individuals who turned to our team to help them build, toughen or simply test their communications strategies.

Innovation has been part of our DNA since those very first days. In our early years, we embraced new technologies like “tele-town halls”, and the unheard-of online video service called YouTube in order to help our clients share their messages and positively impact their projects. Today, we offer a full array of digital services and continue to look for creative new ways to help our clients.

To those of you with whom we’ve already worked, we want to say ‘thank you’ for the privilege of gaining your trust. And to those of you who we don’t yet know, we welcome the opportunity to earn your respect.

Going forward, we pledge to keep working every day as the trusted advisors you may need on a moment’s notice to right a wrong, to tell your side, to help solve a crisis or simply to listen and advise.

Thank you!

The Tucker/Hall Team

Because Giving Tuesday is typically a central part of nonprofits’ end-of-year campaigns, these potential high returns could prove helpful to charities currently facing the headwinds affecting our economy. It is more important than ever for those nonprofits to effectively present their mission, culture, and impact, making clear why they are worthy of support. A strong communications strategy will undoubtedly be integral to any successful end-of-year fundraising push.

Predictions: What is Giving Tuesday going to look like?  

During this giving season, in particular, there is a lot of need for charitable contributions. With so many organizations relying on strong end-of-year fundraising, there will be a lot of competing calls to action and potentially less money to go around.

Nathaniel Heller, vice president and managing director of Geneva Global and Global Impact, explains for Fast Company, three seismic shifts will impact philanthropy in 2022: inflation, interest rates, and a disruption of the traditional private foundation model.

“We may ultimately look back at 2020 as the beginning of a truly generational shift in philanthropy that long outlives the pandemic. The need for innovative, brave philanthropy has never been greater,” he writes.

However, a recent survey from Edward Jones, found nearly one-fifth of American adults plan to give more money in 2022 than they did in 2021. And Whole Whale, a digital marketing agency for nonprofits, predicts an 18 percent increase in GivingTuesday revenue over last year.

Best Practices and Recommendations 

Put in the time to prepare early on 

Set realistic goals upfront. You need to have benchmarks to evaluate your success along the way and at the end of your campaign. Likewise, it is wise to create a strategic communications plan ahead of time to guide your efforts. This plan should be flexible enough to be adjusted in accordance with how well you are doing on the way to achieving your goals. Although you cannot predict potential external disturbances (e.g., from the pandemic, politics, natural disasters, etc.), your plan needs to be agile enough to allow you to maneuver through such crises. 

Hone your messaging 

Stay consistent with your brand identity and mission. Focus on what your organization does well. If it fits into your overall communications strategy, feel free to talk about what is going on in the country and the communities you serve, and how this has affected your organization and those whom you help.  

Give a tangible purpose for your ask. The crowdfunding mindset became a mainstay because people like to rally around specific objectives. Instead of asking supporters to fund general operating costs, try asking supporters to help you reach/grow a certain metric, expand in a particular way, continue to meet these needs, etc. 

Be intentional with your communication tactics  

Popular tactics like time-limited matching gifts are effective. Personal stories with an emotional appeal that people can connect with are usually well received. Make sure to use these appeals to clearly convey your organizational successes. You don’t need to reinvent the wheel; if there is a tactic you have used in the past that works well for you, try to adapt it for our current times.

Given the growing portion of Giving Tuesday fundraising online, a digital strategy will be particularly important. According to the 2020 Global Trends in Giving Report, the communications tools most likely to inspire donors to give are email, social media, and websites. When utilizing these channels, make sure that you are reaching out to the right targets at a pace that keeps them engaged. When done correctly, your digital presence should establish and grow relationships and loyalty for your cause.  

Additional Resources 

• Giving Tuesday: Guide and Toolkit 
• Global Giving: Communications Templates 
• Nonprofit Tech for Good: Social Media Tips 
• MobileCause: #GivingTuesday2020 Strategies and COVID-19 Communication Strategies
• Sumac: End of Year Appeal Guide and Virtual Fundraising Tips 

Online Reputation

It can be scary to know that your online reputation is inextricably linked to the opinions of strangers. It’s easy to imagine a situation in which someone holds an unreasonable grudge against your business and goes on an online agitation campaign to “review-bomb” you. Whether an isolated fluke bad experience or an accusation against an employee that has nothing to do with the business, it doesn’t take much to incite the mob.

We deal with it regularly–aggrieved parties usually aren’t interested in apologies or explanations; they just want to take revenge for a perceived slight, and they’re not very responsive to new information. In some cases, the majority of negative reviewers that result from such a scenario have never interacted with your business—they’re just following the herd. Keep in mind that it costs these people nothing except a few seconds to leave a bad review, but it can cost your business much more.

Thankfully, you can mitigate the effects of such negative attention with a sound internal review site policy.

Here are some tips to guard against and recover from review-bombing:

Build a Strong Foundation

It’s harder to tear down a strong reputation than a weak one, so the better you manage your business’s online presence the more resilient you’ll be against negative reviews. This process starts with controlling where and how your business appears online, to the extent possible.

Get Google

Start by getting a Google My Business (GMB) account. It confers a ton of benefits, starting with SEO–Google likes its own products, after all. Your GMB profile is the first thing people see when they google you, so stock it with information. Your location, phone number, hours, website, menu–fill in all the details and it will function as a one-stop-shop for people looking into your business. In addition, it’s where people will review you.

While you’re creating your Google presence, get an AdWords account too. You don’t even have to purchase any ads–the point is to get access to Google’s support services. If you’re having a problem with reviews, call your ad account’s support number and ask to be transferred to GMB support. They’ll do it, no questions asked, and you’ll be able to talk to a real person about your problem.

Because Google reviews appear in search results, they are the most important reviews to monitor. Before anything bad happens, build that five-star reputation! Ask customers, whether verbally or through signs and discounts, to support you by reviewing you. Respond individually to reviewers, thanking those who rate you highly and sincerely reaching out to those who don’t. Goodwill has inertia, just like bad faith, so make it work for you! The better your rating and the more reviews you have, the harder it will be for people to bring it down.

Bad Reviews–What to Do?

If you’re experiencing a flood of unfounded negative reviews, report them all. Google’s policies are clear; if the review indicates that the reviewer didn’t actually have an experience at your business, or that it’s just there to harass or demean, they will remove it. To expedite the process, call Google support and tell them about your issue. It’ll draw their attention to the situation and may result in quicker removal, especially for the more egregious reviews. One unfortunate caveat, however: Google will not remove one-star reviews with no text, as they cannot ascertain whether the person had an authentic experience unless hundreds appear in response to some article or incident.

What About Other Sites?

We haven’t mentioned Yelp, TripAdvisor, or other platforms yet, and there’s a reason for that: Google is far more important. Yelp is the most prominent alternate site, but you’re better served by staying away from them. Although they deny it, Yelp has strong pay-for-play elements and heavily favors advertisers when it comes to support and search results. If you don’t have a Yelp profile for your business, keep it that way–you can’t leave nasty reviews on a nonexistent page! By limiting the number of places people can review-bomb you while getting maximum value from the sites where you do have a presence, you give yourself more control.

If you’re a retail business, you probably have a Facebook page and therefore another place where people can recommend you–or not. Thankfully, the relevant steps for Facebook are similar to those for Google; make an ad account, report harassment, get in touch, and stay vigilant.

Weather the Storm

Because some reviews slip through the cracks in Google’s (or Facebook’s) review policies, a review-bombing incident will likely negatively impact your overall rating. The steps outlined above will mitigate that effect, but can’t prevent it entirely; unfortunately, the online mob has considerable power. The best thing you can do after the storm has passed is to redouble your efforts to get real customers to review you positively. If the incident in question was clearly not your fault, you may be surprised by the level of support your loyal customers will show.

Review sites are the ultimate two-edged sword online. They can showcase your excellence to the world, but also be a source of pain if your profile is targeted with malicious intent. Controlling your presence, staying vigilant, and promoting positive reviews will help harden you against review-bombing, as well as make your business more attractive and accessible.

To learn about how Tucker/Hall can help you fight review-bombing and other online crises, contact Solomon Howard at showard@evoqueag.online or 813.28.0652 x1126.

Google Ad Grants work just like Google Ads online advertising, by displaying your message to people searching for keywords relevant to your organization. If you’re a qualifying nonprofit, you are eligible to receive $10,000 in in-kind Google Ads advertising every month. Your organization must be verified as a nonprofit organization by TechSoup or the local TechSoup partner. Governmental entities and organizations, hospitals and medical groups, schools, academic institutions, and universities are not eligible for Google for Nonprofits, but philanthropic arms of educational institutions are eligible. 

There are a few conditions Google places on participants’ advertising: 

• Ads placed through the Ad Grants program must be entirely text-based (no videos or images).  
• Ads appearing through the Ad Grants program will appear only on Google search results pages, in positions below the ads of paying advertisers. 

Tucker/Hall can work with you to conduct keyword research and ensure you are getting the most out of your Ad Grant. Optimizing your keywords is crucial to your participation in the Ad Grant program because Ad Grants accounts must maintain a five percent click-through rate (CTR) each month (at the account level, not necessarily each keyword). If the CTR requirement isn’t met for two consecutive months, your account will be temporarily deactivated.  

In order to ensure that their Ad Grants drive meaningful impact, Google also requires participating organizations to have conversion tracking set up following tailored requirements intended to suit the needs of nonprofits. Conversion goals may look a bit different in the nonprofit sector compared to a business, but the analytics tool is adaptable: whether you are trying to drive donations, membership registrations, volunteer sign-ups, new membership form completions, or other types of engagement on your website, there is likely to be a conversion goal to match your needs.  

Contact Tucker/Hall today if you think you may be eligible for a Google Ad Grant and let us help you adapt your communications plan to incorporate this useful tool. 

Facebook and Instagram 

Most people allocate a significant portion of their social media advertising dollars to Facebook and Instagram, which can be accessed through Facebook’s Ad Manager. This is a logical decision because it is the largest social media platform in the world, with 2.6 billion users, and much has been written about changes in its algorithms that inhibit the reach of organic content from Facebook Pages. For both the myriad targeting options it offers advertisers, and the broad audiences it allows advertisers to reach, it is an excellent advertising platform to start with. 

Facebook also offers advertisers the ability to create “lookalike” audiences. Once you have identified a “source audience” from a customer list matched with Facebook users, or people who presently follow your Facebook page, Facebook can create an audience for an ad campaign that is similar to the source audience, tailor it by size and geography (by country), and begin delivering your ad campaign to that audience of people who have a similar profile to those you know have an interest in your product or service. 

While the NAACP and the Anti-Defamation League have spearheaded an advertising boycott against Facebook for what they consider to be Facebook’s inadequate response to hate speech on their platform, Facebook has responded by partnering with the U.S. Black Chambers, Inc. to offer free digital training classes, business advice and panel discussions for Black-owned businesses across the country through the month of August. 

However, if your organization is committed to the ongoing #StopHateForProfit movement, there are still plenty of other platforms to consider.  

Twitter 

Twitter may not offer the nuanced targeting options available on Facebook but there are a few mechanisms in Twitter’s advertising platform that make it incredibly useful. 

• Keyword advertising: Interest and topic targeting on Twitter is much less nuanced than on Facebook. However, Twitter makes up for that by offering the option of targeting by keyword, reaching people who have used a specific word or hashtag in their Twitter post, or people who have interacted with tweets containing those words in the last seven days.  

For example, downtown Jacksonville’s Business Improvement District has made the hashtag #dtjax popular—if you are an advertiser interested in reaching people who have an interest in downtown Jacksonville because they live or work there, select dtjax as your keyword for an easy way to reach that audience. 

• Follower lookalikes: This option allows you to target people with interests similar to another account’s followers. You may wish to target competitors, brands that complement yours, or media and news outlets that report on your industry, to name just a few examples. 
• Events: Twitter maintains a list of prominent upcoming events that you can select from when building your advertising campaign, reaching audiences that are interested in events related to your campaign. Review Twitter’s 2022 Marketing Calendar here. 

LinkedIn 

LinkedIn bills itself as “the largest global community of professionals” and for that reason, it is by far the strongest B2B advertising option on social media.  

It offers you the option to target audiences by individual characteristics—alma maters, fields of study, job title, function, seniority, skills—as well as by company characteristics—name, industry, size, connections, etc. 

LinkedIn also offers two ad formats that are unmatched by the other platforms listed here.  

• Dynamic ads are tailored to your advertising campaign’s objectives while gleaning data from individual profiles to create customized ads for each viewer. 
• Sponsored messages place tailored content in LinkedIn inboxes along with other organic messages. 

One final benefit: their website tag, a simple piece of code that is easy to install in any content manager, allows you to track what companies are visiting your website, whether to identify competitors or follow up on prospective clients and retarget visitors with subsequent advertising campaigns. 

Contact Tucker/Hall to discuss how a well-designed social media advertising plan could benefit your company or organization. 

There’s a growing public dialogue about what the future may look like once the COVID-19 pandemic bottoms out. Absent a sense of when that might be, it still may not be too soon to think about what the “new normal” could look like.

While for-profit businesses large and small are rightly focused on supporting their employees, customers, and suppliers, the world of nonprofits may need to add to that list some additional stakeholders. Outreach to donors, patrons, partners, and underwriters will need to be rethought. And marketing playbooks will need adjusting to accommodate big and unexpected changes in business models which suddenly seem out-of-date.

We also know that the for-profit businesses and nonprofits that came through past recessions relatively unharmed were those that never stopped communicating with consumers, embraced a proactive posture throughout, and rethought marketing strategies and community outreach as circumstances impacted end-user behavior.

If you’re a nonprofit in this downturn, you’re likely shut down, cash-strapped, and facing the hard choices of furloughing or dismissing staff. Have you focused at all on considering what tools and strategies you’ll need to have in place to get ready for a turnaround when it finally arrives?

The Council of Nonprofits, a national association of nonprofit organizations, has told members to focus on securing and maintaining adequate financing as priority #1. That means tapping into every possible financial stream available, via banks and community foundations, and other grant-making partners, as well as any avenues for local, state, and federal assistance. 

All businesses, nonprofits included, should also become familiar with the levels of assistance that might be available to employees and families through the Family First Coronavirus Response Act (FFCRA). Paid family leave and emergency paid sick leave are available to large sectors of the nation’s workforce. Small businesses can apply for payroll tax deferrals during the pandemic.

For nonprofits, that list should also include focusing on tools and strategies that will be vital in a recovery. Older nonprofit business models once focused about 80 percent of all marketing on print collateral to reach members, patrons, and donors. In more recent years, the toolkit added emails, social media, and web-based videos to position the organization.

But what tools will be most useful after the COVID-19 pandemic subsides? Certainly, more nimble tools such as podcasts, webinars, blog posts, online interviews on social media platforms—and surveys—all will continue to grow in importance.

The shift to online commerce and interface with end-users is expected to continue to thrive once the pandemic ends. Creative use of digital platforms and channels will be a catalyst for those organizations that not only survive but thrive in the ‘new normal.’

[Part 1 of this article can be found here]

Second, your customers. How are you going to keep in close touch? Offer to help them? Find new ways to serve them? Keep the relationships strong, so they will be there when the coronavirus crisis passes?

Most restaurants have closed their dining rooms and switched to carry-out or delivery. That’s a great idea. It keeps operations going and lets some folks stay on the payroll, which is essential. But it doesn’t work for every business; many have had to close, lay off, or furlough their workers.

If you are an essential business, you may be just as busy as you were before the virus hit –  but if you aren’t engaged, or you’re not a vital industry, you’ll need a survival plan. Can you mimic the restaurant business and give your service to your customers rather than have them come to you? Can you create a portable company? Can you conduct most of your business online?

You’ll need to learn ASAP what your financial options are, and the best place to start is with your bank. They can help you with the myriad options available from the government (Small Business Administration and other departments) and other sources. A low-interest loan that covers your overhead for 90 days would be an excellent fit today because interest rates are very, very low.

How do you communicate with your customers? Just as with your employees, you should communicate clearly and often. Update them on any new service or delivery programs you develop. If you read a crucial financial article that can help them, remember they may need a loan and send it to them. Look for blogs, stories, reports, and analyses that might be helpful to them, and pass them along. Be careful not to bombard your stakeholders, though; everyone is getting tons of emails, so make sure yours are as succinct and relevant as possible.

The key idea here is: “How can I change my business model to fit this new and restrictive environment?”

Or: “How can I make money with my skillset if my business is closed by law?”

In any scenario, communication will be crucial, whether with employees, bankers, customers, potential customers, suppliers, advisors…every audience that affects your success. Stay in touch. Be on the lookout for information that might be helpful to them—remember, they are uncertain of the future as well.

Apply Ruthless Focus to your marketing—ask yourself what messages you can get out to prospects that will differentiate you from your competitors. What does your company do better than anybody else? What is your critical advantage? What new audiences can you present your organization to?

The internet allows for much more highly targeted audience identification than ever before. There are people out there who would be interested in doing business with you either now or in the future. You need to find and address them.

Remember, we are in a period of enormous uncertainty—the more we communicate with our various audiences, the better.

More Coronavirus Resources:

Business Management During Covid-19

COVID-19 Communications Principles

4 Steps to Effective Corporate Communications

We’re all wondering what hit us. Life was good, the economy fine, business strong—and then, wham! The world is upside down.

What do we do with our business? How about our people? Our customers? Our suppliers? What do we say? How do we react? It’s a totally new environment thrust upon us with little warning.

Let’s apply the principles of Ruthless Focus from the book of the same name: What is the key strategy to get us through this period successfully?

Let’s start with our goal: To survive the coronavirus pandemic with a strong organization ready to achieve business success again.

We’ll need some mini strategies for the different audiences we need to address.

First, your people. What can you do to make sure you help employees get through the crisis as effectively as you can? There is one thing nearly all will need—money. Fifty-three percent of American households have no emergency savings, and they will need assistance quickly. The Treasury Secretary has estimated that federal money will arrive in peoples’ accounts by April 20th, but that may be wishful thinking—the federal government rarely does anything on time.

Have you considered an emergency fund from which your employees could borrow if needed? How about hiring a counselor or designating someone in your organization to become an expert in the promised funds due to individuals and the loans that are now available from the government—plus the new tenant rights rules, auto loan procedures, etc. Typically, many of your employees will not know all the details of the items that can help them get through this rough period.

Very importantly—communicate! Stay in touch on a regular basis, ask if they have questions, send information on the financial help available when you see something worthwhile. I learned as a squad leader in Army basic training that when folks are scared they need constant reassurance—so communicate often. And make sure the conversation is two-way.

Subsequent blogs will address dealing with customers, adapting your business model, and marketing during this crisis.

[For part 2 of this article, click here]

More COVID-19 Resources:

COVID-19 Communications Principles

Crisis Communications for the Coronavirus Pandemic

Crisis Communications During Coronavirus

Knowing this, intelligent business organizations have already planned by creating crisis teams, designating spokespersons, and training those who will speak for the organization. Those organizations know that too much is at stake during a real crisis to educate frontline team members and expect them to perform optimally.

Yet, experience teaches that far too many companies tempt fate by ignoring pragmatic advice. The Institute for Crisis Management reports that when 1,500 corporations, nonprofits, and government agencies were surveyed about their preparedness to deal with a crisis, 76 percent had no formal crisis management plan, and 72 percent had no designated Crisis Response Team. Nearly 60 percent had never conducted training for those on the front line dealing with a crisis.

In this atmosphere, those who are unprepared may find themselves not only dealing with the immediate pandemic but also with long-term reputation management issues later.    

The Coronavirus/COVID-19 pandemic has spotlighted several crisis communication best practices that bear reiterating and immediately put in place: 1) Create a Crisis Team, if it’s not already in place; 2) Prioritize communication needs of your employees; 3) Communicate regularly with Customers.  

Build Your Crisis Team

Goal: Business continuity.

This small handful should coordinate and centralize all communication while setting the right tone with employees, vendors, customers—all stakeholders. State, local, and federal government entities have designated such teams, and businesses need to do the same. Universities, school districts, and businesses large and small are all now aware of the importance of such designated voices.   

Prioritize Employee Needs

Goal: They’re your ambassadors. Keep them informed. 

Use employee communications to put people’s minds at ease. Workers need answers during adverse times that demystify their benefits, insurance, wages, etc.  Many studies have shown that steady leadership sets the right tone for all and is a potent antidote in helping reduce employee anxiety.  So, over-communicate with employees. During a crisis, if your employees are not regularly informed, they can’t function as your most effective ambassadors to the community at large.

Outreach to Customers

Goal: Stress empathy and think like a consumer. 

As the COVID-19 pandemic has unfolded, several companies have rethought how they do business to provide more excellent service to consumers. The airlines have waived cancellation and change fees. Walgreens, CVS, and others have eased or waived early refills on prescription drugs. Walmart, Target, and several other ‘big-box’ grocery retailers have added enhanced deep-cleaning protocols that signal consumers that it’s safe to do essential grocery shopping.

The COVID-19 crisis and those that will follow require a combination of steady leadership, plus factual and updated information regularly shared with employees, vendors, customers, and the public. 

Those businesses and organizations that follow such crisis communication fundamentals in their response to the current national health pandemic will almost certainly come out the other end of it more robust, reputationally intact, and with their long-term fundamentals tested but still firmly in place.