Branding
(And how does it connect to your website?)
Elements of a strong nonprofit brand:
- Organizational: vision mission, values, objectives, audiences
- Conceptual: personality, positioning statement — internal only
- Visual: logo, colors, fonts, imagery
- Written: name, tagline, mission statement, key messages, boilerplate
- Spoken: elevator pitch
- Experiential: programs spaces, website, social media, print, phones
Determine Your Audience’s Needs
- Google Analytics
- Surveys
- Create user persona(s)
- write up story about who your users are
- what’s their age, comfort level with the web, etc.
- User testing
- sit next to someone and do a website scavenger hunt
- ex: if you wanted to donate to our org, where would you go?
Case Studies
CrossCultural Solutions
- Invest in CMS
- Incorporate years of volunteer survey comments
- Incorporate staff feedback
- Develop user personas
- Design multiple wireframes (>6 by site launch)
- Relate site to CCS community
- Planned site map with SEO/SEM
- Use brand manual and style guides
- Learned from Google Analytics, HeatMapping!
Lessons Learned
- Keep brand manual, style guide, project brief on hand throughout design and implementation
- Commit to ongoing brand development. Launch, revise, launch, etc. (keep in mind phase 2 and 3 of website!)
- More user testing by stakeholders before launch (allow more than a few days!)
How to Get Started
- Look at your qualitative and quantitative data
- Listen to buzz, and embrace the positive brand love
- Learn from your peers and other key players you feel are in a non-competing position