Build trust with updated messaging
Written by zoe alexis whitehorn
Recently, we witnessed the launch of a major rebrand, with Twitter morphing into X. On the days surrounding the launch, the messaging was inconsistent, and the brand identity was evasive. This situation was wildly confusing for X's most important audiences – existing users.
Here's the lesson of this story that applies to your work as nonprofit leaders: keeping your materials up to date, especially anchor materials like your logo and your core messages, maintains trust with your audiences and helps make sure you're living up to your brand's promise or organization's mission.
For example, have you ever checked out a foundation's website only to find their latest annual report listed as 2019? Or visited an advocacy organization's site and found a legislative summary with 2020 talking points? That outdated messaging risks breaking trust with audiences and shows a lack of consistency and clarity.
We understand how busy nonprofit leaders are, and we want to make it easy to take just a few steps to ensure your most important materials are up to date, and to let your newest, most relevant materials shine.
Materials & messaging update checks
Simply updating your messages or removing the most outdated featured materials can go such a very long way when it comes to audience trust and engagement. After all, according to the Nielsen Norman Group, you've got about 10 seconds to capture someone's attention. It's so important to use that time wisely, immediately communicating the most resonant or latest information to your audiences.
The checks below are low-hanging fruits that’ll have a big impact when it comes to ensuring you’re effectively pushing out the freshest of fresh messages:
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Set aside an hour or two to audit your website for redundant or out-of-date, prominently featured materials.
Don't have time to recreate the wheel? Totally fine! We recommend removing outdated materials like old annual reports from the spotlight.
Taking the time to make sure that less relevant or older materials fall “below the fold”, so users have to scroll vertically or pass the most relevant new materials first, is helpful. (If you want to reach for the stars, a more comprehensive audit – a Forthright favorite activity – allows you to thoroughly examine what’s working and what isn’t across all of your most important channels.)
This one is so quick and impactful: Check your social bios.
Still quoting a meme from 2019? It's probably time to retire it. Using an old tagline or mission statement? Update it. Got a great brand new photo of your team? Replace the older one!
Take a look at your core messages, the critical building blocks of all of your communications work.
In an ideal world, we suggest creating a schedule to revisit your messages and make sure they’re aligned to your strategic plans/annual goals, and incorporating what the latest research shows your audiences care most about.
In the real, busy world, where you might be short on capacity, we recommend reviewing your core messages for red flags and outdated data.
If you're still leading with data from before COVID, for example, run a check to see what new data exists to build your case. If policymakers have begun adopting key parts of your advocacy agenda, tweak the language to reflect what change needs to happen next. Or, if your organization has shifted internally and how you get the work done has changed, make sure you reflect those organizational shifts when you talk about your work.
We suggest setting time on your calendar annually or twice a year to run these three simple checks.
So, if you are considering launching a new brand or simply want a low lift, high reward check-in process to keep your core materials up to date, we suggest starting here (...especially before you make that splashy upcoming organizational announcement!).
