When I first started at Volunteer Alberta (VA), they had recently restructured their membership program and completed a rebrand. But what needed to be tackled next?
Senior Communications Coordinator
Volunteer Alberta
I had just completed my diploma in public relations when I was initially hired at VA. It was my first official job in communications and I was so excited to be responsible for their newsletter, social media, blog, media relations, and campaigns.
While they had recently rebranded and restructured their membership program, VA had their hands full with running programs with a small team (as most non-profits do).
And it became clear that unfortunately the membership program and the communications portfolio were falling behind. I immediately knew I had to ‘manage up’ to help VA thrive. And I did.
Taking stock of VA's communications
One of the first tasks I did when I started was to evaluate what was working well and what wasn’t working well for VA’s communications.
During my social media audit and SWOT analysis, I discovered that while the rebrand was successful externally:
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Facebook was heavily underutilized.
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Not all staff were familiar with the new brand guidelines.
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Their social media content wasn’t as targeted to their mission and audiences.
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Their public and member newsletters were too similar resulting in lower open and click rates.
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Website and blog traffic were lower and users had trouble finding the information they needed.
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Some of the promises made to members were going unfulfilled and some members were becoming disengaged.
Using strategy and planning for success
So I took the initiative to create a new communications approach to help connect Albertans and members with VA’s wonderful programs and services.
Working closely with the Communications Manager and Membership portfolio, I presented a three-year communications strategy and plan that aimed to:
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Improve internal brand cohesion.
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Enhance the organization’s reputation amongst its audiences.
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Leverage storytelling and digital marketing to generate awareness.
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Increase engagement with members and networks through improved communications.
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Build a foundation to position the organization as a leader and voice for volunteerism in Alberta.
Getting down to business
During that time, we executed a lot of fun and impactful projects for the organization like:
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Redesigning the member newsletter.
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Introducing crisis communications processes.
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Initiating a monthly member spotlight blog feature.
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Updating the member portal and launching a website redesign project.
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Introducing editorial processes and themes for enhanced content planning.
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Managing the annual provincial National Volunteer Week (NVW) campaign.
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Creating a quick reference brand guide and introducing relational writing training for team members.
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And many many more (I really can’t fit it all here)!
Driving radical results
And after three years of hard work, we achieved some pretty radical results. Specifically, we increased:
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Our Facebook followers by 98%.
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Brand awareness amongst staff by 95%.
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Member retention over three years from 69% to 95%.
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New site visitors by 123% and website sessions by 112%.
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The average member newsletter open rate from 33% to 40%.
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Traffic to the blog by 52% by writing and promoting 53 blogs.
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The NVW Facebook campaign’s reach by 438% and engagements by 1,219% in one year.
