The loss of third-party cookies is not a distant possibility; it’s an imminent reality that will reshape how businesses advertise by the end of 2024.

For many SMEs and non-profit organisations, the untapped potential of their websites is a missed opportunity that negatively impacts the organisation’s or business’s profitability.

While the effects of neglecting the website and its impact on business profitability may be subtle, Google has recently advised business owners and executives in non-profit organisations to recognise the potential benefits of prioritising their website, particularly content.

In April 2024, Google made it clear that content marketing is still king in the SEO game. Google values content so much that it has created a page on creating helpful, reliable, people-first content.

For business owners who have ignored or placed content marketing in the too-hard basket, now is the time to prioritise content development and marketing for the organisation’s website and begin to reap the benefits.

WHAT ARE THE HESITATIONS THAT BUSINESS OWNERS HAVE ABOUT CREATING CONTENT?

Generally, there are a few basic reasons business owners do not prioritise content development.

a.  Lack of time

Many business owners are already struggling to keep up with the demands of running the business. Adding content creation to an already stretched list feels impossible.

b. Essential vs Important

This is the old conundrum between what is important and what is essential. Often in running a business, the important demands immediate attention. While content creation is critical to the business’s long-term success, it is pushed further down the list of priorities because it lacks immediacy for most owners and executives.

c.  Confidence in writing

The strengths of running a business do not necessarily include the strengths of writing people-centred content.

While business owners may know what message they want to convey, sitting down and writing can be daunting. Consequently, leaders often divert their attention to what they feel comfortable doing rather than creating content.

While these reasons are valid, they must be weighed against the benefits of content marketing to the business.

Benefits to a business of CONTENT MARKETING

There are several benefits to a business.

1. Greater visibility and reach

An organisation’s website is its digital storefront. However, it is not just about having a website—it is having a website that ranks. Google ranking measures a web page’s relevance, usefulness, and importance for a given search query.

Content is required for ranking. Gary Illyes from Google says, “Without content, ranking is impossible.”

2. Credibility and Trust

A well-designed website with relevant and up-to-date information builds credibility and professionalism, increasing consumer trust and confidence in the business.

Websites with a lack of information, old information, or broken links raise questions about the legitimacy of the business for potential customers.

3. Sales and Conversions

A well-optimised website that ranks well and has relevant content drives sales, particularly in today’s economy, where customers research online before purchasing.

Content marketing generates three times the number of leads and costs 62% less than traditional marketing.

For businesses investing heavily in traditional marketing, the switch to content marketing is essential. It reduces costs and increases the number of leads, which is a win-win situation for most businesses.

4. Adapting to changing consumer behaviour

To survive in the current economy, SMEs must adapt to changing consumer behaviour. As consumers have shifted to online research and shopping, a lack of website content will prevent small businesses from meeting evolving consumer expectations.

The importance of quality content

Content in a business’s website is foundational. However, it is not just having any content on the website; it is having quality content. In other words, content that;

●      Creates value.

●      Is credible.

●      Is specific to the query being searched; and

●      Creates a good user experience.

The question is how to create quality content that does these things, i.e., creates value, is credible and creates a good user experience for the customer.

THE IMPORTANCE OF QUALITY CONTENT

Content in a business’s website is foundational. However, it is not just having any content on the website; it is having quality content. In other words, content that;

●      Creates value.

●      Is credible.

●      Is specific to the query being searched; and

●      Creates a good user experience.

The question is how to create quality content that does these things, i.e., creates value, is credible and creates a good user experience for the customer.

Creating quality content

Several steps must be considered when developing quality content for websites. Some steps are more technical and deal with back-end set-up, such as Keyword optimisation, website speed, and backlinks.

In this section, we will consider the customer-facing aspects that must be considered when writing quality content.

Know and review your customer base

This cannot be stressed enough. When business owners have been in business for some time, it is easy to be lulled into a false sense of confidence that they know their customer base. However, the customer base may be changing. New groups of customers may be developing while the traditional customer base is declining.

Business owners must spend time analysing the data they collect from customers. Setting aside time to analyse the data leads to other questions, such as:

●      What trends are emerging?

●      What is the data not telling us?

●      Do we need to collect data that is different from what we have been?

●      Based on the data, how do we change our marketing?

Quality content always addresses the customer or potential customer. If you, as a business owner, do not know your customers, you cannot write quality content targeted to them.

What questions are your customers looking for answers?

Knowing your customers is crucial to understanding what questions they are asking and what problems they are looking for solutions.

Quality content addresses the problems and questions of your customers. Hence, it is:

●      Personal – the content is written to address your customers rather than some generic individual.

●      Relevant – the content is relevant to the question being answered. It is essential to get straight to the point or, at the very least, provide a hook that keeps a person’s attention for longer than three seconds. If people cannot find the answer they are looking for, they will look at other websites.

●      Accurate—Customers quickly spot inaccurate information, which can destroy credibility and trust. Once credibility and trust are damaged, a business can find it difficult to rebuild them with customers.

It is important to remember that while quality content seeks to answer customers’ problems, not every problem can be solved. However, at the very least, the content should aim to provide a different perspective for the customer.

Credibility

Credibility is vital to quality content on the business website.

Knowing your customers and their questions are the first two essential steps in being credible.

The other steps in developing credibility are:

●      Demonstrating experience and expertise.

●      Writing with authority.

●      Being trustworthy.

We demonstrate our experience and expertise in writing, ensure the sources or references we use are reputable and of a high standard, and maintain an open and credible online presence.

Demonstrating our experience and expertise allows our personality to shine through in our writing. This is also essential to building trust and credibility, particularly in a time of much debate about the use of AI.

While AI was once held up as the easy solution to writing content, there is more awareness now of the flaws and mistakes that AI can make when it is collecting information. This means relying on AI is no substitute for the writing of an individual who:

●      Knows the business’s customers and the questions that concern them.

●      Has the expertise and experience to be able to write.

●      Can write authoritatively to assist customers with their questions.

Writing content this way has positive consequences and flow-on effects for business sustainability and growth.

Public outrage has become much easier in the 21st century. We can express our outrage in the comfort of our homes by pressing ‘send’ while sipping our soy latte or chardonnay.

While the public may laugh off some cultural blunders and use them as memes that themselves become part of the cultural landscape, for many brands, cultural blunders can have profound and devastating consequences.

Google is hopeful that with the power and versatility of its AI, it will regain lost ground in the rapidly developing field of AI. 

Many governments have introduced restrictions prohibiting TikTok from being used by or on the phone of government officials and bureaucrats.

Over the last decade, the social media landscape has changed in quite but dramatic ways that many brands have not kept pace with.

Most of us struggle with feeling overwhelmed with the amount of content available to us and which we have streaming through our social media platforms, never mind that theoretically, we should be able to process 11 trillion bits.

While Gemini has been criticised for racism against white people, other AI image generators have faced the opposite criticism.

In September, we wrote on Social Impact Investing (SII), an approach by the corporate world to investing that seeks to generate positive social and environmental outcomes alongside financial returns.

The shift to SII as a way of investing is driven, among other things, by the need for companies to demonstrate they are meeting environmental, social and governance (ESG) standards and the demand from customers and clients for businesses to contribute positively to the broader economy and environment.

SII and Return on Social Investment [SROI] – what is the difference?

SII allows companies and corporations to partner with non-government agencies (NGOs) and social enterprise businesses to create innovative solutions to complex problems; however, corporations are still seeking a return on their investment.

The question for NGOs and social enterprises is how they demonstrate their value to companies looking to invest.

The power of being able to demonstrate return on social investment

NGOs and social enterprises demonstrate their value by articulating and demonstrating their return on social investment.

What is the Return on Social Investment [SROI]?

SROI, at its core, measures whether the social value created by a program outweighs the cost of running the program [1]. Calculating the effectiveness of the social program allows the organisation to identify areas where they can improve their impact. It is in these areas that NGOs are most likely to attract companies seeking to invest and contribute because, as mentioned, SII prioritises investments with a measurable impact while generating a financial return.

Hence, the difference between SII and SROI is one measures social value, while the other is predominantly an investment strategy.

The seismic mind shift for NGOs in moving to a Social Return on Investment perspective

Many NGOs and non-profit organisations continue to operate with a mindset based in the 20^th century without realising the rapid shifts that have occurred in the last two decades, particularly in the transition towards SROI.

The changing landscape for NGOs and not-for-profit organisations

Significant shifts have occurred over the last two decades for many NGOs, including:

 1.  Increase in both demand for services and complexity of problems

Many non-profit organisations are finding that:

a)     there is an increasing number of clients presenting for assistance and

b)     clients are presenting with increasingly complex problems.

These two factors impact the organisation’s ability to meet demand in several ways.

●    The impact on Human Resources

Increasing demand often impacts issues like staff retention and burnout. When staff become burnt out with the ongoing demand, and there is high staff turnover, the results for the organisation are:

a)     Higher recruitment costs.

b)      Loss of organisational knowledge and expertise.

c)     Reputational damage as people become aware of the high turnover of staff.

d)      Impact on service delivery to clients when there is high staff turnover.

●    The need for professional staff and the impact of higher wages

Clients or communities with complex problems often require services from a multidisciplinary team of professionals who work together to address the issues.

Many NGOs do not pay the professional wages paid in the private sector to attract the professionals required. This can lead to problems in employing suitably qualified staff skilled at dealing with complex issues.

2. Reduction in donor and government funding

The ability of an NGO to offer higher wages to engage professional staff who can meet increasing client demand is further impeded by the reduction many NGOs are experiencing in donations from donors, particularly post-COVID, and greater accountability requirements from the government.

Many NGOs are caught, like hamsters in the wheel, trying to work harder and faster, doing the same things to meet increasing demand with reduced funding. Shifting to an SROI model would enable many NGOs to demonstrate their value and impact, making them attractive to companies seeking SII opportunities providing an additional funding stream.

Making the shift

NGOs seeking to make the shift need to do the following.

1.  Change the focus from a mission focus to an impact-focused mentality

Many NGOs are mission-focused. Their mission statement is a statement about what they want to achieve. Their mission statement is about the organisation’s unique reason for existence and how it will achieve its vision. The organisation’s vision statement is also about their desired future state of the world.

In other words, a mission-focused NGO talks about itself. Its uniqueness and how it works to achieve a desired future state, as it sees the world or the community. While vision and mission statements are essential, they are aspirational. They do not clearly articulate the impact the organisation is having on its community or clients.

NGOs that are impact-focused change their language from mission and vision to the impact they are having on clients and the community.

This is something companies and, increasingly, governments want to know. How does an organisation impact the lives of its clients or community? Is the funding provided to the organisation having an impact that can be measured, or does it still focus on its aspirational desires? Becoming impact-focused means being comfortable with a results-driven mentality.

2.  Become comfortable with a results-driven mentality

Many NGOs talk about the programs they run rather than the results they achieve.

One of the leading indicators many NGOs use for the success of a program is the number of clients assisted. While numbers are significant, they are only one indicator and usually not a very reliable indicator of the impact a program is having.

If we take mental health counselling as an example. One counsellor may see 25 clients a week, while the second counsellor may only see 18 clients weekly. Looking simply at the numbers, it would appear the first counsellor is more successful because they are seeing more clients. However, the second counsellor may be more successful because the impact of their counselling means clients do not need to have as many appointments because they are skilled in applying self-help techniques away from the counselling sessions.

A results-driven mentality looks beyond the numbers and thinks beyond traditional programs towards social marketing, social enterprise, advocacy, and collaborations. It is about achieving results that drive system change [2].

Many NGOs’ failure to harness social media’s power is a clear example of these organisations’ failure to shift to an SROI perspective. Many continue using organisational social media platforms as they do their personal social media profiles. They post photos of recent staff activities or events. Posts are ad-hoc and often rely on a staff member remembering to upload a post or a photo.

NGOs should have a designated line item within their budgets for social media and a clear business plan to use the power of social media to bring about change and demonstrate the impact of what they do, not just for the individual but for communities and to bring about system change.

3.  Entrepreneurial versus risk-averse mindset

Many NGOs are risk-averse. While this is understandable when dealing with government grants and donations, it can also result in an organisation being unwilling to try innovative ideas. Developing a mindset based on SROI requires considering, tolerating, and implementing new ideas that may carry some risk.

Developing an organisational, entrepreneurial mindset starts with the Board of Management. Most NGO Boards are risk averse; in part, this is often due to the make-up of Boards. Many boards, when seeking new members, think about lawyers, accountants, and other professions that, by nature, are risk-averse. NGO Boards should actively recruit entrepreneurs who can assist other Board members in developing a constructive risk appetite and seeing entrepreneurial opportunities.

In developing a constructive risk appetite, the Board needs to create a culture based around four qualities:

i)               Openness and the ability to share information and lessons learned.

ii)              Adaptability in monitoring, assessing, and responding to internal and external changes.

iii)             A commitment to tracking outcomes and impact of service delivery; and

iv)             Supporting a learning culture where everyone can learn without fear of being blamed or criticised.

Making the shift is not easy. It takes time and energy, time to step back from the demands of constant service delivery and reflect on what needs to change. Again, the Board’s responsible for providing direction; otherwise, staff must keep meeting increasing demand without reflecting on what needs to change. It also takes energy to learn to do things differently. However, being able to shift to an SROI mindset and talk about the impact the organisation is making is essential for several reasons.

1. It opens opportunities for collaboration and investment from companies and corporations looking to invest in services making a social and environmental impact.

2. Being transparent about the impact an organisation is having is positive for the workplace culture. A positive workplace culture attracts staff has lower staff turnover and greater staff satisfaction, which reduces the risk of burnout.

3. Being clear about the impact of an organisation brings clarity to its vision and mission. Also, it enables it to know where it should invest its financial and human resources, that is, in areas with the most significant impact. This reduces organisational waste and deficit.

While NGOS need to develop an SROI mindset, it is also important to understand there are some things that SROI doesn’t measure. For example, increasing self-confidence or family stability cannot be measured. However, the strength of an SROI model increases as the organisation gains evidence of its outcomes through best practices research or self-evaluation studies.

[1] https://socialimpactarchitects.com/sroi/

[2] https://socialimpactarchitects.com/nonprofit-trends-2017/