Eric’s 3-Part Content Strategy That Works Every Time

Transcript

Eric Ressler [00:00]:

Even the problem is actually kind of just a shorthand for many different problems. How do you actually frame that problem? How do you tell a story around it? You can see how even though this is a simple framework, it opens up tons of possibilities for storytelling and for content production and really just strategic communications at large.

Jonathan Hicken [00:19]:

I think a lot about scale of problem or scale of solution. In my work, we do talk about climate change also, but the spectrum in that kind of work is really like are we talking about global level problems like global emissions or are we talking about individual level problems like you use too much water at home? I've been encouraging my team to be collecting and sharing more stories of impact, and one of the things that keeps occurring to me, certainly for some of us, our work can sometimes take years or decades for the impact to be visible. And that is a really hard story to tell, especially if you're an early stage organization

Eric Ressler [00:56]:

Telling these stories about how actual humans are impacted positively by the work that you're doing, and that should absolutely be a tool in the toolbox for your impact storytelling.

Jonathan, we talk a lot on this show about storytelling and content strategy, and a lot of times I think people feel just a little bit overwhelmed about getting started, even if they believe like, okay, we get the value of this. We know we need to do it, but what do we do? What do we talk about? What do we tell stories about? How do we tell those stories? So I thought it would be helpful to do an episode about a three-step content strategy that anyone can use and that we use all the time with our clients, and that seems very simple, but also that a lot of people are not hitting even these really basic core pillars.

[01:51]:

So whether you are an organization that is just getting started with storytelling and doing content work, or if you've been doing it for a long time, I think there will hopefully be some value in this framework for our listeners. Are you game? Let's go. Okay. So this three step process can work regardless of whether or not you're telling stories online or telling stories in person or a mix of the two. So it's kind of channel agnostic. You can use this sort of as a guide and it might influence what kind of content you post and what channels, but you can kind of use it however you want. I think that's actually the power in its simplicity. So the first step of this process is telling stories or producing content where you name and frame the problem. This is one that some organizations are really, really good at and constantly beating the drum around.

[02:39]:

Here's the problem that we're solving. Here's why that problem is important. Here's why this problem is relevant and worthy of supporting across all of the other types of causes that are in our area or out. And then there's some organizations that we work with that do none of this, literally never talk about the problem and are only talking about their impact only talking about solutions. I think naming and framing the problem is really, really important. I know we've talked about it before on this show, but I'm just curious to hear how you think about that, maybe specifically as it relates to your content strategy and storytelling.

Jonathan Hicken [03:12]:

So where my mind goes is that is easier for some organizations than others depending on what sector or what kind of work you're doing,

Eric Ressler [03:21]:

Right?

Jonathan Hicken [03:21]:

Arts and cultural organizations historically really struggle with this because it's hard to quantify a problem when you're talking about enriching society. And some organizations, don't get me wrong, do a great job of it and situate the problem really brilliantly. But historically that's a really challenging thing, and even for a science center that sometimes can be challenging for us to do. Nevertheless, when I'm thinking about naming the problem, I'm always making sure that the problem that I'm naming is directly related to the pillars, our core values. I can't just make up a problem in order to sell a content piece. I have to be bringing that back constantly to our core values. So for me, it's not quite enough to name the problem. It also has to be connected to the core of what you do.

Eric Ressler [04:17]:

Yeah, I think the other thing I think about a lot with this is maybe even the way we're saying the problem is a little bit of a misnomer because usually there's not a problem, there is a problem set or many different ways of looking at the problem, many different scopes and scales of the problem. So if we take the example of a climate action organization, depending on where they sit in the ecosystem, and I'll use an example of an organization that we're working with called We Do and they work as a consensus building organization, a bridge building organization. They work directly with other climate action organizations as well as other gender equality organizations. They work at the intersection of those issues. And one way you could name that problem is naming the problem about climate change and gender inequality, and that is a problem. That's kind of the big problem they're working on, but then there's different scopes to that problem.

[05:10]:

Another part of the problem that they're working on is how can we get all of these other organizations who are doing work in that sector to be more effective as a movement? That's a different problem set. It's a different scope and scale of that problem, or they might focus even more on these organizations are working together effectively in this way, but we're not able to fund feminist climate action heroes and allies and advocates to get to the conferences that they need to get to have a voice in those conferences. So those are three very different scopes and scales of problems that are all interrelated and all very much in the wheelhouse of the work that they're doing. So even the problem is actually kind of just a shorthand for many different problems. When you start to think about then how do you actually frame that problem? How do you tell a story around it? You can see how even though this is a simple framework, it opens up tons of possibilities for storytelling and for content production and really just strategic communications at large. So how you name and frame the problem I think is really, really important. And thinking about different flavors or different framings of the problem or different scopes and scales of the problem can help you get a lot of legs out of this idea.

Jonathan Hicken [06:22]:

I love this and I think it's a tool that I could use even in my own fundraising. I think a lot about scale of problem or scale of solution in my work. We do talk about climate change also, but the spectrum in that kind of work is really like are we talking about global level problems like global emissions? Are we talking about individual level problems? Like you use too much water at home? And one of the things that we found is that certain audiences respond better to certain scale of problems. Now, we happen to think that the sweet spot for our work is the community scale problem and the community scale issue or a solution. But depending on your audience, depending on especially a funder, what scale of problem they care about, framing it in their terms. Man, that's real powerful.

Eric Ressler [07:11]:

That makes a lot of sense. And I think that last point about understanding who the audience is and who you're telling the story to and how you frame your problem relevant to their perspective, that's the golden ticket right there. So I want to just bring in an example of another client that we worked with recently called 35 Mile Foundation. We spent a lot of time thinking about how do we name and frame the problem that they're trying to solve as an organization without getting into too much background and context. They're a foundation, so they have many different modalities as a foundation, but one of those is grant writing and supporting other organizations, and they work in the digital equity space. And what I mean by that is they provide access, support and they advocate for a more equal experience for more people to be empowered by the digital technology that powers so much of our world today.

[08:09]:

So I want to read a couple of pieces of copy that we put. Ultimately, this landed on the website, but you can see how we're thinking about naming and framing the problem for them. So it reads today, the digital divide prevents many historically marginalized people from tapping into the modern digital world. They're unable to take part in civil and democratic activities that can't access important services, connect with friends and loved ones, or experience what's happening in arts culture and entertainment. Students without online access can't access classroom materials required to complete their homework. Wherever the internet is commonplace, people without access are keenly aware of being sidelined. So we're hitting a lot of different vantage points around how that problem shows up for people. And I think that's a really important point, the end there, which is we have to personalize the problem and make it human even if it's at a large scale. What are the trickle down effects of this problem not being solved? So that was our attempt, and obviously there's way more content that we're putting out with them besides just this one sentence that you find on the homepage, but I was pretty happy with where we landed there. What are your thoughts on that?

Jonathan Hicken [09:13]:

I love it because what it does is it sets up a situation, it names a challenge, and it names the implication of that challenge. So it's like, Hey, here's what's going on. Broadly, the implication of that situation is that these different groups of people aren't getting what they need and without that, this is the damage to society or this is the damage to the individual. And so they're breaking down the problem. And it actually reminds me of this communication framework, which has a terrible acronym, but it's called sab. And so situation, challenge, implication, position, action, and benefit. But what it does is essentially it breaks down a problem into these different pieces and then has a call to action at the end that benefits the listener. And I'm hearing that in that statement, the situation, the challenge, and the implication of that challenge.

Eric Ressler [10:03]:

I'm going to look that up after this because I think we kind of intuitively do that, but I'm a huge fan of having frameworks, even a starting points. So hopefully that's helpful to just exemplify what we mean when we say thinking about different ways to frame the problem or different scopes and scales of that. So let's go on to the second point. The second step, so to speak, in this three-step content strategy. And this one is maybe one that you think you're doing and maybe you even are doing it, which is sharing past and current impact. What have you actually achieved as an organization? You might think about this as impact storytelling or impact metrics, and we will get into the different flavors of that, but I think this is one that gets outsized attention, and maybe even we could be a little bit guilty of really focusing on impact storytelling, impact storytelling, and for good reason.

[10:53]:

This is one really important way that you build trust and credibility with your supporters, that you even get on the map of other folks. You might want to get involved in your mission, and people want to support organizations that are already making a difference. There's always a catch 22 there if you're just starting an organization and you don't have any meaningful impact yet, right? Because you haven't been around long enough to have that. So in certain cases, you have to earn this over time. So you have to look at and right size this based on are you a 30 year org or are you a year zero org? It's a new idea, and I think being really transparent about that is very important. But the second pillar is sharing past and current impact, and I'd love to hear about how you think about that. I know we've been talking a lot about that through the course of our friendship and partnerships and past projects and how you're thinking about changing that as the Seymour Center changes. But yeah, what comes to mind for you around just more broadly impact storytelling and how you think about telling those stories, the impact you're having?

Jonathan Hicken [11:54]:

Yeah, lately, lately I've been, we have at Seymour Center, actually partly as a result of this podcast, I've been encouraging my team to be collecting and sharing more stories of impact. And one of the things that keeps occurring to me, and this may or may not be relevant to all of our listeners here, but certainly for some of us, our work can sometimes take years or decades for the impact to be visible. And that is a really hard story to tell, especially if you're an early stage organization. Granted, Seymour Center has been around for 25 years, so we can dig deep and we can find those stories of impact. What I'm finding lately, the challenges with these impact stories is almost like the next level of so, so for us, we talk a lot about creating scientists and creating high impact scientists as ultimately our impact, but there's another layer of like, okay, so what these young people are emerging from Seymour Center excited to pursue science and a career, an education or a career in the sciences? Great. So there's another level to the impact storytelling that I'm starting to realize we need to talk about. But even as I'm talking about this, it all loops back to the problem,

Eric Ressler [13:08]:

Right? Exactly. Exactly. It's so funny, must've talked about this over dinner at some point because we've used that exact same tactic either directly or intuitively, usually when we can't understand someone's mission when we're first working with them. And I think that's common, right? Because you're in the work day in and day out, so you intuitively understand exactly why. So, but a supporter might not understand that at the same level and almost certainly doesn't, even if they're an expert in your field, they don't understand your organization directly. So what problem or what question rather could be extremely powerful, especially if you stack 'em, right, three levels of, so what usually gets you down to that really insightful kernel? And if it's hard, it's even more reason to persevere and keep pushing and the higher up in the chain, so to speak, that you are as an organization, if you're doing policy advocacy work, if you're doing bridge building, consensus building work, the further you are from that boots on the ground direct impact, the more important distilling down that. So what question into a very clear answer I think is just absolutely critical. And to your last point, it does need to be reciprocal to the problem. It needs to be solving that problem. There needs to be a feedback loop or some kind of logical connection between the problem and your impact. If that's not true, then I think there's some bigger questions to start to ask yourself.

Jonathan Hicken [14:33]:

I'm literally forming Seymour Center's story in my mind as we go and just open the kimono. I'm thinking about, hey, if we're talking about creating scientists, really what's the, so what you and I have talked about this idea that young people, there's a lot of research that suggests they feel anxious or scared, fearful of climate change, and it kind of turns them off where what we're trying to do is create young people who are ambitious and empowered and equipped to be solution makers. And so really the big problem that we're solving is 25, 30 years from now, having the next wave of scientists being ready and excited to solve these problems.

Eric Ressler [15:27]:

So when we talk about sharing stories of impact, and we talk about this a lot, we often talk about storytelling, emotional storytelling, human-centered storytelling, telling these stories about how actual humans are impacted positively by the work that you're doing. And that should absolutely be a tool in the toolbox for your impact storytelling, but it's not the only tool. And I think it would be worth breaking down a couple other ways to share some past and current impact stories for your organization. And you'll have to rightsize this depending on how long you've been around if you're regional or global or whatever. But one that I would really like to surface is data informed storytelling. So how can we use some of our data that hopefully we have about the impact that we've had as an organization, and how do we translate that into some kind of story that's either visual or statistics or metrics based?

[16:22]:

I'll give you an example. So we've done some work with an organization called the High Atlas Foundation out of Morocco. They do community development work in Morocco through the lens of sustainability and women's empowerment. They're an awesome organization. You should definitely check 'em out listeners. And one of the ways that we chose to do impact storytelling for them was through an impact map. So we built a map, an interactive map on the website. You can go to it on the impact page and it shows you all of the points of impact, all of the projects that they've done in various communities, big and small. And you can click on these points, you can learn more about the story, you can learn more about the impact that High Atlas Foundation and their partners had for that community. I think that's a really powerful way to tell that story, possibly even more powerful than an individual story. You can see the scope and scale of the impact that this organization has had. So I want to encourage listeners to think about all the different ways you can showcase your impact and to think about especially how you might bring data in alongside some of that more human centered

Jonathan Hicken [17:26]:

Approach. One of the ways I think about storytelling and impact storytelling also comes down to defining the value that my organization is offering a consumer of my content. I mean, we can define value in a lot of different ways. So for some organizations, it's going to be like, oh, I learned something, or I feel something, or I'm to then act on something at home to benefit my family or my friends, or whatever. There's a lot of different definitions of what value might be, but I think you need to be crystal clear in your mind about what value you offer your audience when you're putting out content on whatever channel it might be, and make sure that every piece of content that you're putting out is reinforcing or delivering that value. Part of the reason for that is then when someone comes across your post or they're scrolling through, they're going to stop because their Pavlovian response is like, this is going to be valuable. I got to stop and I got to watch it, or I got to listen.

Eric Ressler [18:23]:

I mean, I've definitely experienced that. I follow all kinds of different organizations and people, and there are some people in some organizations that if I see something from them, I'm going to stop and pay attention because yeah, to your point, they've delivered so much value to me in whatever form that is that I know whatever they have to say is worth listening to. I want to take us back a step and think about what is even the purpose of sharing impact in the first place. I think we all just kind of reflexively know we should be doing it, but I think it's worth breaking down in a little bit more detail. And to me, it kind of comes down to two main things. One, we want to show supporters, whether they're donors or volunteers or partners, that we are actually making a meaningful difference that our mission is, it matters.

[19:07]:

Yes, we framed the problem, et cetera, but we actually are making tangible progress towards that mission and that we can prove it. I think that's an important one. Donors want to support organizations that have a track record of excellence. This can be hard when you're first getting started and you just don't actually have any impact yet that's material or finished or whatever. It can be hard when your impact takes 10, 20, 30 years to fully blossom, of course, but that's one big reason. But the second one is I think also really important, and that's just a more broadly create trust and credibility for your cause or for your mission and impact storytelling is a really good way to do that because it shows people that yes, there's tangible progress happening. So even if they're not a supporter yet, people are I think really tuned into wanting to either subconsciously or consciously vetting organizations and figuring out is this organization worth paying attention to even? And so if you don't do a good job with this second step of sharing stories of your past or current impact, people might not be convinced that you're worth supporting in the first place.

Jonathan Hicken [20:15]:

Let's break that down even further because as a result of this podcast, I've been encouraging my team and asking my team to be doing more impact storytelling. And so we're telling stories of people who've gone through our program, we've existed long enough where actually decades have passed and now some of those impacts are starting to blossom. So we have that luxury of telling those stories, but now as we're collecting and sharing these stories, it's occurring to me that as just individualized data points is not enough. We have to connect those individual level impact stories back to the big problem that we're solving. Right back to that. So what statement, which is kind of the stage that we're at now. We've gotten pretty good at telling these individual impact stories, but now we need to do a better job of bringing it back to the big. So what

Eric Ressler [21:04]:

Has it been the result of that for you? I'm just curious, what's that led to in terms of just outcomes so far, or anecdotes? I'd be curious just how it's going.

Jonathan Hicken [21:14]:

Yeah, I mean, right now it's mostly coming in the form of fundraising outcomes and in terms of anecdotal sort of feedback from donors, we've only been really serious about this kind of impact storytelling for the last nine months or so. So we need more time to really sort it out. But what I can say is that we had our best end of year fundraising appeal by far. We more than doubled our previous record for end of year fundraising. And I have to believe that part of it was because we were leading with impact stories.

Eric Ressler [21:47]:

You should definitely believe that because it is time and time again, I've seen that the organizations that are consistently doing impact storytelling throughout the course of the year are leagues more successful with their end of year fundraising because those are seeds you're planting all year long. And the mistake and the common mistake is uh, oh, end of your fundraising, let's launch a big campaign, but you haven't built trust or credibility. You're not top of mind and you just get kind of drowned out in the sea of noise. So without getting into numbers and stuff, we can't say for absolute certain that was the only or even the main thing that led to it. But what I can tell you is that we work with a lot of orgs. We've done it for a long time, and there's a very clear pattern of the more effective you are at impact storytelling, the more effective you're going to be at fundraising in general at large, but especially end of year fundraising. If you've been planting those seeds all year long,

Jonathan Hicken [22:40]:

I don't have the predictive empirical evidence that what we did was the result, but I can tell you absolutely for sure, we're going to keep doing it right. I'm going to keep instructing my team to keep banging that drum of impact storytelling. And I know we can get better, and I know we can bring it back to the bigger, but right now the feedback is good. And anecdotally, we're hearing from donors, some of whom have written responses to our email campaigns being like, I really like this one. Or, oh gosh, I had no idea that these young people had gone on to do such cool things. So there's also kind of a moment of like, yeah, we should have been doing this for a lot longer, but we've started and here we are.

Eric Ressler [23:20]:

And I mean, that's exactly the kind of stuff you should be looking at as leading indicators that this is working. And even more so than email open rates, are people responding? Is it starting conversations? Are you using these tools to open conversations? And what you do as you just shared, what you quickly realize is that people don't know what you're doing if you're not doing this and makes perfect sense, quite obvious when you really think about it. But when you're in the day-to-day doing the mission work, you're not thinking about that. You see it, you touch it, you understand it. But the people who care deeply about your mission, if you aren't sharing those stories with them, how will they know unless they go out of their way to ask you for it, which sometimes people will, but often they don't. So let's go to the third main point in the three-step content strategy, and that is crafting a narrative or a content strategy around the future, around your vision for the future and what that looks like.

[24:15]:

Now, this is one that I see probably the least amount of time and effort put into probably everyone listening to this has a vision statement on the About page of their website, and that is not what I'm talking about. That's a great first step maybe. But we're talking about content strategy here. We're talking about what are you consistently telling stories about again and again and again. And this vision piece is one that I think we are under indexing on at large in the space, and I think it's a really important one because you might have a sense of the vision, maybe you don't. A lot of people actually, I think that's a bigger problem. But if you can't craft that vision story in a way that is compelling, relatable, clear, a motive, and something that people can really touch, smell, taste, and listen to, very visceral almost, I think the closer you get to that, the more effective it will be as a content strategy pillar in your content.

Jonathan Hicken [25:11]:

I think as executive directors and CEOs or those of us who are sort of tasked with producing and sharing these vision statements, sometimes it can feel a little bit overwhelming when you're making some big massive claim about this future state of the world that you and your heart know that you can't do alone. But when you kind of sing this or preach this vision, you feel like you are saying to the world, I'm going to do this, or we're going to do this alone.

[25:42]:

And so I think sometimes we kind of chop ourselves off at the knees writing these vision statements because we don't want to be insincere or we don't want to reach too far. And I actually think that's the wrong mindset for this particular activity. You need to be really honest and credible with maybe the mission side of things or how you do your work or really what the impact is. But when it comes to vision, I think this is the opportunity to do some really big experimental thinking. Allow yourselves to really, just to give you a couple of questions that I use when I'm producing a vision is what if every single person that walked through the Seymour Center's doors walked out and wanted to pursue an education or a career in the science, what is the world going to look like if that happens? Or quite the opposite, if everybody who comes through actually walks out hating science, what is the world going to look like as a result of their experience here? And anyway, there are these thought experiment kind of questions you can ask yourself, but I really think when it comes to this vision, there is a certain shared understanding that you're not doing it alone.

[26:50]:

You're just painting a picture that someone who's listening to you can stand behind and identify with and hope for, even if they understand it's not going to be you alone who's going to get it done.

Eric Ressler [27:03]:

Yeah, I think that's the exact right mindset to have. And I acknowledge that problem of feeling like it's a promise that you're going to keep and only you will do. And that I think is definitely the wrong way to think about it because it's going to immediately neuter your vision in a way that is not helpful. I think what it really comes down to is you need to throw constraints aside within reason. You do need to scale your vision into the right size for you. So if you're a community-based organization, you're working regionally, you're a science center, for example, for you to have a vision around youth science for the world would probably be a little bit outside of your comfort zone. And rightfully and probably just not credible, people just say, well, you're overshooting here a little bit, but talking about what would a future in Santa Cruz look like where every young child went through the Seymour Center and was given the inspiration, the opportunity, the tools and the empowerment to be a scientist, and what are the kind of downstream effects of that in our community?

[28:09]:

To me, that's a big vision, but it's also one that's you can claim being part of, and you're not going to be the only organization or the only leader who's part of that path for those students, but you're going to be a really integral part of it and getting really clear about that desired future state and painting a picture about what does it look like when that happens, and helping people imagine it with you, because you spend a lot of time thinking about this, and even people who care about the vision that you have and care about your organization, they might not have as clear of a picture of that vision. So I think we've all experienced meeting someone or working with or under someone or alongside someone who's truly a visionary, and it's so intoxicating, right? Because it helps open up your perception of what could be. And I think that is a really powerful thing. And to some degree, you have to spend a lot of time thinking about how you weave that story.

Jonathan Hicken [29:05]:

And I think there are multiple layers of vision statements. You alluded to this a moment, a moment ago, maybe different contexts, maybe different problems that you're solving, maybe different audiences. And so I think it's actually quite a liberating feeling as an executive director to know that I can actually have or utilize multiple vision statements, so to speak. I know for one, I'm often also thinking about the vision for my organization itself. What are our values? What is our culture? How are we operating? What is our budget going to be? What is our operating model? And I have to come up with a vision for that too. But what's liberating about this conversation is now it's like, oh, okay, I can actually have that and I can have an impact vision, and those things aren't necessarily in conflict.

Eric Ressler [29:50]:

Yeah, I mean, similar to the problem framing and statement and scope and scale, there's different scopes and scales of the vision, so it's not just one thing. So even calling it the vision might even be a misnomer as well. So here's what I'm hoping our listeners can take away from this, and what I'll leave everyone with these three steps or pillars of this content strategy are probably all things you've thought about before. But what I think is the most important takeaway is that you have to consistently do this over and over and over and over and over again to the point that you are so bored telling these stories, and you have to just beat that drum and just keep beating that drum. And I'm not saying you should stagnant, you should go stagnant with it and just never change. I mean, what you'll find I think, is that when you do that, you're kind of forced to be creative because out of boredom of telling the same story so much, right?

[30:42]:

And that's a good thing in my opinion. We see organizations do one of these three really well, or two of these three really. Well, what I've seen is that when you get all three and you're consistently doing them, it doesn't have to be exactly a third, a third, a third, but somewhere in that range and with a consistent cadence, that's where the sum becomes greater than any of the parts, and it can really start to gel and take off. So hopefully that's a helpful takeaway for our listeners, whether they're just getting started with storytelling and content production or if they're seasoned in it and looking for a fresh way to think about it. But thank you, Jonathan, for your reflections. Super helpful and looking forward to the next one.

Jonathan Hicken:
Thank you, Eric.

Eric’s 3-Part Content Strategy That Works Every Time

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