What I decided to do was hire our supporters. Crazy right? No, people want to share their stories, they want people to listen, and you are giving them that chance. I segmented a list of people who had completed multiple actions for a specific campaign including donating money. I asked they if they would write a post on our blog and tell 'their story.'
They were so excited to be asked to do a task that they could easily have done and had permission to do before, but since they were asked in a manner that made them feel special and important, they jumped at it, like chum. By sending out 47 emails to a group of high energy clients, I was able to receive 5 very strong blog posts. With their permission, a fundraising ask and donate widget were added into their post.
By doing one hour of emails, and about 2 hours of html support and editing, I was able to increase our capacity by 100%. In additional, the quality of the work increases due to its diversity. Instead of myself or other members of our staff writing as they always do, we had fresh, exciting, and passionate posts from new writers.
Lets not use me as the example all the time. Say you are an advertising company who creates online templates. Have you client write a post on your blog, or a post on another blog stating how wonderful the product was. Make sure to offer a helping hand to your clients doing the work for you in order to optimize their post; backlinks, killer subject lines, and quotes from your company if possible!
