To the Point: Don’t Write Crappy Content

Remember "Green Eggs and Ham," the famous children's book by Dr. Seuss? Sam wants X to try his new breakfast. When X refuses, Sam keeps trying to serve it up in exciting new ways — on a boat, on a plane, in a house, on a train — until finally X tries it and thanks Sam for his persistence.

We have a similar content strategy for nonprofit marketing. The only difference is no one is thanking us for repurposing bad content. For all the talk these days about new marketing tactics, we've forgotten that there really are only two tools that fuel our communications efforts: words and images. Our goal is to put these items together in exciting ways to weave compelling narratives. The problem is if our copy is crap, new and exciting delivery mechanisms can't change that fact. Creating great 
content is both art and science. Here are some steps you can take to improve yours.