June 2019 – Lauriane Lebrun, Marketing & Communications Coordinator

Does your nonprofit host conferences, seminars, or other events that involve presentations?  Do you find that, somehow, finding a topic is always a struggle?  You need something that will get people to buy tickets and keep them interested while your speaker has the floor.  And you don’t necessarily have the funds to hire a world-renowned public figure.  So, what’s the secret to picking the right topic?

  1. Take the time to brainstorm as a group.  This means sitting down with your board, committee, and/or volunteers, and with your speaker, if appropriate, to get the ideas flowing.  While no organization technically needs brainstorming sessions, these meetings often help to generate a greater variety of ideas—and, consequentially, better results.  According to SmartStorming, “one person’s idea can quickly spark a dozen or more new and different associations from the group.  We call that phenomenon the ‘popcorning’ of ideas.”
  2. Do some research.  Consider using a tool like BuzzSumo, which allows you to type in a keyword related to your nonprofit’s mission, then peruse the most-popular articles related to that term.  Popularity is ranked by number of engagements, such as backlinks or social media shares.
  3. Learn from your peers.  Search online for organizations similar to yours.  If they’ve hosted an event recently, it’s probably listed on their website, along with an agenda.  Try this again with a few other organizations, and see if you notice any trends.  What are these organizations doing to draw crowds?  How can you put your own unique spin on it?
  4. Address pain points.  It’s one thing to know who your audience is, but do you know what they’re struggling with?  As Ben Sailer of CoSchedule explains, “Content marketing [or, in this case, planning a presentation] is about trading your readers’ [or listeners’] time and attention for helpful and useful information.”  Sailer recommends asking yourself three questions about your audience: “What do they want to do better?  What actually motivates them to be better?  What keeps them awake at night?”   
  5. Ask the audience.  Naturally, no one knows your audience better than… your audience.  Even if you’ve never surveyed attendees at one of your organization’s events before, it’s never too late to start, and any data you collect will become a valuable tool for future event planning.  Back in February, I shared some tips for getting more event survey responses, so be sure to check that out for ideas.  You can also try setting up a poll on your organization’s social media pages, which you can learn more about in this TopRank article.

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