Maria Bryan Creative

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Maria Bryan Creative

Helping changemakers thrive by teaching how to market on purpose.

19/07/2022

Free webinar alert! Join me and on Wed. July 20 @ 1PM ET. Learn how to plan compelling content to convert your audience into new donors, members, activists, clients, & volunteers. Register thru stories or dm me for more info.

14/07/2022

This sabbatical has been far more of a travel whirlwind than the last one. The most impactful was the three days spent visiting my grandfather.

He's my only living grandparent and has had Alzheimer's for over a decade. The last time I saw him, we had the same 20-minute-long conversation on repeat. But he knew who I was. He told me stories about myself that I didn't even remember.

This time he did not know me. Our conversations were on a 1-minute loop.

Now when you look into his hazel eyes and say, "What's my name?" He smiles real big and says, "Puddin' Tain."

Having a conversation with a man I deeply loved who couldn't retain anything was really hard.

He remembered where he worked in the 80s, and I used that to try to squeeze just one little joint memory out of him. His famous salt potatoes and pork chops. Morning-long arm love rubs. Christmas morning pizza fritte when I was little and screened-in porch margaritas when I was older.

Nuthin.

I won't make this a drawn-out emotional metaphor for nonprofit marketing. I will say that 36 years in and I'm still learning about empathetic listening. About truly knowing what the person on the other end of the conversation wants or needs to hear. And how to center them.

All my grandpa wanted was for me to stroke his head and tell him I loved him.

By day three, that's what we did.

12/05/2022

My framework is getting a huge makeover. (And an invite for you)

My marketing framework is simple but powerful - develop a deep understanding of your audience, set ambitious but doable mission-based goals, and plan your content. At its core, I want to teach nonprofit leaders how to lay the crucial marketing foundation needed to see results.

And it hit me - a core piece of this groundwork is having clear and strong messaging.

Messaging that your team, donors, and partners will rally behind with fervor and turn fence-sitters into lifelong rabid fans.

The kind of messaging that’s so powerful that listeners and readers cannot contain their excitement, enthusiasm, or anger, so they must do something about it.

Messaging that changes minds, moves hearts, and creates community.

I mean, duh! Last year I poured into my own messaging.

I did a storytelling coaching session with the amazing Rain Bennett and hired digital marketing copywriter wiz Charlese Latham to help with my website rebrand and Thrive Activator launch. I did a transformative thought leadership VIP day with the one and only Tania Bhattacharyya and finished the year with positioning queen Hillary Weiss’ Power Plan intensive.

I stand by the fact that content planning and automating are non-negotiable to being a successful nonprofit marketer. But first - you must establish your nonprofit’s mission, vision, values, and key messages.

So this is what’s next for the Thrive programs. The third session of the Thrive Activator will focus entirely on messaging. Not only that, I’m adding a whole new one-on-one service that will walk you through creating your messaging foundation.

I don’t even have a name for this yet (suggestions?). But it will be a half-day 1:1 intensive where we’ll hammer out your mission statement, vision statement, and values, and then together, we’ll create a core messaging guide that will be the north star for all of your marketing and communications.

Here’s an invitation to you. I’ll be launching these messaging foundation intensive in June - but I want to pilot them first. I’m offering three pilot messaging foundation intensives in the first week of June at a significantly reduced price (I’m talking 75% off).

Are you in? Link to book is in the comments!

28/04/2022

It’s sabbatical week!

This is the power of content planning, baby. I wrote this last week and am currently napping (probably).

Listen, I know we can’t all take four weeks off a year. It’s a privilege and a huge perk for working for myself. If you’re feeling burned out and still need to show up, here are three low energy but highly productive things you can do to give yourself a bit of a break.

1. Clean out your Canva designs. Delete the graphics you don’t need to reference, and put the rest in folders.

2. Set up email filters. This is my favorite spring cleaning activity. Send those listserv emails to their own place, so you’re not waking up to 45 emails every day.

3. Organize your document drive (like Google Drive) and computer desktop. What needs a home, what can be trashed, and what did you completely forget you had in there?

I’ll be honest, the week before my April sabbatical I had a bit of senioritis. But I knew I would be returning to two of my busiest months (May and June, I’m ready for ya). I made the most of the week by focusing on these spring cleaning activities.

And it felt oh-so-good.

So tell me, are you going to take some time for some spring cleaning?

21/04/2022

I had a great mentor that helped me stay the track when I got caught up in planning too many marketing activities.

She would say, “If everything is important, then nothing is important.⁠”

Savvy advice for those of us who want to do it all, and especially those of us who want to reach all.

But successful marketing comes down to focusing on who you want to reach, what you want to say to them, and what you want them to do.

That means every post, email, speech—all your messages should:
⁠
>> Be for a key audience⁠

>> Have one clear message

>> Include one specific call-to-action

You got this. Hear, hear to marketing on purpose. 🥂

14/04/2022

Marketing can be overwhelming, and so is working in the nonprofit sector.

You have permission to press pause. Taking a break is always better than burning out.

In the Thrive Activator, my marketing training for nonprofits, it's actually a prerequisite to pause marketing activities for that week. It shows busy leaders that nothing will fall to pieces if they're silent for a little while.

It creates space to dig deep into your analytics, figure out what's working and what's not, what to do more of, and what to nix altogether.

Or even to just rest and reset.

In March, I started to feel it. Feeling let down by the challenges, meh about the dreamy opportunities, and in a creative slump. I decided to schedule four one-week-long sabbaticals into my 2022 calendar. No meetings, consultations, teaching, or client work. I'm taking email and social media apps off my phone.

I'm going off the grid!

I'll be reading all those branding and marketing books collecting dust, catching up on inspiring business podcasts, and dreaming and visioning without jotting down to-do lists.

In the nonprofit sector, it feels like it will collapse if we don't keep running as fast as possible. But it will be fine – I bet it will be in your favor.

When's the last time you pressed pause? Can you fit in a few sabbaticals this year to rest and reset?

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