If you’re looking for a creative way to build your email list, you might want to give download cards a try.

A while back I was having a coffee at my neighbourhood corpobucks, where they always have a stack of these iTunes download cards, which offer a free “song of the day.”

After giving it a whirl and downloading a track, I immediately had two thoughts:

1. These cards could be a great opportunity to have people opt-in to an email marketing campaign.
2. I can do so much better than one lonesome song.

So I started contacting reps for every artist performing at this year’s Saskatchewan Jazz Festival. Before long I had nearly 30 artists who freely gave permission for one of their songs to be used on a download card to promote the festival.

As soon as I wrap up the design, I’ll be placing an order with Dropcards, who offer a discount for nonprofit organizations. By next week I’ll have a few thousand cards to hand out at events, leave on shop counters, include with ticket orders, and otherwise distribute in diverse and creative ways. Whoever receives one just has to visit the festival’s website and pop in the unique code to download a meaty mp3 sampler.

The download page will have an option to opt-in to our email updates, and this is where our list building will take place. Now, you could make this obligatory, but I recommend keeping it optional. After all, while I want to build our organization’s email list, I also want as many potential ticket buyers as possible to hear the artists who are performing at this year’s Jazz Festival — even if they don’t want to get any email from me afterwards.

For some extra promotional milage, you could send those who do opt-in a welcome email thanking them for checking out your sampler, and offering a special discount, a bonus download, or something else of value to your audience.

Remember, these cards aren’t limited to distributing music. Filmmakers could distribute short films or trailers, authors could include eBooks, educators could include instructional videos — you’re only limited by your creativity. So figure out what you could offer up that would be valuable to your current and potential audience, and get busy printing and distributing your download cards.

With 4.5 million views and counting, the Pink Glove Dance is the result of a idea simple enough — and fun enough — that even busy hospital staff could take part in the project. And if they can do it, you can do it.

My ambivalence about the Pink Ribbon industry notwithstanding, the video works. It works not because it’s particularly brilliant, or features inspired cinematography. The Pink Glove Dance works because it’s authentic and it makes us smile.

On top of its stated goal of raising breast cancer awareness, the video is a great marketing piece for the hospital, the Providence St. Vincent Medical Center. The video gives us a behind-the-scenes tour of the facility, and the images of cleaning staff, cooks, lab techs and receptionists getting their groove on reminds us that health care relies upon far more than than doctors and nurses.

Now if a serious, bureaucratic hospital can put together a silly video drawing attention to their cause, so can you. Grab a camera, brainstorm an idea or two, and start rolling!

YouTube is chock full of spoof ads, most of them awful. This morning I watched one that was surprisingly well made, if not particularly clever. The ad was a Toronto Maple Leafs-themed spoof on another Hogtown creation, the award-winning Dove Evolution video that drew attention to the deceptive beauty of the fashion industry.

Around the same time I was catching up on the Ralph Lauren photoshop scandal — what a sick yet well-deserved mess that has become. My morning browsing eventually got me thinking: how am I lying to my audience?

Now, I don’t believe I’ve pumped plus-sized shams out of my MacBook. But let’s not deceive ourselves. Even in the nonprofit world, we are susceptible to acts of exaggeration.

So join me and take this opportunity to review your marketing materials and see what information might be a tad doctored, touched up, or based on truthiness. I hope you’re not telling any whoppers, but don’t be surprised to discover inflated statistics, overstated challenges, or a touch of hyperbole.

Even the most innocent fibs can leave you exposed and vulnerable to criticism, and may jeopardize the trust of your supporters. The work you do is impressive enough without the need to embellish, so focus on communicating with fairness and accuracy. Your audience will thank you for it.

For your entertainment, here’s the slapshot spoof of the Dove Evolution video.

And here’s the original, award-winning spot.

Don’t Sweat the Small Stuff, they say. We’ve all heard this advice before. But should we listen?

Flickr photo by robertpaulyoung.

The problem is, the Small Stuff can make or break your organization. Paying attention to the Small Stuff shows that you take your cause seriously. The Small Stuff shows that you care. And if you don’t care deeply enough about your cause to Sweat the Small Stuff, why should anyone else?

In an age when the public attention span is short—and their purse strings even shorter—you can’t afford to neglect any detail, no matter how small it may seem. Each touchpoint with your audience needs to reflect your brand and communicate your passion to your cause.

Is your copy ever sloppy? Do you always respond to comments on your Facebook page? Is it hard to unsubscribe from your newsletter? Have you tweaked your landing pages?

These rough edges that can distract from your message and represent a lost opportunity to strengthen your relationship with your audience. We can’t always be perfect, but we should strive for consistency.

What Small Stuff can you find to improve upon?