Introduction

A guide to tools and resources to support low cost or free marketing and communications. This guide is for People’s Health Trust funded partners and other small charities and community based organisations.

General resources for communcations

Charity Comms is a great go to resource for communications

You can access a lot of resources for free on their website including this section specifically for small charities.

Membership starts from £110 per year plus VAT for organisations with a turnover of less than 300K and gives you access to free training. Find out more about benefits of membership on their website.

Media Trust have a lot of useful resources on their website. They also offer training.

Creating content

Design

Canva makes it easy to create professional designs for digital or print use. Non profits can get the premium version of Canva for free - you just need either Charity Registration Number from Charity Commission, CIC Registration Number from CIC Regulator, Articles and Memorandum of Association.

Images

It is generally best to use your own images when this is practical, and is crucial to have consent from the people in the images for use in external communications. It is also important that images are representative of the people you work with.

If you are not using your own images, it is vital to ensure you have the rights to use the images. You may receive a fine for using an image without the licence.

There are a number of websites with royalty free images which you can download including Unsplash. There are also sites where you can find images or illustrations of specific groups group including Nappy.co for images of people experiencing racial inequity and The Unmistakables for images of South Asian people.

The Centre for Ageing Better has a free library of showing positive and realistic images of over 50s.

For more information and links to sites with images and illustrations focussed on diversity see https://mediatrust.org/resource-hub/where-to-find-free-diverse-and-inclusive-stock-images-for-your-charity/

You can also use Google Image search and select – Usage Right – ‘Creative Commons Licence’ to view and access images which are licensable under Creative Commons rather than commercially.

Creative Commons licenses give everyone from individual creators to large institutions a standardised way to grant the public permission to use their creative work under copyright law. For more information on Creative Commons and the different licences available see https://creativecommons.org/about/cclicenses/.

Video

Video is an increasingly popular way of sharing content on social media and via websites. In addition to social media platforms, you may want to upload videos to YouTube or Vimeo.

Vimeo has more options for making your videos private so if you have film content that you do not want to share publicly, Vimeo allows you to password protect access to videos, where as YouTube only allows you to create a sharable link. Both platforms can create auto captions for your films.

More information on creating video:

https://www.charitycomms.org.uk/tips-for-building-your-video-production-strategy

https://vimeo.com/blog/category/video-school

Case studies and story telling

Telling stories well can inspire action to volunteer or donate and bring people together. It’s important to tell stories honestly and authentically while protecting the people who give us their stories.

Checklist for producing case studies:

  • Informed consent – Ensuring that the person is genuinely comfortable sharing their story, be clear that they can approve the final copy/film/audio before it is published and on how and where the story will be shared (on social media, on website, in the media), check if anonymity is required.
  • The interview – prepare your questions and do your research in advance. It’s also important to share a general outline of what you want to talk about with your interviewee in advance so that they are prepared and can provide as much information as possible.
  • Approach the interview in a conversational. Have your questions as a guide but let the interview flow organically and deviate from the planned structure to allow the interviewee to feel at ease. This will help you get the most out of your conversation.
  • Transcripts – If your interview is conducted over Microsoft Teams, you can use an auto transcription tool. See the guide on how to enable this here. If you are using a paid Zoom plan you can also access their transcription tool. If you are using the free version of Zoom, you can record the interview and upload the file to a service such as Otter.Ai to transcribe the audio file of the interview. You can also use this if the interview is in person and recorded.

More information on writing case studies and story telling.

Charity Digital: How to write impactful case studies

Charity Comms: How to be an authentic story teller

Communicating your content

Social media

We encourage you to connect and tag People’s Health Trust in your social media posts: Links to all of our channels are listed on our website footer and are:

More information on using social media effectively:

Media Trust: Telling the story of your social media success

Charity Comms: Accessibility on social media

You may want to use a social media content scheduler to help manage your social media content – popular ones are Social Pilot, Sprout Social and HootSuite.

E-newsletters

Mail Chimp - The free version of Mail Chimp allows you to send emails to small groups of people (Up to 500 contacts, 1000 sends per month as off June 2023). Find out more

Media

Working with your local media can be a good way to promote your project.

We would be happy to supply a quote for your release. If you are a People’s Health Trust funded partner, contact the communications team for a sample press release, a quote and for support in writing and pitching your press release, or in contacting local media.

Free media training

New Economy Organisers (NEON) offer hands-on support and training for campaigners, organisers, communications and operations teams working across social movements. They are particularly interested in hearing from meeting working with identities who have been traditionally under-represented in broadcast media. They have different training open to applications at different times. See https://www.neweconomyorganisers.org/work/training

Analysing your marketing and communcations

Analytics

Google provides two free tools to monitor your website – Google Analytics and Google Search Console.

Google Analytics introduced GA4 in July 2023 (replacing Universal Analytics). It is an analytics service that enables you to measure traffic and engagement on your website, for example how many people are visiting your website, how they are finding your website and which pages are most popular.

Google Console is a service that provides insight on search engine optimisation (SEO) - the process of improving your website to increase its visibility in Google. You may also be able to get free Google Ads via Google Grants

You can track the effectiveness of your social media content to evaluate what works well using each platform’s existing free analytics services:

  • Twitter analytics: https://analytics.twitter.com/
  • LinkedIn: navigate to the analytics tab and select content from the dropdown menu
  • Facebook: Navigate to Meta Business Suite from the left side menu and select content.
  • Instagram: Go to your profile, Tap the Insights action button, You can also go to in the top-right corner and tap Insights.
  • Tiktok: Profile, tap the three dots, choose “Creator tools,” and select “Analytics.

Accessibility

It’s important to ensure that your communications are accessible to diverse audiences. This Charity Comms guide is a useful starting point.

Standards for accessibility on websites: www.w3.org/WAI/standards-guidelines/wcag/standards

Readability guidelines – A global project facilitated by Content Design London covering guidelines on clear language, grammar points, audiences, devices, channels, content design and images.

Colour contrast - you can run colour combinations to check they are accessible using this free tool - https://colourcontrast.cc/

More resources available for funded partners

Please contact the People's Health Trust communications team for any brand queries or if you would like to have a copy of any of the following Trust documents:

  • Visual brand guidelines
  • Inclusive language guide
  • Accessibility guidelines.

These additional guidelines are intended for Trust staff and suppliers but funded partners may find them useful to adapt to their own contexts.

Brand guidelines and compliance for People’s Health Trust funded partners

Please refer to our Brand guidelines (sent to you when your grant is confirmed) for more information on how to use the Trust and The Health Lottery funding logo correctly in your communications, and to download the logos.

Contact the communications team:

Email: Communications@peopleshealthtrust.org.uk

Telephone: 020 4548 0949