Marketing a nonprofit is not easy. Often, you find yourself trying to promote your organization with limited resources and staff to assist you. This can be particularly difficult when you’re asking the people to whom you’re marketing to donate money to your organization. Getting past all this in a successful fundraising campaign requires clever marketing strategies.
Nonprofits generally have an interesting or compelling story that they can relate to the public to help get the donations they need. This story can be the focus behind either a traditional or digital marketing campaign. You will be able to relate to the potential donor something real and meaningful they can share with others.
Combine your passion and your story with a powerful marketing campaign, and you will have shifted the fundraising odds in your favor. Below are five powerful marketing strategies that nonprofits can use when they’re attempting to solicit donations.
1. Grow Your Nonprofit through Real Conversations
Most people are somewhat reluctant to make donations. A business can offer its customers products or services, but when you’re operating a nonprofit, what you are usually “selling” is an opportunity for your donor to support a particular cause. What they usually get from that is the personal satisfaction of having done something positive. For this reason, a nonprofit has to be more focused – not to mention more tactful – in the approach they use.
Many leaders at growing nonprofits feel that an extremely important consideration for any nonprofit is to put a lot of time and energy into creating relationships with potential donors prior to asking them to donate. While this advice is certainly applicable to many different organizations and businesses, it is particularly vital for a nonprofit organization. If you are planning a fundraiser or a major change in your organization, you’ll want to keep your supporters informed and up-to-date.
And it’s more than just about the money. It’s about creating value for the donor. You can’t assume people are going to donate money to your organization’s cause without you providing value to them. This value can be the satisfaction they get, or it can be a direct indication of the impact that their donation is having.
Also remember that the conversation between you and the donor should not end once they send you a donation. Make sure to thank them and keep in contact with them over time. Often, a simple note or email expressing your gratitude and an update on what’s going on with the donation is all you need to do to transform a one-time donor into someone who donates again and again in coming years. These repeat donors are the foundation of many major nonprofit organizations.
2. Use Influencer Marketing
Social media influencers are individuals who can persuade other people via social media. Influencer marketing is based on the idea that you should recruit social media influencers to help support your organization and its cause. An organization can sometimes see a dramatic increase in donations after an influencer mentions them on Instagram, Twitter or Facebook.
This is one of the reasons that social media marketing can be an extraordinarily powerful tool for nonprofits. People are more likely to trust well-known influencers than they are companies, organizations or brands. If you can get a major social media influencer to push your message, you can anticipate an exponential result in social media and a huge impact on your fundraising efforts.
Research has shown that incorporating these influencers into your nonprofit marketing campaign can produce a return on investment that can be as much as 11 times higher than standard digital marketing. Another advantage of using social media influencers in your marketing is that it helps you if you happen to be short on staff and don’t have enough resources for your social media campaign. The influencers can spread the message for you.
Of course, convincing influencers to embrace your cause requires that you first identify and then reach out to them. You can do this by email, or through social media. Also, if your organization is a local nonprofit, it may be best to focus on “micro-influencers” in your local community.
3. Spread the Message by Word of Mouth
Use your staff to help spread the word about your organization and what it’s doing. While this might seem like a fairly obvious idea, it’s still one worth giving some thought to. If your staff is passionate about your nonprofit, they will tend to want to be talkative about the cause.
In a nonprofit, the staff, founders and managing board can all serve as ideal salespersons because they are usually well informed and take part in day-to-day activities. For example, the head of your organization or its founder can talk about his or her personal journey in creating the organization. This can have a very positive impact with potential donors.
4. Use Educational Videos in Your Marketing
Video is an important component in marketing, so nonprofit organizations can’t afford to ignore it as a marketing option. Research carried out recently has demonstrated that people paid far more attention to the content presented in a video format than they do to either audio or written content.
If your nonprofit is creating a marketing strategy, you may want to include using video to promote your cause and to draw in new donors. Keep in mind that your videos don’t have to be lengthy. In fact, the vast majority of such promotional videos put out by marketers are under 2 minutes in length.
And when it comes time to promote your nonprofit’s video marketing message, social media platforms like Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram permit users to upload content.
5. Use Automated Marketing Campaigns
Emailing can be a powerful marketing approach for nonprofits. Usually, anyone who joins your marketing list already cares about your cause and wants to support it. This means they’re more likely to be receptive when they see a message coming from you in their inbox.
Automating these messages makes them even more effective and powerful. Automation eliminates many hours you would have to spend doing this manually. It also helps to guarantee that each group you are contacting receives the message you intend for them. This allows you to tailor your message to suit your audience.
You have many different options when it comes to marketing strategies for a nonprofit organization. Whether you’re focused on building relationships with donors, using word-of-mouth, pushing your cause with social media marketing or automating your email campaigns, it’s important to create a plan that incorporates a variety of strategies to increase awareness for your organization.
Would you like to learn more about marketing strategies for nonprofits and marketing automation? Please contact Predictive Response today!.