How Does Digital Marketing Help Nonprofits Grow? Tactics Revealed

Introduction

Nonprofit organizations are in a competition for donors’ attention. For this reason, effective communication with your members to maintain current donors and attract new ones. This is exactly what marketing does.

Marketing helps nonprofit organizations in many ways. It can strengthen donor loyalty, expand memberships, or raise organizational recognition. To reap all of these benefits, first, you need to understand what nonprofit marketing strategy you will use.

Marketing a nonprofit basically means you’ll use multiple strategies that help your organization grow. It can be through email marketing where you can send regular updates to your donors and supporters. Or you can utilize social media to reach more people across the globe. This article highlights some tactics in different digital marketing areas for your nonprofit.

Search Engine Optimization (SEO)

Search engine optimization is one of the more sophisticated digital marketing concepts. If properly implemented, it can dramatically boost brand awareness. It includes different techniques including link building, keyword optimization, and internal linking. Other techniques that you can use are sitewide, on-page, image optimization, site mapping, and content generation.

Website

Aside from email, a website is an important factor in letting your audience know about your organization. In addition to this, it’s also the place where your supporters can go to check upcoming events.

Unfortunately, nonprofits usually ignore or decide to allocate limited resources to website management. A website, when properly managed, should serve as the core hub and digital backbone of a nonprofit.

A quality website helps to convince potential business partners to support you. This can be done by outlining how determined you are to achieve your goals and deserving of their support.

Utilise Content Management Systems (CMS)

You only have 0.05 seconds to impress users with your web design. It also helps them decide whether to continue browsing your website or leave for good. Because of this, you need a content management system to help you manage your website.

A well-designed CMS enables you to change your site’s content without needing a web developer. Your webmaster is busy with other customers. However, this should not be the reason why you can’t create calendar events. It should also not be a reason to delay publishing yearly reports.

There are several CMS alternatives available to help you with your web design. And each of these has its own set of advantages and disadvantages. For this reason, you need to do a lot of research to choose the best CMS platform for you.

Because a CMS is software, you need to have it regularly maintained and updated. And this can get really expensive in the long run. If your nonprofit is just new, you can opt to hire a web design company for the meantime to help you with your website. When you have established a name, you can, then, decide to get a CMS platform.

Consider Having Donation Pages

When it comes to achieving your goals, sometimes you forget how your website collects donations.

Take for example the emergence of Netflix, Hulu, and Birchbox. All of these companies adopt a subscription service model to ensure their income streams. The subscription model makes it simple for your subscribers to make regular payments. With this, you can give them updates regarding their payments, especially by automating the process.

You can also better forecast your revenue, which enhances financial stability. Nonprofit marketing helps you raise funds to conduct events. Your organization can also help the communities you serve by creating donor-focused websites.

Make Use of Pay-Per-Click (PPC) Marketing

PPC advertising helps direct visitors to your website. You can use PPC marketing to send visitors to your website in minutes.

In addition to this, it also serves as a keyword research tool. Expanding your keyword research allows you to attract the most qualified traffic. This means you’ll be able to attract users who are more likely to stay and interact with your website.

Nonprofits like your organization can use Google Grants. You can get up to $10,000 in PPC advertising each month through its Ads service. These help your organization obtain online visibility without investing a lot of money. Once you’ve been accepted by Google Grants, you can advertise your nonprofit and events for free.

Video Marketing

It might be difficult to stand out in today’s world where everyone is sharing stuff online. To set yourself out from the crowd, you should post different – if not all – types of content. Podcasts, infographics, listicles, case studies, testimonials, and quizzes are some that you can use. For a nonprofit, videos are the most beneficial content to attract potential donors.

Nonprofits can use video marketing in a manner that other businesses cannot. A video can express more emotion in its statement than a still image.

Knowing how to create video content that supports and reinforces your mission goals is a win-win for everyone. And this is especially true as the globe shifts its focus from widescreens to mobile displays.

You can use video in direct marketing campaigns aside from posting it on your home page or as a vlog. Including video in your emails can double click-through rates. And this results in an 80% increase in landing page conversion rates.

Creating videos for your organization can be scary at times. That’s why digital marketing agencies for nonprofits also offer services for video creation. Since they’re working with professionals, they know what elements to use in a video. This way, the videos represent your organization’s cause and attract donors more effectively.

The advent of current social media networking platforms gave rise to new ways of reaching more people. Through social media, you can find donors, volunteers, and even influencers for your cause.

Not everyone who shares your information on social media donates to your organization. While that is the case, the free publicity they give you should not be overlooked. Social media is also important since it is how a large number of people presently consume media.

Use Facebook to Promote Your Organization

There are about 2.89 billion users who are active on Facebook on a monthly basis. A nonprofit page can help you spread your message over the globe.

Nonprofits should also consider creating a special support group for their donors. This enables them to collect money using Facebook’s fundraising capabilities. By doing so, you can also have access to contribution transaction reports. This can be found under the reporting features.

Social media provides nonprofits with a means of connecting with their supporters. It also encourages engagement, which boosts their loyalty and trust in nonprofits. Most organizations are tempted to create a page on all platforms. However, as a nonprofit, that is disadvantageous.

You should be selective of what social media platform you use for your organization. With limited cash and volunteer resources, a nonprofit should focus on its existing client base. Find out which is their preferred platform. Take the time to learn about each platform and how your resources can be allocated before adding more social platforms.

Email Marketing

Electronic mail is one of the Internet’s earliest communication channels. While that is the case, organizations still use email for marketing. There were approximately 4 billion email users around the globe last 2020. This is expected to reach about 4.6 billion users in 2025.

Email marketing also provides you with a high return rate. On average, organizations using email marketing get a $42 return on investment for every dollar spent. Because of this, sending emails to communicate messages and drive actions is beneficial for nonprofits.

So, how can you use email marketing for your nonprofit?

Create an Attractive Email

According to Microsoft’s 2015 research, humans can only focus on something for about 8 seconds. What this means is that you only have 8 seconds to make a good impression on your target audience.

The key is that you want to make sure your emails attract people’s attention right away. Keep it brief and to the point. Additionally, you need to learn how to instill a sense of urgency in others.

Automate Your Email Campaigns

An automatic email flow is also important for your nonprofit organization. This will help you nurture your donors and convert supporters to donors.

The first step is to have a page on your website where people can sign up for your newsletter. By signing up, they will receive updates regarding your organization and future event. Now that you’ve gathered a lead, your goal should be to persuade them to do a specific action.

The action needs to be related to your organization. Perhaps you’re a local animal sanctuary searching for people to adopt abandoned kittens and puppies. You can send them a series of automated emails to help them with the adoption process.

People are more comfortable donating money when they know more about the organization. If your mission relies on donor retention, using emails to keep them informed is the ideal way.

With high ROI, it’s a good marketing strategy for nonprofits. This will help you optimize your income base, considering frequent funding changes due to shifting political priorities.

The Bottomline

There is an unlimited number of possibilities to achieving your goals when you use digital marketing. With nonprofit marketing, you can use the following tactics to ensure that your operations run smoothly. Digital marketing agencies for nonprofits also exist to help you achieve your goals.

By having an effective digital marketing plan, you can work on a short budget and make the most out of limited resources.