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Nonprofits must establish a solid presence on digital media to raise awareness about their mission and reach more potential donors. Using platforms like social media, websites, and online content, organizations can share their impact, tell engaging stories, and inspire people to support their cause.
This guide covers everything you need to know about digital marketing for nonprofits, including the top 8 strategies to effectively market your organization online in 2024.
What Is Digital Marketing for Nonprofits?
Digital marketing for nonprofits involves leveraging online tools and platforms to spread the word about a nonprofit organization's mission, connect with supporters, and raise funds.
Whether the steps involve optimizing the website and sending email updates, or running social media campaigns and advertising online, the goal remains the same. The aim is to reach a broader audience, strengthen relationships with existing donors, and attract new contributors.
By adopting an effective digital marketing strategy, nonprofit organizations can share their stories, raise awareness about their cause, and simplify the online donation process. Implementing these marketing strategies plays a crucial role in expanding your base of committed supporters.
Why is Digital Marketing Important for Nonprofits?
Building close relationships with donors has always been challenging and time-consuming, especially for smaller nonprofits with limited staff and volunteers.
However, digital fundraising has made reaching out to donors and keeping them engaged much simpler. Now, nonprofits with minimal personnel can use online tools to stay connected with their donors.
Here are the top 6 reasons why having a strong online presence is crucial for nonprofits today.
1. Eliminates Geographical Barriers
The internet enables nonprofits to connect with people globally, not just locally. Organizations can share news about their work and mission with a worldwide audience through websites, emails, and social media. This connectivity also allows access to a diverse global community of potential donors, volunteers, and supporters.
2. Increases Donor Convenience
Your donors are already online - browsing social media, working, or shopping. Nonprofits that offer user-friendly online donation pages optimized for mobile viewing simplify the donation process for supporters. They can donate anytime, anywhere, without any inconvenience.
Instead of going out of their way, supporters can learn about a campaign and donate directly from their phone or computer with just a few clicks or taps.
To further ease the donation process, ensure easy access to your online donation form. With a fundraising platform like Zeffy, you can build an online donation form without incurring platform or transaction fees.
3. Reduces Marketing Costs
Strategies such as email newsletters, blogging, video content, social media, and website SEO optimization allow nonprofit organizations to promote their missions cost-effectively.
These approaches enable even smaller nonprofits to establish a strong brand presence, increase awareness, and affordably attract new donors or volunteers.
4. Builds Long-Term Relationships
The internet allows nonprofits to forge and maintain lasting relationships with supporters, beyond mere one-time donations. By sending regular email updates about their activities, nonprofits keep supporters well-informed and cultivate trust.
Social media allows nonprofits to interact by answering questions and expressing gratitude. Such interactions help supporters feel valued and integral to a community united by a common mission over time.
5. Boosts Credibility
Building credibility is essential to earning lasting donor support and trust, and a professional website plays a crucial role. It establishes an organization as trustworthy and accountable. Potential donors must easily verify credentials before donating, making an informative online presence vital.
6. Enhances Online Visibility
For nonprofits, being discoverable online is crucial for organically reaching potential new supporters. Strategies such as SEO to rank higher in relevant searches, promoting across social media, and encouraging positive reviews all contribute to boosting your nonprofit organization's online visibility.
6 Steps to Craft Your Nonprofit Digital Marketing Strategy
Increasing awareness and engagement through digital mediums necessitates careful planning.
Establishing a system for creating and distributing your marketing content is essential. This approach will enable you to scale your nonprofit organization efficiently and keep your team and your resources manageable.
1. Set SMART Goals
Do you want to reach new supporters and volunteers? Is your goal to increase online donations? Each digital marketing campaign should have a unique goal that directs your strategies.
A SMART goals framework can help you establish clear goals. This framework emphasizes five key elements essential to clear goal-setting:
Specific: Clearly define what success looks like with precise tangible outcomes. For example, if you publish social media content, set a specific goal like publishing at least one post daily.
Measurable: Establish a way to track your marketing tactic’s progress. Using the previous example, your measurable goal could be to increase post engagement by 15%.
Achievable: Outline realistic steps towards achieving your goals. Suppose you’ve published 4 social media posts weekly and have observed a 10% increase in engagement. Setting a goal of a 15% increase in engagement is a logical and attainable next step.
Relevant: Your goals should align with your current organizational priorities. For example, if your nonprofit's main priority this year is to increase monthly donor retention, then your social media goals should support this. A relevant goal could involve crafting content highlighting the impact of recurring donations and sharing stories of donor impact to foster long-term engagement.
Time-bound: There should be a deadline by which you aim to fulfill your goal. You could set a time-bound goal of increasing your monthly donor retention rate by 5% within the next 6 months by delivering consistent, impactful social media content.
2. Know Your Audience
Knowing your target audience helps you prioritize their preferred channels and tailor your messaging to resonate with them more effectively. For instance, an email message targeting donors will vary from one designed to recruit volunteers.
A donor persona includes details like name, age, education, occupation, communication preferences, charitable goals and history, and motivations for supporting your nonprofit's cause.
Create separate personas representing the different audiences you aim to engage. Use a donor management system to create detailed personas, personalize your messages, and develop compelling content tailored to each group.
3. Craft Your Key Messages
Key messages contain information about your nonprofit that you want to convey to your audiences and want them to share further.
It is important to craft your key messages before implementing your marketing strategy. Here’s why:
Ensures consistency: Regardless of who's doing the marketing, you can rest assured that the same core message is being promoted.
Simplifies the process: By creating key messages ahead of time, you have a clear understanding of what your marketing message will entail.
Targets the right group: By segmenting your audiences and tailoring your information to each group, you ensure that the right key message reaches the right audience, whether they’re volunteers, donors, or members of your community.
For instance, if your nonprofit is dedicated to supporting orphaned children, the key messages could be crafted as follows:
This message can be tweaked for different target audiences:
For adoption prospects: Transform a child’s life today. Adopt to support.
For volunteers: Join us in our mission to provide care, education, and a good life to orphaned children.
For donors: Help us give a better life to the underprivileged young children in our community. Donate for their better tomorrow.
4. Choose the Right Digital Marketing Platforms
Understanding your target audience will help you narrow down the platforms to use.
Start with the platforms your target audience prefers to engage with. Suppose your target audience comprises young professionals with busy schedules. A long video or podcast may not be the right marketing strategy to engage them. They are more likely to check out and share concise social media posts.
You will require certain online tools tailored for nonprofits to leverage the potential for various platforms and streamline your digital marketing strategies. For example:
To start email marketing, you will need an email service provider to help you automate email campaigns.
To execute a digital marketing campaign through social media, you can access free platforms like Facebook or Instagram. You will also need a content scheduling tool to design your content strategy for each platform.
To create engaging marketing materials, take advantage of free design tools and email templates.
As you grow your digital marketing efforts, you can explore paid marketing methods like pay-per-click advertising and influencer marketing.
Pro tip: Avoid relying solely on a single platform. Engaging your supporters on multiple platforms allows you to reach a broader audience.
You know your goals and audience and have chosen the online platforms to start your nonprofit’s digital marketing journey. Next, you must grab your supporter’s attention and convince them to act.
Compelling content with the right messaging will help you achieve this. Here are a few tips to create effective content that will inspire and encourage your supporters:
Use clear and concise copy: Whether you are writing a 1000-word blog post for your website or a 300-word email, use your words sparingly. Avoid wordy phrases and eliminate redundant sentences or fillers. Use active voice and make your copy easy to read for your audience.
Add appealing visuals: Users generally dedicate a few seconds to a post and will scroll past it if it’s not engaging enough. Include catchy images and graphics to capture your supporters’ attention.
Use social proof: People tend to notice and emulate other people’s behaviors when making a decision. Highlight your nonprofit’s impact and story so far to showcase your credibility and existing support.
Include strong calls to action: Calls to action (CTAs) encourage your target audience to take the next steps. Depending on your current goals, the desired action could be donating, subscribing to your newsletters, or registering to be a volunteer. The CTA should be short, clear, and actionable, such as “Donate Now” or “Become a Volunteer.”
Tailor your messages to the marketing channel you are using. Instagram content should have a high visual appeal and crisp and clear captions. On the contrary, long, value-packed blog posts with the best SEO practices will be perfect for your nonprofit website.
6. Monitor Progress and Adjust Your Strategy
Measure your progress against the goals you set in Step 1. Optimize your marketing tactics, efforts, and messages along the way to increase the chances of achieving those goals.
Establish checkpoints throughout the campaign to track key performance indicators (KPIs). Conduct monthly or quarterly reviews to analyze campaign performance.
Here are some examples of KPIs you may track for the different marketing campaigns:
Website traffic metrics: Track total sessions, new users, bounce rates, and popular pages/content to understand how effectively the website is driving visitors and engagement.
Email marketing metrics: Monitor open rates, click-through rates, unsubscribe rates, and donation conversions from emails to gauge the success of email campaigns.
Social media engagement: Measure likes, shares, comments, mentions, and follower growth across platforms to evaluate the reach of social content.
Online donation conversion rates: Track the percentage of website visitors who complete the donation process to assess donation funnel optimization efforts.
Overall online revenue generated: Calculate the total donations received through the website, email campaigns, and social media initiatives to indicate the overall impact of your digital marketing efforts.
Digital Marketing for Nonprofits - 8 Best Strategies
Email is one of the most effective and least expensive ways to reach supporters and potential donors. It helps you connect directly with people who are interested in your nonprofit. Here are a few top tips to make the most of your email marketing strategies:
Set up a series of welcome emails for new subscribers. These emails can convey information about your cause and how they can support you.
Send automated emails to thank donors for their contributions.
Send monthly emails regarding donation needs and opportunities.
Send regular newsletters to share valuable educational content or updates about your nonprofit on a weekly or monthly basis.
Ensure there is a clear CTA in your emails.
2. Social Media Marketing For Nonprofits
Social media digital marketing has great potential to grow your community if you use the right strategy and post regularly.
Social media platforms are free and provide ample opportunities to promote your mission and engage existing and potential supporters. You can use these platforms to share the latest updates about your organization, increase recognition, hire staff and volunteers, and raise funds for your programs by adding online donation pages.
Experiment with different tactics and content formats to figure out what works for your nonprofit organization.
Use the paid tools available on various social media platforms to boost your posts and run targeted social media ads.
Explore influencer collaborations to tap into a large audience and spread the word about your mission faster.
Implement a user-generated content (UGC) campaign. Create content from volunteers, customers, supporters, and donors to build social proof for your nonprofit digital marketing strategy.
3. Live Streaming For Nonprofits
Live streaming can be a valuable addition to your nonprofit’s marketing strategy. Conduct online fundraising events with a much wider audience than in-person events. It allows you to:
Expand your event’s reach, as ticket sales are not limited by geographical boundaries.
Make your event more inclusive for those who may be unable to attend in-person events.
Save costs by not booking a venue, arranging decorations, or hiring caterers. You can also hire speakers and artists from around the world without paying them to perform.
Pro Tip: Use tools like live chat and polls while live streaming events to make them more engaging and drive more donations.
4. Content Marketing For Nonprofits
Choose from different forms of content marketing, like blog posts, e-books, videos, or webinars, depending on your targeted audience, resources, and mission.
Conduct keyword research to identify the most searched queries and topics you can write about and plan your content strategy accordingly a well-planned content marketing strategy will help you:
Educate people about your mission and programs
Enhance search engine optimization efforts to rank higher on search engine result pages
Connect with people looking for your services or wanting to support a mission like yours.
Establish your organization’s credibility and authority.
Pro tip: Repurpose content for various purposes and channels to ensure your content pipeline is never empty.
5. Nonprofit Website Design and UX
Your nonprofit’s website will be the first place people visit to learn about your mission or how to join it.
The website should reflect your nonprofit's values and purpose and make it easier for visitors to engage and take action. Your visitor’s experience should be consistent with all your other digital marketing channels.
Ensure the branding and tonality are well-aligned, and the website is optimized for SEO. You want your website to appear at the top of search engine results.
Ensure the website is easy to navigate with clear menus that enable users to find information quickly.
Optimize the website design for mobile users to offer browsing efficiency for all visitors.
Create an aesthetically pleasing and consistent website design that highlights the impact of your nonprofit’s efforts.
Include clear CTAs to make it simple for visitors to take action—whether signing up for a newsletter, volunteering, or donating.
Your website is great for promoting important marketing assets like your blog. Remember to link your social media pages to the website.
6. SMS Marketing For Nonprofits
SMS or text messages have a 98% open rate, the highest among all marketing channels. They help your messages land directly into your audience’s inbox and are accessible even without an internet connection.
You can use SMS to:
Promote peer-to-peer campaigns, showing your donor's gratitude, or sending reminder messages to supporters for an upcoming event.
Obtain permission before sending messages in accordance with legal compliances.
Segment your list based on user preference, demographics, and behaviors. Tailor distinct messages for each group.
Make your messages clever, concise, and convincing.
Provide an option for recipients to opt out of receiving your texts at anytime.
Send messages at the right time to drive engagement, considering the local time zones of your recipients.
Track your mass SMS marketing efforts by monitoring KPIs like open rates and conversion rates.
7. Influencer Marketing for Nonprofits
Unlike email and content marketing, which depend on an initially inbound audience, influencer marketing for nonprofits can connect you with an audience that is already engaged and listening. Building social proof takes time, but collaborating with influencers whom people already trust can help you showcase your credibility.
Once you have found an ideal influencer partner, you can launch different digital campaigns like:
Raising awareness: Ask your influencers to attract attention to a new development in your program. Provide them with a CTA to help their followers participate in your mission.
Promoting your fundraiser: Request influencers to boost your fundraising message and invite more people. If they are attending, they can post videos from the event venue, enticing people to attend your next fundraiser.
Co-hosting a virtual event: Leverage the influencer's popularity and co-host a virtual fundraiser. Host an online auction or conduct a class in their area of expertise.
Amplifying your end-of-the-year appeal: Year-end giving is significant to nonprofits. Start early and ask your influencer partner to seek donations on your behalf. They can also post announcements about the progress made through the months leading up to December.
8. Google Analytics For Nonprofits
Google Analytics marketing tools help you measure the number of visitors to your website, the actions they take, and the performance of your nonprofit’s digital marketing strategy.
Google Analytics is the most accessible analytics platform and is completely free! You can easily integrate Google Analytics with Zeffy to track visitors to your online donation form.
If you do not have a Google Analytics account already, follow these steps to create one:
Sign up for Google Analytics.
Set up your website as ‘Property’ to collect visitor data.
Create Google Analytics ‘Reporting View’ to analyze the data collected.
Add the analytics tracking tag to your website.
Once you have a Google Analytics account, here’s how you can use it to upscale your digital marketing efforts:
Define Goals in Google Analytics:
In analytics, a goal refers to a website conversion or any valuable action visitors take on your website, such as watching a video or subscribing to a newsletter.
Set up a ‘destination goal’ to measure how many people visit your thank-you page after donating, or filling out a form. Combining the destination goal with content-focused KPIs will highlight how users interact with your website.
Set Up Google Tag Manager:
Google Tag Manager ensures Google Analytics is set up to analyze all content on your website. It helps you track clicks to third-party sites or monitor form submissions on any page. You can tag links from emails and social media content to your website and measure their efficacy in generating revenue.
Summing Up Digital Marketing for Nonprofits
Digital marketing for nonprofits offers vast opportunities to attract more supporters and expand the donor base. Online tools like crowdfunding, social media promotion, Google Ads, recurring donation options, and matching gift programs have opened up many new ways to find and connect with supporters.
Nonprofits have plenty of affordable digital fundraising tools to choose from, allowing them to find what works best for their organization. Check out Zeffy's 100% free online fundraising platform to complement your online marketing strategies.
FAQs on Nonprofit Marketing
What are the 5 Ps of nonprofit marketing?
As a nonprofit, the 5 Ps you must consider while crafting your digital marketing strategy are:
Product: Your nonprofit’s impact and the work that makes it unique.
Price: Your nonprofit’s expenses and funding needs. Align the fundraising appeals with these needs.
Promotion: The channels you use to promote your nonprofit missions and the tactics and marketing tools for each.
Place: The online locations where supporters engage with your nonprofit.
People: Open two-way communication opportunities and allow supporters to participate actively in your mission.
Do charities need digital marketing?
Yes, charities must establish a digital presence by implementing a carefully planned digital marketing strategy. A nonprofit marketing strategy can help your organization engage with a wider audience, raise more awareness, and garner more support. Using websites, social media, online ads, and email marketing helps your nonprofit organization get its message out.
Digital marketing allows organizations to easily share stories, accept donations online from anyone, find new donors, and keep longtime supporters updated and connected.
What is an example of a digital strategy?
Here are a few examples of a digital strategy:
Execute email marketing by sending personalized emails with valuable content.
Setting up a social media page to promote your mission and engage with audiences.
Collaborating with influencers relevant to your missions and area of work.
Using SMS to send reminders and quick promotional messages.
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