Communicate!

Helping you win loyal friends through your communications

Fundraising Tuesday: Can Your Nonprofit Do Better than a Drug Store?

by Leave a Comment

Pharmacy counterThe drug store where Rona and I get our prescriptions has terrible marketing. But is your nonprofit doing any better?

Our pharmacy gets all these things wrong:

  1. It keeps trying to get me to renew prescriptions long before I need them–when I still have weeks’ worth of pills on the shelf.
  2. It refuses to renew the prescription that Rona needs every day, for her health, until she’s almost out of pills.
  3. It ignores our dissatisfaction with the service we’re getting. Instead, it offers us the “opportunity” to order three months’ worth at a time.
  4. It prints out cash register receipts three feet long, with coupons for items we’ve just used and are unlikely to buy again before the coupon expires.

Rona and I are stuck with this pharmacy. Our health plan makes us use it. But your donors are not stuck with you!

Is Your Nonprofit Making the Same Mistakes?

Does your nonprofit ask me for another donation as soon as I’ve given you the first one? That’s like pushing me to order more pills than I need.

Sure, some people will give again within the first month or two. It’s worth asking once. But how hard would it be to find out–and remember–how often I give? (Especially if I’m a loyal donor who’s been giving for years!)

Does your nonprofit put your needs before your donors’ needs? Donors must know that their gift made a difference–and feel pride at identifying with your organization–if they’re going to give again.

If you only communicate with them when you’re asking them for money, you’re telling them “On our schedule, not yours. For our needs, not yours.”

Does your nonprofit ignore how satisfied or dissatisfied your donors are? (Do you even know?)

Every nonprofit should be trying to attract monthly donations–but every donor is not a monthly donor. The ones who are are not the biggest givers but the most regular. Don’t ask the person who’s decided to stop giving at all if they’re ready to give monthly!

Does your nonprofit send out too much paper, or too little?

Some donors want as many pages of news as my pharmacy prints coupons. Some toss the newsletters (and the coupons) in the recycling bin before reading them. Find out what your donors want.

 

Online marketing for your nonprofit can be simple as 1, 2, 3

by Leave a Comment

A guest post by Kelsy Ketchum

All ages are online!

In today’s digital age, online communication is essential. Donors need to know exactly what your nonprofit is about and what they can do to help.

Most of them are looking to the web for that info.

Your digital communication strategy needs to encourage people to support your cause. You likely already have a traditional marketing plan, and the good news is that much of it can be adapted to the internet.

You don’t have to be a technological wizard for online communication to work wonders. Here are the three steps you can take to create an effective digital marketing plan.

Email campaigns

 Whether you want to increase the number of subscribers to your newsletter, recruit volunteers and get them to stay, or start a new fundraising campaign, email is a cheap and relatively simple way to get the word out.

But you don’t want to just send out a quick message with a lot of text and be done. Your emails should be interesting and interactive. Think through their design to make sure it matches your organization’s brand, and provide pictures or graphics to support your message.

Reminder:

  • Avoid spamming inboxes with a lot of messages. Limit your communication to a few times a month and clarify why you’re sending each email.
  • Customize the email to your audience.
  • Is there a call to action you want people to follow? Emphasize it! People are more likely to participate if they know exactly what they need to do.

You’ll also want to track how your email campaigns are doing and manage your analytics, which can help you see where you’re succeeding and what your organization can do better.

Savvy marketing pros who need advanced reporting capabilities may want to consider a business intelligence solution for their nonprofit to combine multiple data sources together.

Social media

To succeed at digital communication, your nonprofit will need to go beyond email and dive into the realm of social media. Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and even Snapchat are all useful tools to get your message across and bring new donors or volunteers into the fold.

Social media lets you share info more frequently than email, so you can provide daily updates on certain projects. It also has a wider reach, since you can use hashtags or post in specific groups to reach new audiences who may not follow your organization directly.

Social media posts can be slightly less formal than email or official correspondence, so have fun! Encourage employees to share your nonprofit’s posts on their own social media feeds – word of mouth is still a great way to spread your ideas, and social media makes the process easier.

Website and donation pages

Crafting a compelling website with powerful donation pages can bring in even more donors than other digital communication strategies.

Your priority should always be clarity of information. Label the sections of your website and pages clearly and double-check that your contact info and other essentials are easy to find without digging through multiple web pages.

Highlight important links and create a section for recurring donations to encourage people to donate more often. The easier it is for people to donate, the better your fundraising will be.

Don’t forget to use all the online tools at your disposal. Share your website and donation pages with friends and followers on social media and put a link to the website in every email so people can access it effortlessly.

The takeaway

It doesn’t take an IT pro to improve your digital communication and get the word out about your nonprofit. You can get started today, with these three steps.

No matter the goal, whether it’s increasing your donors or finding volunteers for your next event, better online communication can get you there with minimal cost or time, which is particularly helpful for smaller organizations with fewer resources.

 

About the Author: Kelsy Ketchum is an editor for Better Buys, helping organizations to find and select the right software solutions.

 

 

Effective Marketing for Nonprofits

by Leave a Comment

A guest post from Superhuman.com

Maintaining loyal donor bases is crucial for your nonprofit, and doing so requires cultivating relationships with your donors. You’ll find email marketing is very helpful in this respect.

macbookDespite being relatively “old” when compared to new channels like social media, email remains one of the most effective marketing channels on the Internet.

That’s partially because it gives marketers the opportunity to stay in contact with followers over a long period of time, giving them many chances to boost engagement.

Want to use this channel to promote your nonprofit? Keep the following tips in mind. They’ll help you use nonprofit email marketing to its full potential.

Personalize Your Content

No email campaign will deliver results if your followers don’t actually read the emails you send. Thus, it’s important to take steps which have been shown to boost open rates.

Simply adding a recipient’s name to an email subject line helps. Evidence suggests this may boost open rates by as much as 50%.

Segmenting your email list is also necessary. You want to make sure your followers are only receiving relevant content.

For instance, maybe you represent a large nonprofit that regularly hosts fundraising events in various spots throughout the world. You might use your email newsletter to promote them. However, not every follower will be able to attend every event.

west coastSomeone on the west coast of the United States probably can’t attend an event being held on the east coast with a week’s notice. An email about such an event would simply clutter their inbox.

Don’t let this happen.

When asking people to sign up for your email list, include a few short questions about the type of content they want to receive. Use this information, as well as basic data such as geographical location, to segment your email list. This is another way to boost open rates.

Have a Reason for Each Email

There are various reasons you might send an email as a nonprofit marketer. Again, maybe you’re promoting an event, or maybe you’re soliciting donations. Maybe you’re sharing information about a recent achievement.

Consider why you’re emailing your followers when creating content for each message you send. This has two purposes. One, it helps you create a more effective call-to-action. It’s easier to know what action you want readers of your email to take when you know why you sent it.

Two, deciding why you wish to send each email in your campaign prevents you from sending useless content that doesn’t offer your subscribers any value. You need to send valuable content to make the right impression.

Make it Readable

Did you know a person is more likely to check their email on a mobile device than via a computer these days? Remember this when designing your emails. You want to be sure the content is easy to scan on a small screen.

You can achieve this goal by:

  • avoiding large chunks of text
  • including images and video to break up text sections, and
  • using formatting elements such as headers and bullets to generally organize your content.

Keep these points in mind when developing your email marketing campaign. They’ll help you make the right impression on donors. With a strong email marketing campaign, your nonprofit will be better equipped to do good than ever before.

Yes, I’d like weekly email from Communicate!

Get more advice

Subscribe to Blog via Email

Enter your email address to subscribe to this blog and receive notifications of new posts by email.