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Better Outreach: 3 Impactful Nonprofit Marketing Strategies

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In today’s fast-paced and digitally-driven world, effective marketing is more vital than ever. Nonprofits must compete with big-name corporations to spread the word, build strong supporter relationships, and make a meaningful impact.

Your outreach might help recruit volunteers, retain donors, secure corporate sponsorships, and promote your services to beneficiaries.

With so many marketing goals you’re trying to achieve, how do you determine the best approach for your organization? To help, this article will explore a handful of impactful strategies, including:

  • Use eCards For Personalized Donor Communications.
  • Launch An Awareness Campaign.
  • Boost Your Website With The Google Ad Grant.

Ready to discover the power of strategic marketing and digital storytelling and create a lasting impression on your audience? Let’s dive in!

Use eCards For Personalized Donor Communications

eCards bring traditional greeting cards’ classic, personal feel into the virtual space. With instant deliverability, you can send off eCards for every occasion.  They’re a cost-efficient, environmentally-friendly alternative to traditional printed cards since you don’t have to worry about printing and postage.

Using an eCard creation platform, you can create digital cards for various aspects of your communications. eCardWidget’s charity eCards guide dives into a handful of common uses nonprofits take advantage of. With a bit of creativity, you can create cards to:

  • Fundraise by selling online greeting cards to donors.
    • Provide an instant give-back for every donation by offering eCards.
    • You can also enable tribute donations, allowing people to donate in a loved one’s name instead of sending a birthday or holiday gift. Then, they can send a festive eCard letting the honoree know.
  • Invite supporters to events. Create personalized invites and share registration links for upcoming nonprofit events. When you extend a personal invitation, people are more likely to attend. You can even equip supporters to send invitations to their friends and family, too!
  • Reach out during key times of the year. Let supporters know you’re thinking of them on special occasions like birthdays, holidays, and anniversaries.
  • Thank donors and volunteers. Digital greeting cards are a fantastic volunteer and donor appreciation strategy. Recognize those who make your mission possible by sending personalized thank-you cards after they donate or volunteer. You can even commemorate special milestones like the anniversary of their first gift or volunteer event.
  • Boost word-of-mouth referrals. Get supporters in on the marketing action by encouraging them to send awareness cards to their friends and family. They can send challenges to donate, follow you on social media, or take another action.

Launch An Awareness Campaign.

If you simply want to drive mission awareness, an awareness campaign might be the right marketing strategy. OneCause’s nonprofit awareness campaign guide explains you can classify any time-bound, strategic campaign aimed entirely at increasing awareness for your cause as an awareness campaign.

As you get started, leverage these tips to set your awareness campaign up for success:

  • Capitalize on existing holidays and awareness days, weeks, and months. For example, environmental organizations might leverage Earth Day, or hunger prevention organizations might coordinate their campaigns with Hunger Action Month. If there’s no dedicated cause awareness holiday associated with your cause, create your own!
  • Leverage social media for increased reach. Social media is known for its wide-scale shareability. Encourage your followers to share your posts and publish their own with your campaign’s designated hashtag. You may even attempt a viral challenge like the renowned Ice Bucket Challenge or collaborate with partner organizations to reach new audiences.
  • Use eCards to spread the word. Create a handful of designs that feature your nonprofit’s name and cause. Then, encourage supporters to send cards to friends and family to spread the word. They might challenge recipients to donate or pass the message along.

No matter your approach, know that you’ll need to attach slightly different KPIs to gauge the success of this marketing strategy. For example, common goals include audience growth and digital engagement. Specifically, you might aim to increase your social media followers or achieve a certain number of impressions.

In any case, carefully consider how a cause awareness campaign will fit into your overall nonprofit marketing strategy before starting.

Boost Your Website With The Google Ad Grant

Your website is the hub of your digital marketing strategy. It’s where existing supporters go to stay updated on your projects and new supporters go to learn about your cause. Through the Google Ad Grant program, you can use paid advertising to get your website in front of more users for free.

Eligible nonprofits receive up to $10,000 per month to spend on Google Ads. They can then use these funds to bid on cause-related keywords and promote their most important web pages at the top of Google search results. So long as you meet the Google Grants eligibility criteria and follow the compliance rules, you can promote any content that pushes your mission forward.

It’s not enough to promote your nonprofit’s homepage and call it a day, though. You’ll need to be more strategic than that. Most often, nonprofits advertise the following types of content:

  • Donation and fundraising pages to boost online donations
  • Event pages to increase registrations
  • Volunteer pages to retain volunteers and recruit new ones
  • Services pages to spread awareness among beneficiaries and prospective supporters
  • Educational content to spread cause awareness

A bit of work goes into getting started with the Ad Grant program. Once approved, you’ll need to write compelling ads that amplify important content, target relevant keywords, and inspire users to visit your website to learn more. To make the most of this nonprofit marketing strategy, hone in on your target audience, too.

For example, let’s say you’re a local youth services organization that wants to promote its mentorship program via Google Ads. Advertise your services page to parents and guardians in your service area by choosing relevant keywords like “child mentoring services” or “youth mentorship programs.” Then, select the specific geographic area you serve, specify demographics such as the target age range (e.g., 25-45), and define audience interests like parenting and family activities.

Final Thoughts on Choosing Nonprofit Marketing Strategies

Start with these tactics, and pay attention to results to learn what inspires people to engage. That way, you can adjust as you go and ensure your organization stays relevant online. In no time, you’ll connect with new supporters and inspire existing ones to stick around.

Tim Badolato head shotTim Badolato, CEO at eCardWidget

Tim Badolato is the CEO of eCardWidget.com an innovative platform for digital employee recognition, donor acknowledgment, business marketing, and nonprofit marketing. He has a passion for using technology to drive positive outcomes for mission-driven businesses and nonprofits.

Fundraising Tuesday: Effectively Marketing Your Nonprofit’s Next Virtual Event

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A guest post by Dominique Desmarais of CharityBids

The COVID-19 pandemic boosted the prominence of virtual charity events. But nonprofits have continued to leverage them beyond the days of lockdown because of their many benefits.

For most of your supporters, virtual gatherings are likely unique, refreshing, and convenient to attend. Plus, they can help your organization save on costs, or tap into exclusive experiences like celebrity appearances or performances. There’s also a wide variety of online fundraising tools and strategies you can use for a virtual event.

However, just because your auction will be held via Zoom or your gala will take place in an immersive virtual reality venue doesn’t mean that your marketing efforts can take a backseat. With virtual events, you still need to pull out all the stops when it comes to promoting the occasion and encouraging people to attend.

In this guide, we’ll help you get started by providing three tips you can use to effectively market your nonprofit’s next virtual event.

1. Take a multichannel approach.

Even though your event is going to take place online, you should still cast a wide net when it comes to choosing marketing channels to promote your virtual event. Use a multichannel approach to make sure that you’re covering all of your bases.

So, what channels should you use?

  • Email
  • Social media
  • Radio and TV
  • Printed materials (such as flyers and posters)
  • Direct mail

Of course, some channels will be more useful than others, depending on what you know about your supporters. But the main idea of a multichannel approach is, according to Double the Donation, to “increase your chances of reaching out to your supporters with their preferred communication method.”

As you cast your marketing net wide, keep these best practices in mind to make your efforts as effective as possible:

  • Brand your materials to your nonprofit. No matter the channel your supporters are using to learn about your event, they should know that the messaging is coming from your nonprofit. Be consistent in using your nonprofit’s brand elements across your marketing materials. Place your name and logo in a prominent place on all of your materials, and use similar color schemes from channel to channel. This way, you’ll build brand recognition for your organization while promoting your event.

 

  • Use calls-to-action to encourage registrations. The end goal of your virtual event marketing strategy is to get your supporters to register for your event. Use calls-to-action (CTAs) to encourage them to take that step. A CTA is simply a statement that encourages people to do something. For example, you might include a CTA in an email newsletter that says, “Help end the rhino poaching crisis by registering for our webinar today.”

 

  • Pay attention to timing. Different channels will be useful at different times leading up to your virtual event. For instance, printing hundreds of flyers probably wouldn’t be a very wise move in the last few days before your event. Those materials would better serve your marketing strategy a few months prior to the big day. On the other hand, social media will be a great tool to use in the days and hours leading up to the event because they’ll reach your audience quickly.

As you select the different channels you’ll use to market your virtual event, make sure to be consistent in how you talk about your event. Share critical details like date, time, and cost to register. This way, everyone will get the same information regardless of the way they receive that information.

2. Make your website your event information hub.

Because your virtual event will likely require that your supporters register online, you should use your website as a central event information hub, directing supporters to it no matter how they hear about your event.

CharityBids’ guide to nonprofit event planning suggests creating a microsite or dedicated events page on your website that includes an easy-to-use registration form. This way, you can not only get people registering for your most current virtual event, but also establish a clear section on your website that supporters can visit regularly for news about future events.

Let’s look at some additional ways you can strengthen your website to make it an effective marketing tool for your virtual events:

  • Spotlight your event on your homepage. Put event announcements front and center on your website by including them on your homepage. This way, users will quickly learn about your events when they visit your website and be encouraged to continue their journey by learning more on your event page.

 

  • Create blog posts about your event. Your blog is a great place to plug your virtual events. For example, you might write up the history of your annual gala, share what your attendees enjoyed most about last year’s auction, or publish an interview with your event’s special guest. Don’t forget to include a CTA that encourages blog readers to register!

 

  • Add social media buttons. Once a supporter has used your website to register for your virtual event, they may want to share the event information with their personal networks. Empower them to do so by including social sharing buttons on your website. This way, your supporters can help market your event with one easy click.

As you prepare your website to be the central information hub for your next virtual event, perform some website maintenance. For example, make sure that your website is loading correctly, that every link on your site works, and that any outdated content has been removed. Additionally, ensure that your website is optimized for accessibility so that anyone can use it, regardless of ability. This way, you’ll be ready to welcome as many people as possible to engage with your event-specific web content.

3. Use personalization to make your communications more effective.

The best way to start personalizing your marketing efforts is to segment your target audience. This is the process of dividing your audience into sub-groups based on shared characteristics. Your promotional messages will better resonate with your audience when they’re tailored to specific audience groups.

To segment your nonprofit’s community of supporters, use your donor data to identify shared characteristics like:

  • Geographical location
  • Age
  • Donor status
  • Communication preference

Here’s an example of what this might look like in practice: Say that you review the donor data in your CRM and learn that 60% of your supporters live in your local community. Knowing this, your team could determine that it would be a good use of marketing dollars to hang up event posters in community centers, and ask local business owners to keep a stack of flyers by their cash registers.

To take your personalization efforts to the next level, use your recipients’ first names and reference their previous donations or involvement with your nonprofit. Personalizing your materials when you can will make your supporters feel seen as individuals and feel like your virtual event invitations are meant just for them.

The success of your nonprofit’s next virtual event will heavily depend on your ability to market it effectively. Leverage the tips in this guide to make your efforts count, and consider working with charity event planning and production experts to make the process even easier. You’ve got this!

Dominique DesMarais head shotAuthor: Dominique Desmarais, Marketing Manager at CharityBids

Dominique is the Marketing Manager at CharityBids. She earned her Bachelor of Commerce from the Smith School of Business at Queen’s University, specializing in Marketing and International Business.

Over the years, Dominique has developed a strong passion for creative direction and strategy development. She brings a unique and artistic approach to marketing, rooted in her enthusiasm for the creative, entertainment and fashion industries, and their applications to establishing and growing digital presence. Having launched her own creative agency, Dominique was able to collaborate across cultures and bring creative visions to life through disruptive innovation.

When she’s not working, you can find Dominique hunting down the best food in the city, taking in an art exhibit, or capturing the beauty of her surroundings through photographs. She has a fire to create change and a drive to fuel success, while continuously striving to learn, grow, and prosper.

Fundraising Tuesday: Annual Reports, the Long and Short of It

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What’s the right size for your nonprofit’s annual report?

In 2021, an organization with whom I have worked sent out a very brief annual report: two sides of a sheet of paper, including photos, quotable quotes, and pie charts showing their finances. They mailed it to all the postal addresses they had, and they attached it to email and sent it to the rest of their list.

In 2022, that same organization prepared what I think of as the traditional annual report: sixteen pages including a cover, a letter from the Executive Director, descriptions of all their programs and statistics about how many they served, and a list of donors by name and level.

Which approach was better?

SHC annual report coverAdvantages of a Short Annual Report

  • A two-page annual report is MUCH more likely to be read than a longer version.
  • It can be snappy and to the point.
  • The eye-catching elements (photos, captions, bold type) are a larger part of a short report than a long one. You avoid the wall of text that signals “no entry” to so many readers.
  • It’s cheaper to print and mail.

Don’t think, however, that it will take a lot less time to prepare a shorter report. Collecting and choosing the right stories, photos, and quotable quotes is a painstaking process.

(It’s like the opening line attributed to Mark Twain: “Dear ___, here is a long letter. I would have written a short letter, but I didn’t have the time.”)

You will also need to take time with the layout, to make sure you use a large enough font for your donors’ eyes and leave enough white space to make it readable and attractive AND say what you want to say.

Advantages of a Longer Annual Report

While few donors or funders will read a long report page by page, many will find it impressive. Having a lot to say, and saying it in a professional manner, will build trust that your organization is doing something worthwhile.

This is particularly true if you’re going to use your annual report to accompany phone, online, or in-person visits to donors or funders. You can either go over it with them or have a more personal conversation, not worrying that you’re leaving anything out: it’s in the report you’re leaving with them!

Some funders, and a lot of donors, may wonder why you’re spending their money on a glossy publication, or on mailing a multi-page document, instead of on program. You will want to know your particular audience and get a sense of how they’ll react.

In fact, the answer to “Which approach is better?” will always be, “It depends on who your audience is and how you will share the report with them.” Let’s talk about that in a future post.

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