Marketing is essential for nonprofits that want to make an impact. Whether you’re fighting for cleaner oceans or human rights, donors and volunteers can’t join your cause if they don’t know who you are and what you stand for.
At the same time, nonprofit organizations have to be especially strategic about how they allocate spending. While every nonprofit certainly has its own brand presence and voice, the focus of advertising efforts is the cause itself. Stakeholders need to see that your marketing investment is helping you carry out important work and raise the right kind of awareness.
The average nonprofit’s marketing spend is typically slimmer than a for-profit company’s (5-15% of the total annual budget vs. 5-25%), so it’s critical to make every dollar count. Here are a few strategies for optimizing your nonprofit’s advertising spend so you can dedicate more resources where they matter most.
Are you confident that you know who your audience is and what they value? You probably know which people, corporations, and agencies have supported you in the past, but do you know what drew them toward your nonprofit?
There is an emotional component to nonprofit support that can’t be understated. It’s one thing to know the demographics of your donors and volunteers, but alignment with your cause is about more than gender, age, income, or political affiliation. When you understand the intangibles — the values, fears, and core beliefs — that motivate people to donate their money and time, the world gets a little bigger.
This deeper understanding of your audience opens up new marketing opportunities. You can’t make more people who fit the profile of your past donors, but you can persuade like-minded people to join them. Understand your audience’s relationship to your cause, and tailor your messaging accordingly.
You can’t launch a successful marketing campaign without clear objectives. The right strategy depends on your short and long-term goals, and your nonprofit marketing budget is critical. You need ROI.
Like for-profit companies, nonprofits have their own version of the sales funnel. While you may not be selling goods or services, your audience goes on a journey from awareness to consideration to conversion. Noticing any chokepoints in this pipeline will determine where to focus your marketing efforts.
Maybe you’re struggling with a lack of public awareness of your cause. Maybe you need more corporate sponsorships for fundraising events. Identify the most valuable opportunities, and make that audience segment the focus of your next campaign.
Nonprofits have to be protective of their marketing budget, and content marketing is famously cost-effective — on average, it costs 62% less than traditional advertising and generates around 300% more leads.
The reason for this is that content marketing does a great job of nurturing relationships across time. While ads certainly have their place in a well-rounded marketing strategy, offering your audience resources and answers that are genuinely helpful builds trust.
In addition to SEO-focused content, email marketing is a wonderfully scalable strategy for growing nonprofits. Since it costs about the same amount to use email to market to a hundred people or a million people, this piece of your budget can remain relatively fixed.
Play the long game with your marketing strategy. Invest in content that improves your organic search rankings and grows your email distribution list, and you’ll be front and center when your audience is ready to take the next step with your nonprofit.
You’re dedicated to a cause, not a company — does your nonprofit organization really need to develop its own brand? The short answer, according to the Stanford Social Innovation Review, is yes.
Donors, both corporate and individual, will use your branding to make quick judgments about your nonprofit organization’s credibility and efficacy. While you don’t need to be the next Red Cross, good brand differentiation and attractive, professionally-created assets will help you avoid confusion with similar organizations and inspire confidence.
Solid brand work sets everyone in your organization, from your event planners to your grant writers, up for success. A cohesive look and brand voice are so important for projecting authority, that they are a worthy investment for any nonprofit.
The saying about “a bird in the hand” is absolutely true — acquiring a new donor costs 10-20 times more than retaining one.
Existing donors should be marketed to differently than prospective ones, or you run the risk of a one-time engagement. This audience segment has skin in the game, so check in with them to say thank you, provide updates, and show off the tangible benefits of their generosity as much as possible.
Give your audience something they can believe in, and then make it easy to get involved. A well-timed, well-placed call to action makes all the difference in whether prospects move forward or move on.
Both your digital marketing and print materials should include a clear “next step” for anyone moved to support your cause. Think about what you’re asking of your audience at each phase of their journey, and keep in mind that the answer isn’t always “time” or “money.” In the early stages of awareness, a more appropriate CTA may be to join your mailing list or attend an educational event.
Be deliberate about how you move your audience down the funnel, and ensure that they have the information they need to feel good about advancing.
Google Ad Grants support qualifying nonprofits with up to $10,000 per month in search ads click budget. In order to tap into this enormous benefit, you’ll need to meet certain requirements and performance minimums. Failure to meet these minimums results in Google suspending the grant account so the accounts need to be managed carefully. With that said, they are a great support for brand awareness and general web traffic.
Because Google places a huge premium on user-friendly, relevant web content, a well-designed website is a must to see good ad placement and engagement. Google also requires recipients to create and run goal-based ad campaigns in order to keep the grant renewing each month. Choosing a marketing partner with nonprofit experience will greatly simplify this process and ensure that you are getting the greatest benefit from the ad grant.
Know Your Donors