Why An Online Marketing Strategy for Nonprofits Is Important

There are a number of great ways you can market your nonprofit online and get positive results. Knowing how to use various online marketing channels and use them together is key to unlocking new ways to achieve your goals. To open more doors of opportunity for success with online marketing, it takes time, planning and an execution of a solid online marketing strategy. If you are not utilizing the following tools described in this article, you are most likely loosing out on opportunities of gaining more supporters and funding for your nonprofit.

What Are Your Goals?

First and foremost align your marketing strategy with your nonprofit’s goals. If you have set your goals on paper and have planned the necessary steps to achieve them, your online marketing should follow the same process. If you need to get more volunteers then you should plan to gain more followers on your social media accounts. If your need to get more funding or donations, then you’ll need a way to easily collect donations online.

Next, find the data you need to measure success. Figure out how much time or money is used to boost fundraising, acquiring more volunteers, and increasing event registration. For instance, if you ran a campaign to acquire volunteers on social media for an entire month making announcements and engaging people on social media and your acquired 25 volunteers, your metric metric could be as simple as getting 25 volunteers per month. This is a very simple metric, but nonetheless, it gives you a starting point to track your progress.

Different Marketing Channels – Different Purposes

There are a number of tools you can use that are relatively cheap you can use for an online marketing strategy for nonprofits. Each marketing channel is different and not all content works and behaves the same in every channel. So here is some valuable information on each channel.

Social Media

Social media is like your public outreach program where you can make impressions on people about your nonprofit. It’s also an opportunity to share valuable information with your community and engage in conversations about your work. You have to be careful not to spam your followers, because social media is one part entertaining, one part informative and of coarse social. If you constantly ask people to volunteer for an event and post nothing else of value for your followers, you eventually become ignored and even worst unfollowed. Make sure your content has enough value for followers to pause and interact with your content. Good content will entertain, inform and engage followers.

Website

Your website is the online representation of your nonprofit and should be the focal point of your marketing strategy. All other marketing channels should point traffic to your site. Once visitors our are on your site you have present information in a way that they can easily make a meaningful action like subscribing to newsletter, volunteering or donating money. It is important to note that if your site is easy for visitors to use and has a professional design the chances of a visitor performing the actions you want them to do will go up dramatically.

Blog

Everybody knows what a blog is, but not everyone know why is it important. Blogging is important because it keeps your website current with new information and makes it easy for visitors to see the progress and activity of your nonprofit. New blog posts_­ also increases your search engine ranking on sites like Google, Yahoo and Bing. These search engines will rank sites with newer content above stagnant and old forgotten websites.

Blogs are usually the first point of contact between your organization and potential supporters. By having a blog with helpful and fun content, your blog can be a tool to inform and educate the public about your purpose and how they can support it.

Search Engine Optimization

Search engine optimization or (SEO) is a method of creating content that use keywords or phrases that relate to your content. Focusing on keywords for your content on your site, will help visitors find your site when they use search engines with your keywords.

Email Marketing

Email is a great way to stay in contact and inform members in your community. Sometimes you lose supporters for whatever reason, whether they are busy or lose interest. Email is a good way to drive people back to your website in the hopes of regaining their active support. It is always important to collect supporters email addresses so that you can keep them in the know regardless of their level of activity.

Hopefully, we’ve helped you to start thinking about investing more thought to your online marketing strategy. It takes a lot of time and planning, but when done right with consistency and professionalism you will begin to experience success in reaching your goals.

Does your nonprofit have online marketing strategy? Do you have any experiences or tips you would like to share? Let know in the comment section below.

Do you need help with formulating your online marketing strategy? Buzz Boom can help you organize and execute your marketing strategy. Feel free to contact us to talk about your nonprofit and how we can help achieve your goals. No commitment required.