Private business’ and nonprofit organizations’ marketing goals may seem somewhat contrary at first. The former generates revenue to grow an organization, while the latter raises awareness for and action around a cause. Yet nonprofit marketing agencies can adapt for-profit goals and practices to help their clients attract traffic, raise money, and make a difference.
Nonprofits throughout the Washington, DC, Metropolitan area will find a committed marketing team at KME.digital. One of the region’s top agencies, KME works with home service providers, government contractors, and many other businesses. Our award-winning services cover all our clients’ digital marketing needs, adapting to today’s volatile market. Call (703) 585-3321 to learn more and get a digital evaluation of your website.
Below, we describe the unique character of nonprofit marketing and how to formulate an effective plan for your organization:
How Effective Marketing Can Help Nonprofits
What do nonprofits stand to gain from concerted marketing efforts? Given their tight budgets and functional constraints, these organizations’ resources are limited. Nonprofits’ leadership teams must justify all expenses by putting them toward productive ends.
That said, successful nonprofit marketing plans can help your organization:
- Broadcast its mission and goals
- Attract donations (single and recurring)
- Interest potential volunteers and partners
- Grow your cause’s reach and visibility
- Inspire your community to take action
If nonprofits aim to bring awareness to a cause, marketing tactics are a straightforward way to achieve that goal. So why would such organizations hesitate or neglect these tools given these benefits?
The Most Frequent Nonprofit Marketing Challenges
Despite the potential benefits of vigorous digital marketing, logistical realities often impede nonprofits from these ends. Common nonprofit marketing challenges include:
- Restricted budgets: Some organizations receive government subsidies or public funding sources. Many others must make do with the funds they raise through donors or endowments. A small budget reduces nonprofits’ ability to invest in ad campaigns or a marketing team.
- Inexperienced staff: Nonprofits often rely on volunteers and a few staff members to assume multiple responsibilities. Unless they have a relevant background, these individuals lack marketing knowledge and the time to learn it. Other tasks simply consume their schedule.
- Limited outreach: Due to restricted budgets and inexperienced staff, even the best-run nonprofits have limited reach and growth potential. Plus, their ideal audience often includes adults of many ages and backgrounds, so targeting donors by demographics entails determining the best marketing channels.
- Inconsistent strategy: A staff of volunteers and a few well-worn full-timers may struggle with turnover. Frequent staffing changes result in inconsistent marketing efforts, as new hires must learn and adapt to those strategies. Workflow and output may suffer as a result.
- Meager audience engagement: Among all the other challenges nonprofits face, audience engagement is the most consistent and impactful. Even long-time donors sometimes have too many events or concerns to notice a nonprofit’s latest post or campaign.
Creating a Nonprofit Marketing Plan
Given the hurdles they face in marketing, nonprofit employees and leadership must carefully strategize. Private businesses’ example can help here, as they have techniques to drive leads on a limited budget:
- Nail down specific marketing goals
Virtually all nonprofits share the goals of growing brand awareness and engagement. Yet the best means for achieving these ends depend on each organization’s mission and available resources. Therefore, you must define precise goals using key performance indicators (KPIs) and measure them regularly. Furthermore, revisit and revise your goals for continual success and engagement.
For example, publish helpful blogs with relevant keywords to increase your website’s organic traffic and search result rankings. Set a manageable but specific goal of producing one blog every week, two weeks, or month. You can also keep donors engaged and apprised of events programming through email marketing. MailChimp or Constant Contact can automate such communications. - Identify your audience
As mentioned above, nonprofit audiences can include numerous demographics. Still, identifying the groups that compose your vast audience can help you generate targeted content. For instance, write an email or create a graphic aimed at young adults to recruit volunteers for an upcoming event.
Gathering demographic information from subscribers helps with this personalization. Try asking subscribers to identify their gender, age, and ethnicity when they sign up for your email list. These details allow you to organize subscriber lists and message audiences purposefully. - Set your core messaging
Your nonprofit’s core messaging encompasses the most critical facets of your work and mission. This material is what your audience—whether loyal followers or passersby—should remember and share about your organization. While private businesses emphasize brand identity, nonprofits must establish their core messaging. Their mission must be readily identifiable in marketing materials.
Core messaging helps maintain consistency across mediums and audience segments. Indeed, clarifying such intentions will make your nonprofit’s needs and mission straightforward and easily discussed. - Assess and select your marketing tools and tactics
Finally, choose the marketing strategies that suit your goals, audience, and core messaging. Inbound marketing channels (including blog posts, social media, and email marketing) are the primary tools for attracting digital visibility. But you must determine which will work best for your needs. In other words, how will you reach and engage with your audience?
We will review and discuss marketing tools and tactics in the section below. Yet consider all your options before choosing one. What must your strategy achieve? Which tool is best suited for that goal? Will it support your organization’s mission?
Marketing Activities Suitable for Nonprofit Organizations
- An Optimized Website
Of course, every business needs an optimized website to stand out in today’s marketplace. This digital storefront provides brand exposure, ecommerce streams, critical business information, and more functionality. Website optimization in particular demands an effective SEO strategy, responsive website design, mobile compatibility, and consistent branding.
Yet nonprofit organizations must use their websites to connect with donors and communities. They can share organizational news, donor information, and event details through this hub, updating as necessary. Additionally, this space can inform visitors about the issue that the nonprofit addresses. - Active Social Media
With a website in place, nonprofits can further their reach and digital strategy through active social media accounts. Many such platforms are free to join and use (whereas websites have costs for start-up, maintenance, and hosting). Indeed, social media’s functionality and potential for connection make it ideal for nonprofit marketing.
Organizations can share news, fundraise, find volunteers, and recognize top donors through these platforms. By linking their website to their social media and vice versa, nonprofits can leverage advantages from both. Specifically, the “halo effect” psychological principle offers a valuable way to stand out on potential donors’ timelines and feeds. - Personalized Email Marketing
Whereas social media and websites must fight for readers’ attention and traffic, email marketing meets readers where they are. Put plainly, email campaigns place a brand’s communications in readers’ virtual mailboxes. Recipients have (at least) interacted with the brand before ending up on an email marketing list.
The best email marketing comes from those who curate content for readers. These nonprofits can consistently announce relevant updates, fundraising drivers, and more to their followers. Plus, many email marketing tools allow audience segmentation, so marketers can further tailor content for specific individuals. - Consistent SEO and Content Marketing
Many individuals turn to internet search engines to find organizations devoted to specific causes. Therefore, those organizations must determine how to stand out in search results and capture those interested parties. The tools for doing so are SEO and content marketing.
Written website content makes core messaging and branding practices concrete and shareable. Marketers can also repurpose that content for social platforms, video material, and sales language. Furthermore, using appropriate long-tail keywords in content helps search engines recognize its function and rank it on relevant queries.
The Washington, DC, Metropolitan Area’s Top Nonprofit Marketing Team
Nonprofit organizations face unique challenges that for-profit businesses need not worry about. Nevertheless, nonprofit marketing tactics and practices can take inspiration from their private-sector counterparts. Washington, DC, Metropolitan Area organizations can rely on KME.digital for effective and personalized marketing campaigns to increase online visibility and traffic. Call (703) 585-3321 to learn how our digital strategies can help you thrive in today’s marketplace.