Although Non-Profit Organisations provide communities with much-needed resources, many are limited by lack of resources, time, and very tight budgets. To create effective marketing, Non-Profit teams must continuously find innovative and creative ways to reach their investors and donors.
Here are four cost-effective ways to market your Non-Profit Organisation using online marketing:
- Nurture Your Contacts with Email
Contacts are priceless. They’re your cheerleaders, your support system, and your livelihood. Contacts may include volunteers, donors, event attendees, or other supporters.
It’s important to stay in contact with your contacts as they will help promote, fund, and support your organisation. You should also segment your contacts into lists so you know who you’re sending your messages to. Donors should not receive the same messages as volunteers and vice versa.
Consider sending periodic emails, such as monthly e-newsletters or success stories, to each of these groups to engage with them and help further your organisation’s goals. Whether your primary goals are gaining additional volunteers, increasing views on your donation page, or increasing sign-ups to your next event, emails are great ways to get the attention you need to meet the expectations you have set.
Several email tools allow you to send customized emails to targeted contact lists. Companies like MailChimp and Hubspot offer free email packages.
- Utilize the Power of Social Media
Social media is so much more than cute photos of your fur kid or that latest video – it’s a cost-effective way to connect with your donors, volunteers, employees, and the public.
Through social media, your organisation can:
- Promote the blogs you’re publishing online.
- Encourage donations to fund the work that you do.
- Enhance your Search Engine Optimization.
- Highlight your success stories.
- Start conversations with your followers
Consider creating a social media calendar that aligns with your blogging content to manage your content creation. By using social media planning tools, such as HubSpot, Hootsuite, or Sprout Social, you can schedule content in advance.
- Search Engine Optimization (SEO)
Having a website these days is expected, but a website with no traffic doesn’t help. Optimizing your website for search engines, such as Google, can help you gain a higher listing in search results and ultimately increase your chances of being found online. In turn, this helps increase opportunities such as online donations, speaking engagements, or involvement with your particular cause.
Here are a few tips to help with effective Search Engine Optimization:
Check your website for errors.
Page errors can hurt your ranking online and can be frustrating for website visitors. Luckily, there are dozens of free tools available to check those rankings. Some of the tools that we recommend are SEMRush, MOZ, or Screaming Frog.
Use keywords.
Keywords are short phrases that a person may use in a search engine when they’re researching online. If you need help creating keywords, free tools like Moz’s Keyword Explorer and Google’s Keyword Planner are available.
Use your keywords in webpage titles, headlines, meta descriptions, text, and image alt text. Try to use a keyword 1-3 times per page. But try not to overdo it – adding keywords too often doesn’t always help. If you use a keyword too many times on a page, it can hurt your ranking.
Blog, blog, blog.
Blogging is a great way to share important content with your supporters, as well as draw people to your website. For your blog to help with SEO, make sure it’s hosted on a page of your website.
Blogging is also a great way to educate the public on important topics such as specific challenges your community is facing and what people can do to help. To get the most out of your blog, remember to promote it on social media and via emails.
- Your Online Community
As a Non-Profit Organisation, your community is everything. There are many ways to network online with your community that will be beneficial to your organisation, such as:
Building relationships for backlink opportunities.
Links to your webpage from other websites (backlinks), helps your ranking on search engines. Backlinks act as votes for your website from other websites. By connecting with local community partners, your organisation can build links to help your search engine ranking.
Networking with local media
Network with local media outlets or other well-known businesses to send traffic to your website. By leveraging the power of your partners’ networks, you will increase your reach to those who can support your organisation.
Do you know a Non-Profit that could benefit from this article? Please be sure to share!
