One of the primary goals of every charitable nonprofit organization is to raise more money and use it to make this world a better place. However, insufficient resources, time constraints, and problems with retaining and engaging donors are often a daily struggle for nonprofits. That is why you need to constantly implement high-return promotional activities to get more eyes on your cause.
It’s easy to see how difficult it can be for any budding nonprofit to spread the word about its fundraising campaign given the limitations but there is no need to fret; we’ve got you covered. We’ve come up with a list of cost-effective, tried-and-tested marketing strategies, tips and tools that will help you promote your cause effortlessly.
1. Target Millennials and Generation Z
Together, Millennials and Gen Zs are gradually taking up a crucial portion of the global population, reaching 31.5 and 32 percent respectively in 2019. This is why they are a good area of focus if you want to grow your fundraising community.
Link to image: https://mediakix.com/blog/the-generation-z-statistics-you-should-know/
Here’s what we know about these two generations:
- Both generations are active users of the internet and mobile phones. On average, Gen Zs spend over 4 hours per day online, with 97% of them having a smartphone.
- Referred to as digital natives because they have grown up in the technology era with much digital exposure, they are characterized by a short attention span and a strong dislike for online ads.
So, how does this influence your marketing efforts? Well, if you want to target these groups, you have to work on optimizing your campaign to suit them better.
In other words, you need to:
Have a clear, strong purpose.
You should be able to articulate that purpose well in your campaign. The younger generations truly care about political, environmental, and socio-economic issues; as a nonprofit, you must show them how you can contribute to these causes and make the world a better place.
Communicate in a personal and relatable way.
Millennials and Gen Zs are not fans of old, pushy marketing strategies. Avoid being too promotional and instead send a message with a strong emotional appeal that speaks to them. Emotional marketing makes strong first impressions, helps people decide with their hearts, and most importantly, inspires them to act.
Focus on producing mobile-optimized content.
Since the younger generations practically can’t live without their mobile phones, the content you create needs to read well on these devices. To do this, you can use tools like AdWords Grader Plus or Google’s Mobile Friendly Test.
Take a look at these fundraising advertising examples to get a better idea on how to create charity ads and promotional content for the new generations, especially when it comes to using visuals.
2. Use Striking Visuals
With a constant barrage of irrelevant content on the internet, your audience has become more indifferent to content of great value as well. Most content will go unnoticed if you fail to draw readers’ attention quickly by creating a notable first impression.
To stand out from the clutter, you need striking visuals that attract attention and convey the necessary information. If your audience is looking to spend money for a cause, you want to make sure it’s worth the trouble.
Here are some obvious reasons why your fundraising brand should use visuals:
- They cut through the noise
- They help to engage your audience
- They evoke emotions in your target audience and make them more likely to respond to your appeal
- They tell your story more effectively than just words to your audience and helps paint a picture in their minds
By now, you should be ready to start using visuals in your promotion. And what’s a better place to get started than social media where more and more people of every generation are now spending their time?
With the help of visually striking social media graphics by PosterMyWall, you can make your own eye-catching social media content by customizing it to different platforms, creating designs from scratch, and using stock image libraries.
And if you need to resize visuals and repurpose content for various platforms or purposes, PosterMyWall has a free resize feature that makes resizing to multiple sizes in one go a piece of cake. Pick a flyer, select the different sizes you need, hit resize to create multiple copies in different sizes for a bunch of ads for online use, all for free. And speaking of flyers…
3. Promote Locally with Flyers
You need to consider promoting your fundraising event in your neighbourhood. Timeless and effective, flyers and handouts are your best option for promoting locally.
There are a number of benefits of using flyers and posters:
- They help you get the most out of local connections and goodwill
- They are printed on paper and hence tangible – sure, digital marketing is getting big but conventional, tangible means of marketing are still the only means to reach many people
- They are cost-effective and you’ll also save time if you design your flyers and print using the same platform
- They act as a constant means of reinforcement. Once you put up a poster or flyer in a prominent area, daily local traffic will get you a lot of impressions without much more effort.
Pro tip: Add tear-off tabs to your flyers so that interested people can take a piece of information about your organization, such as contact information to get back to you later.
To help you create flyers that immediately grab the attention of passersby, PosterMyWall offers affordable and eye-catching flyer templates.
4. Email Segmentation
Did you know that an average American worker sends and receives 126 emails a day?
Email is still a viable means of communication and marketing. In fact, all smart companies and organizations regularly use email lists to maximize their impact.
However, one generic email sent to all your email subscribers just doesn’t cut it anymore. If you’re running an email list (which you most definitely should do), then you need to segment your subscribers.
The main benefit of email segmentation is having the ability to increase engagement on your emails by segmenting your subscribers into more groups by interest, age, location, and so on, and customizing all emails accordingly.
For example, Gifford Cat Shelter, a U.S. nonprofit that looks after homeless cats, had a substantial increase in email open rates and click-through rates by implementing this effective email segmentation campaign and only sending targeted emails. This email, for example, is only sent to people who have made a donation.
5. Build Connections with Corporations
Most corporations are looking for a way to project a humane side to their brand, and one common method is financing a nonprofit’s mission. This helps them improve their public image, increase positive media coverage and hence goodwill, boost employee management, as well as attract and retain investors.
Some prominent examples of corporate-nonprofit partnerships are the following:
Grameen Bank and Groupe Danone. CEO of Groupe Danone joined forces with founder of Bangladesh’s Grameen Bank to help decrease poverty in Bangladesh by fighting hunger, empowering women, and promoting overall economic prosperity.
Adidas and the U.S. National Breast Cancer Foundation. Adidas is just one of the sponsors that help this nonprofit by raising funds for breast cancer awareness and cure. To help fight for a cure, Adidas donated $10 for every shoe bought from the breast cancer line.
Uber and No Kid Hungry. Thanks to this partnership during the 2014 holiday season, Uber users had the option to donate $5 to this nonprofit when they took an Uber ride, raising funds for more than 5 million meals in under 72 hours.
6. Keep Your Brand in Focus
If you want to connect with corporations and build trust amongst your supporters, you need a strong brand identity. Especially if you’re planning to target Millennials and Gen Zs, who are extremely sensitive to sloppy marketing attempts.
Apart from having a strong purpose, personal communication, and mobile-optimized content, you also need to make sure that brand elements like your logo, fonts, and colors remain the same across all your marketing efforts. And this includes your fundraising campaign! This way, your donors will easily recognize your brand and be willing to contribute to your cause based on the impression they have already developed of you.
To achieve consistent branding across different marketing channels, you can use PosterMyWall to customize all your marketing material to have the same colors, fonts and other design details. You can also create a professional logo using logo design templates or upload an existing one to your fundraising marketing material.
7. Educate Your Fundraisers
In case you are launching a peer-to-peer fundraising campaign, it is essential that your fundraisers know how to raise money effectively. It is your responsibility to educate them on all the necessary steps that will lead to a better response and more donations.
This will directly affect your campaign’s results. Think about it – since a peer-to-peer campaign leverages your network’s networks, your fundraisers will solicit their family and friends for donations.
In other words, if your fundraisers are properly educated, they will give everyone – even the individuals who may not be familiar with your organization – a compelling reason to support you.
If you’re an education charity, you know the importance of proper education. Make sure to send them educational resources like toolkits, tip sheets, and examples of successful fundraisers to guide their efforts and drive them toward success.
8. Make It Easy to Donate Money
Lastly, if your donors find it too complicated to donate money, all your previous efforts will be in vain. To avoid this, you need to create an easy and convenient way to donate.
Some proven methods include:
- Creating a crowdfunding campaign for a specific project on platforms like gofundme.com and justgiving.com.
- Initiating a text-to-donate system
- Allowing donors to send money through mobile apps they already use (e.g. Venmo)
- Developing an auto-recurring membership for a specific cause
- Invoicing corporate donors
Final Thoughts
Fundraising campaigns are critical in your efforts to make a change in this world. However, they can be quite a complicated venture for nonprofits, especially if you are unprepared.
Follow the nonprofit organization marketing strategies listed above, make good use of the tools suggested, and you will reach the right people and raise more money for your cause. Now, are you ready for the donations to come rolling in?
