In the digital age, foundations (charities & non-profits) need to utilise innovative marketing strategies to stay competitive and reach a wider audience. With a plethora of tools and platforms available, it can be overwhelming for charities to decide on the best digital marketing strategy for their cause.
A digital strategy establishes the direction that a charity follows online. A good digital strategy acts as a beacon for the charity to follow, outlining the purpose of all online activities and aligning them with the organisation’s overarching goals. The digital strategy outlines the messaging, channels, assets, platforms, objectives, and tools a charity needs to achieve its desired results online.
To help your digital activities reach their full potential, we have highlighted the key components to consider in your digital strategy. If you’re not convinced that a digital strategy is required for your organisation, check out this article on why we believe a digital strategy is a non-negotiable!
Defining The Target Audience
The first step in any digital marketing strategy is to define the target audience. This involves identifying the demographics of your audience and understanding their needs, wants, and behaviours. Once established, you can tailor your marketing messages and choose the right channels to reach them. Collating research on your target donors, existing and upcoming trends, and your industry landscape sets the ideal foundation for a good digital marketing strategy.
Establish Digital Objectives
At the heart of a non-profit digital strategy should be a full breakdown of overarching business objectives, which will fuel your digital marketing efforts and ensure they contribute to the broader goals. It is crucial to include measurable metrics and ensure that the entire team is aligned with the objectives to avoid doing digital marketing just for the sake of it. Once aligned on key targets, the next step is to set the vision – a statement that highlights what the organisation is trying to achieve and answers the “what’s” and “whys” behind the strategy.
Choose The Right Channels
There are many digital channels that can be leverage for your fundraising efforts, including social media, email marketing, search engines, as well as others. It’s important to choose the channels that are appropriate for your organisation as each one has advantages and disadvantages. For example, email marketing is great for nurturing leads and giving individualised content, while social media is fantastic for creating a community and connecting with supporters. Choose the channels based on your objectives and target market.
Leveraging Data
Data is a key tool that enables informed decision-making and deepens understanding of donors, website followers, and target audiences. Properly utilised, data can play a vital role in developing strong donor relationships through effective targeting and personalised content, leading to a significant improvement in the overall donor experience.
To make the most of your data, it is important to have a Customer Relationship Management (CRM) platform that can help you collect, store, and manage donor data in a systematic way, allowing you to derive insights that inform your strategies and improve your outreach efforts. A well-organised CRM platform will provide you with a 360-degree view of your donor, enabling you to tailor your interactions with them and deliver the most relevant content that resonates with their interests, leading to increased engagement and loyalty.
Inbound Marketing
For foundations looking to build lasting relationships and attract new donors, inbound marketing is a very successful approach. It involves producing valuable content that appeals to the needs and interests of your target audience. Consider your lead generating marketing funnel that guides potential donors through the different levels of interaction. The three steps of this funnel are awareness, consideration, and decision. In order to raise awareness of your cause and inform potential donors about the issues you address, you can utilise blog articles, social media, and email newsletters. You may provide additional in-depth information, such case studies or whitepapers, during the consideration stage to assist potential donors in assessing your organisation and its impact. Finally, in the decision stage, you can provide clear calls to action, such as signing up for a newsletter or donating, to encourage donors to act.
Content Strategy
A content strategy is a thorough plan that specifies how to produce, manage, and distribute information to meet the objectives of your foundation. Setting up a content calendar, choosing the types of content that would appeal to the audience, and deciding on the key performance indicators (KPIs) to use as a gauge of success are all part of it.
A thoughtful content strategy helps foundations to produce compelling content that drives engagement, increases awareness, and motivates support for their mission. There are a number of formats that can be utilised for this, including blog articles, social media updates, infographics, videos, podcasts, and more. A content strategy will aid in the development of a loyal following of donors by supporting the production of a steady stream of content that is interesting, consistent and promotes the organisation’s mission and values.
Create Compelling Content
Your digital marketing campaigns’ content should be interesting, educational, and relevant to the people you are trying to reach. This may be done through posts on social media, videos, infographics, and blog posts. Consider your target audience’s needs and interests while developing content, and try to add value and evoke emotions in them. Compelling content builds trust with your supporters and establishes our organisation as an authority in your sector.
Website Strategy
You want to make sure that your website has an impact since it serves as the cornerstone of your digital strategy. Build a clear and user-friendly structure, optimise for search engines, and employ a user-friendly design that is consistent with the foundation’s brand and values. The foundation’s objective and purpose should be made obvious and appealing on the website, and there should be simple ways for visitors to donate, volunteer, or otherwise become involved.
To ensure that it is accessible to the broadest audience possible, the website should also be responsive and optimised for mobile devices. Organisations can create a strong online presence that successfully conveys their message and motivates support for the cause by designing a website strategy that prioritises user experience, engagement, and accessibility.
Search Engine Optimisation
As part of your foundation’s overall digital marketing strategy, an efficient SEO (Search Engine Optimisation) strategy is important to consider. In order to raise the website’s position in search engine results pages and increase organic traffic to the site, optimisation of the website’s content and architecture is necessary.
You should decide on the target keywords and phrases that potential donors may use to look for information about your cause in order to develop a successful SEO campaign. The content of the website may then carefully include these keywords into page names, meta descriptions, headers, and body copy. The website should also be user-friendly on mobile devices, load quickly, and have engaging photos and videos to draw in visitors.
By implementing a well-planned SEO strategy that is continuously refined and updated, you can increase your online visibility, reach a broader audience, and ultimately drive more support for the cause.
Social Media Marketing
Establishing a strong and consistent brand presence across the channels that your target audience utilises most frequently is the first stage in your social media marketing strategy. Create a content calendar with a variety of topics, including promotional, educational, and community-building posts. Be sure you concentrate on utilising user-generated content to foster a feeling of community and authenticity, such as images or videos of supporters interacting with the organisation. Social media advertising can also be effective in reaching a larger audience and increasing participation. Finally, it’s important to keep an eye on social media metrics like conversion rates, follower growth, and engagement rates to make sure that the strategy is successful.
Email Marketing
Your foundation should be communicating with its supporters through email marketing. If not, why not? Focus on educating readers on the organisation’s operations and impact, and seeks to generate more donations. Building a high-quality email list of interested fans and segmenting them based on their interests or past donations is the first step in developing a successful email marketing plan. This makes it possible to customise communications and campaigns to the specific requirements and interests of each group.
The emails’ content may contain announcements and updates about the organisations events and initiatives, success stories, and requests for donations or volunteerism. You can also utilise customised subject lines, visually appealing designs, and clear calls to action to boost the success of the email marketing. By using email marketing as part of your overall digital marketing strategy, a non-profit can cultivate a loyal and engaged donor base that supports their cause for years to come.
Implement A Measurement Plan
It’s necessary to have a measurement plan in place in order to monitor the performance of your digital marketing initiatives. Metrics like website traffic, engagement levels, and conversion rates, are important to track. You may learn what’s working and what isn’t by keeping an eye on your analytics, which will help you make data-driven decisions regarding your marketing plan. You may optimise your campaigns and find areas for improvement by routinely examining your measuring strategy.
It’s extremely important to consistently improve and optimise your digital marketing plan, like with any marketing endeavour. This may entail making adjustments based on the outcomes of your measuring plan and changing your strategy to keep up with emerging trends and technology. Regularly testing and experimenting with new strategies can help you stay ahead of the curve and achieve your marketing goals.
Conclusion
To remain competitive and reach a wider audience in the digital era, charities and non-profits must adopt strategies for digital marketing. Organisations can achieve goals and establish a compelling online presence by developing a comprehensive digital strategy.
With the elements mentioned through this blog in place, you can position your organisation as the leader in the industry, attract and hold on to donors, and expand your total influence. If you feel like you need a bit of help with your digital strategy, check out our sports philanthropy digital services here.
