Nonprofit marketing tips that are simple to understand and implement.

Most nonprofit organizations are established with only one goal in mind, to bring awareness to their cause by leveraging their community and resources. The problem is that in pushing the vision, marketing is rarely in the conversation. Being a nonprofit doesn’t relieve you from promotion and sales. Unfortunately, you will have to do more than post on social media and host an annual event if you want longevity and to achieve your initiatives.

Learning how to market your nonprofit will help you attract new donors, find investors, grow your volunteers and expand your reach.

What Marketing Can Do for Your Nonprofit

• Increase media exposure
• Build strategic partnerships
• Build community visibility and keep the public aware of your nonprofit news/events
• Spread your message
• Attract new donors and additional revenue from investors
• Showcase your success and keep your donors/investors happy

The Marketing Checklist

Before we begin, it’s important to know that marketing has to be continuous. Even if your nonprofit lacks the budget to hire a marketing specialist, you have to find a way to keep pushing forward (and that may mean doing it yourself). Here is a starter checklist of items you can do right now to market your nonprofit organization.

Know the Target

Before marketing your nonprofit, it is important to be clear on your audience. You need to know who you want to be in front of and how to gain their attention. The points below will help you find your audience include:

1. What age group do you want to connect with? Who will be most interested in your mission? Who will most likely help push you forward?
2. Find out the type of information will interest this group.
3. What social platforms do they use?
4. What is the average income of the people you want to reach?
5. Is there a commonality in education?
6. What do you want your audience to do? Are you looking for financial support, volunteers, partnerships or support in spreading the word?

Once you know who you want to get in front of and you are clear on where to find them, you can craft your message to connect with them and prompt them to take action.

Set Realistic Goals

Planning and goal setting is essential. You will need to set measurable goals so you can monitor the effectiveness of your marketing. The goals you set have to align with your mission. Some examples include:

1. Growing your email list
2. Increasing donations
3. Achieving yearly initiatives
4. Growing your list of partnerships
5. Expanding media visibility

Your Nonprofit Website

A key part of expanding in today’s digital age is having an online presence. Your online presence starts with having a virtual space that you control. This space is your website. Your website needs to be professional, appeal to your core audience, clearly define your mission and is current with information. Here is a list of things you may want to include on your website:

1. Your nonprofit’s story (history, vision and mission… what is your why)
2. Important or breaking news
3. Upcoming events
4. Current initiatives
5. Success stories
6. Media and press coverage
7. A donation button
8. Volunteer instructions
9. A signup form to collect email addresses
10. Your contact information

Be Clear

Transparency is important if you want to build a loyal community of supporters. Be very clear on what you want to accomplish and why. If you want to attract investors and donors, it is important to sell them on your vision and goals. You have to get them to believe in your initiatives.

Search Engine Optimization

Do not discount the power of SEO (search engine optimization). If you want to attract and build a community, people must be able to find you. You can boost your SEO with a combination of social media, blogging on your website, guest blogging on other websites, using strategic keywords on your website, doing online interviews, and attracting digital news outlets.

Takeaway

The information shared is just a short list of ways you can market your nonprofit organization. The biggest takeaway is that success requires an investment. An investment of time or money (and sometimes both). If you are not willing to invest in yourself, why would someone else?