Nonprofit management relies immensely on getting supporters for your cause. You have to pay your staff, run awareness campaigns, host events, manage your office space, and more. Without public awareness, you may find it a challenge to raise funds and pay for these necessities.
This makes a nonprofit advertising plan a key part of your operations. Getting the word out there and boosting awareness are some of the vital benefits of being strategic about your advertising.
Use this guide to drive your advertising and get the best results for your cause.
Utilizing a widespread advertising plan can help you reach supporters you may not have touched before. This is the major benefit of nonprofit advertising.
Expanding your audience gives you the space to improve brand awareness and get people interested in your organization and cause.
It also cultivates important brand connection areas like brand loyalty, recall, familiarity, and more, which are important in building trust in your message.
Not only does this visibility benefit your brand image, but it also impacts your cause. You can use ads as an educational tool to teach people about your cause, values, etc.
Linked to the potential audience growth are the high-value returns that you can gain from focusing on your advertising. Individuals touched by exceptional ad campaigns can become collaborators, volunteers, donors, and supporters. Other businesses may even get inspired to become sponsors and partners.
You can use free and advanced advertising tools like Google Ads to target audiences effectively. By crafting your ads to meet your target audience, you can make content that has high-value returns like more sign-ups, and increased donations.
These are some of the approaches you can use for your nonprofit advertising strategy:
Social media is a must-use tool that you have to include in your nonprofit advertising model.
The Nonprofit Tech for Good Report found that 87% of nonprofit organizations use social media for their marketing. And it’s no surprise that so many NPOs see its value given the approximately 4.89 billion social media users around the world.
Social media channels are a great way to show the intricacies of your work by creating a personality and identity for your organization. You can use it to give your audience a look into your team, how you achieve your mission, the impact of your work, and more.
Various platforms have tailored ad options that NPOs can use to get people aware of their company. For example, Instagram has sponsored ads across user feeds and Stories. This works the same way on users’ Twitter timelines. Facebook has the widest selection of ad formats for businesses including video, carousel, poll, image, and other ads (see our guide to Facebook Ads to learn more).
Also keep in mind that the social media space offers influencers you can work with as collaborators in your advertising!
Capitalizing on the power of search engines can help increase your NPO’s visibility and reach.
Google in particular has a variety of tools and options to allow you to bolster your advertising for search engine users. You can target YouTube users and viewers, search engines, email, and websites on the Google network.
Google Ads allows you to create an ecosystem of ads that internet users can encounter throughout their digital journey. You can leverage it to hike website traffic, find interested supporters, boost conversions, and track analytics.
Under the Google Ad Grant, your organization can even get access to free ads. Unlike pay-per-click and other charged ads, you could receive a grant of up to $10,000 per month for search ads.
Through these ads, you can connect with users searching for keywords relating to your cause. It’s an amazing tool that can bring you directly to people who are already looking for an organization like yours.
A good email campaign can do wonders for your conversions. However, it requires a lot of patience and effort so you get a personalized feel rather than come across as salesy and invasive.
Instead, develop a tone and use of language that captures readers but also remains conversational and friendly. Perhaps the most important part of your email is your subject line. This is because it is the first thing that email users see in notifications or on the preview screen. Use it as an opportunity to draw readers and nudge them to open the email.
Consider using email marketing software to cut down the load by automating tasks like sending out emails.
It sounds counterintuitive to you raising funds but affiliate marketing can be a viable way to advertise and increase donations. People and organizations are a network that connects repeatedly. You can capitalize on this by getting people to actively market your brand on your behalf.
Set up an affiliate sign-up page with requirements for potential partners. You can target businesses, or individuals with a public following. These affiliates will then promote your cause and NPO on your behalf. They might, for example, share posts about their involvement and your work or include links on their website.
Your affiliates will then receive a percentage commission (i.e.: 5%) from every donation resulting from their promo. You can track these conversions using affiliate codes or by seeing if donors come from the affiliate website.
The affiliates do the advertising heavy lifting to help grow your community and bring in more donors.
To create compelling ads, keep the following in mind:
With this glimpse into some of the many nonprofit advertising approaches, you can get your organization where you want it to be quickly!
You can use these methods to understand your audience better, drive brand awareness, and boost donations. Most importantly, perhaps, they give you a way to grow your community and, in turn, increase the support for your cause.
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