Not for profit organisations are often faced with the challenge of having restricted marketing budgets.
To raise awareness for their particular cause and promote their message can seem a daunting task in a world where we are all constantly competing with louder, more prominent advertisers with seemingly huge budgets.
But it can be done and often, the people behind the not for profit marketing campaigns have an advantage: they are extremely passionate about what they are promoting and that drive can give you the edge.
With all that being said, admittedly at times it can be tough! Lets explore some of the ways not for profit organisations can maximise their marketing spend and deliver their message far and wide:
- Direct Mail: Perhaps unsurprising to see this at the top of our list but what can we say? We love it! More importantly, recipients do too. Figures from JICMAIL found that during the first UK wide lockdown charity direct mail performed the best of any other sector with a typical response rate of 9%. That’s 5% higher than average! The study also saw charity mail making significant impressions on recipients, with people interacting with each mailing an average of 4.13 times whilst the typical lockdown lifespan of a mailing piece was 6.89 days. Finally, the figures showed that people with more ‘charitable tendencies’ were 48% more likely to raise money for charity, 63% more likely to volunteer and 33% more likely to donate on a monthly basis. Another benefit is the minimal wastage factor, with only 5% of charity mailings disposed of without opening. We work with a number of not for profit organisations and charities advising them on their direct mail campaigns, if you’d like to talk to us we’d love to help!
- Set aside a portion of your budget for social media: Free marketing is great and it can, and sometimes does, have a significant impact if your post or video goes viral. You stand a much better chance of having an impact however if you dedicate a little money to it. To really make a dent in the social sphere, you need to be investing in social media advertising campaigns. Sounds expensive? Well actually it doesn’t have to be. Facebook advertising for example can be done for just a few pounds a day and with the super targeted options you can utilise with Instagram, Twitter and Linkedin, you can use these to specifically pinpoint those people who are most likely to resonate with your cause. To use Facebook as an example, if your not for profit is working towards raising funds for environmental and sustainability causes, you can target users who earn a certain salary and whose interests include the environment and climate change.
- The power of email marketing: When it comes to digital marketing, it’s one of the most effective digital marketing tactics in your toolbox, if it’s done well. With an average UK open rate of 16.4%, it can be an incredibly effective way to get your message heard. It should be noted though that whilst there is a relatively favourable open rate, the average click through rates are at 1.6%. It’s so important that you are delivering the right message to the right people for these open and click through metrics to eventually convert to actual donations and raising awareness. Almost every email marketing platform allows you to analyse and assess the metrics on open rates and click throughs etc, ensure you are scrutinising your campaign performance to ensure you are gleaning every ounce of insight about your target audience’s behaviour.
- Get your data right: This list is in no particular order, but if it were, this would be right near the very top. Most non-profit organisations will have a plethora of data sources; from event registrations, donor records, membership details… pulling them all together and analysing what you have can seem like a mammoth task. If you haven’t already done so, one way to centralise all of these different sources is integrating them with y9our existing CRM. By doing this, you can keep all of your donor and supporter data up to date and give yourselves a better insight into their behaviours and patterns. In turn, this helps to better inform your marketing campaigns and you can segment your data for bespoke campaigns tailored to a particular section of your audience for example. Personalised content is far more likely to resonate with your supporters and donors and will help lead to increased donations.
- Video Marketing: In a world where attention spans are shortening and content is increasingly consumed via the medium of video, it’s a great way to connect with your target audience. If you don’t have an inhouse creative department of video editing team, this can of course seem daunting but it doesn’t need to be. Youtube, Instagram and more recently TikTok are relatively user friendly and simple to use, allowing you to create short videos that really get your message across. Perhaps a quick update on a project your charity has been working on or a short interview with someone you’ve been able to help allows donors and supporters to really see the difference their efforts and donations are making. On a granular level these apps are free too, so it’s only a little time you have to invest.
So there you have it. 5 tips to ensure your marketing efforts achieve better engagement rates with your target audience. We hope you find them useful and if you’d like to talk to us about your own not for profit marketing campaigns, we’d love to help.
Thanks for taking the time to read this blog, happy marketing!
