Digital Marketing Tactics to Include In Your Nonprofit Fundraising Strategy

While we're well into 2022, and by now, statistically most people have broken their New Year's resolutions. Still, it's never too late to take a closer look at your digital marketing strategy. 

As a nonprofit, marketing is an essential tool for fundraising as well as drawing attention to your cause or the community you serve. Odds are, even if you think you're on the ball with your fundraising strategies for the coming year, there may be something you're missing. And that missed opportunity easily equates to missed fundraising dollars. 

What is Your Fundraising Strategy Missing?

The first step toward identifying opportunities is to perform an audit of what you are doing now. Take some time to review the tools, tactics, and strategies you have in place. 

What Digital Marketing Are You Doing Now?

First, look at where you publish content and engage with your community. There are probably several places where you are regularly putting out material for fundraising and marketing purposes:

• Website
• Blog
• Social Media Channels
• Media Outlets
• Advertising
• Partnerships
• Email Campaigns
• Newsletters

Next look at how frequently you are publishing to each of these outlets. For example, most social media channels perform best when you put out new content at least four days a week. However, emailing more than twice per week may be interpreted as spammy.

Then look at how each of these digital marketing channels is performing. Are you getting the social media engagement you want? What's the open and click-through rate on your emails? How are these efforts contributing to your fundraising goals? Use these numbers to create a baseline against which you can measure future efforts. 

Which Tools Are You Using?

The next step in identifying gaps in your digital marketing strategy for fundraising is to review the tools you are currently using or paying for. Ask your marketing team if they have what they need to do their jobs well. 

Odds are, there are a few reliable and well-used tools, a couple of tools that aren't the best fit but fill a specific need, and some tools that you thought would be great but actually aren't used at all. 

Before you ditch the dead weight, let's look for the gaps in your strategy to see if any of those tools might fill a need in the future. 

What Are Your Digital Marketing Goals for the Future?

After this marketing audit, we now have a baseline of performance and fundraising metrics, a list of channels and the frequency you are publishing to each of them, and a list of tools you're already paying for. 

Now it's time to decide what you want the results of your fundraising marketing efforts to look like in the future. Take your nonprofit's long and short-term goals into account as you're setting these goals. After all, your fundraising efforts significantly impact the bottom line. 

Tactics to Improve Your Nonprofit Fundraising Strategy

So far, we've assessed where your nonprofit stands. You know how you're performing in your current fundraising and marketing strategy and have set some goals for the future. Let's see if any of the following fundraising tactics might help you meet those goals. 

Optimize Your Donation Page

Your donation page should be one of the best-trafficked pages on your website. If it's not, then there is room for improvement! You can keep your donation page relatively simple. However, a few tweaks can help make it more effective. 

• A strong call to action that inspires your donors
• Donate buttons in a contrasting and highly visible color
• An emotionally compelling image (or, even better, a video!)
• A sincere thank you landing page 

Simplify and Update Your Donation Form

Your donation page should be compelling and inspire action, but that could all stall out if your donation form is tedious and takes too long to fill out. Making it fast and easy will get more donors to click that submit button and complete the donation process. 

• Create a simple donation form that asks for only the essential information
• Enable recurring donations with a single click
• Accept payment types like Apple Pay, Venmo, or PayPal as well as credit cards

Focus on SEO and SEM

The rules are changing for search engines and user behavior tracking. Make sure you're ready for a cookieless future and that your website is optimized for user experience. There are several free tools available online to help you get a handle on how your website stacks up. Still, sometimes it's more time and cost-effective to call in professionals. After all, if you're not showing up in search results, your potential donors can't find you. 

Get Social Media Savvy

Social media marketing is an essential tool for fundraising, but you can also fundraise directly on social media platforms. Review the social media channels that you're currently using. Double-check that you're set up for fundraising on Facebook, that you've taken advantage of Google For Nonprofits, and YouTube Giving. Look into the options for nonprofits on every social media channel you're currently using to make sure you're not missing out on great features and benefits. 

Look for Partnerships and Gift Matching

Network with local businesses and organizations to find ways to partner with them to support your cause. It could mean co-hosting events, working together on volunteer efforts, or seeking gift matching for your next fundraising campaign. Many businesses want to give back locally or offer paid volunteering hours to their staff. Put the word out and find ways to work together for a good cause!

Don't Dismiss the Power of Advertising

While advertising costs money, it can pay off in the end. When you sign up for Google's Ad Grant program for nonprofits, you can make your advertising dollars stretch. And, combining paid ads with the Google Ad Grant can lead to even better results!

Enlist Crowdfunding for Big Projects or Goals

While this may not be the best strategy to help reach your quarterly fundraising goals, try using crowdfunding for large efforts, projects, or plans. For example, suppose you're trying to raise funds for larger office space for your growing team so you can make a more significant impact. In that case, crowdfunding could offer the extra boost you need. 

Try a Text-to-Give Campaign

Adding another channel to your fundraising efforts can help you reach more people and avoid getting lost in the noise online. Text-to-give campaigns rely on automated text messages to reach potential donors and direct them to a donation page. Just make sure that your donation page is mobile-friendly! 

Put It All Together for Your Best Fundraising Year Yet

If any of the tactics listed above sound intriguing, it's time to put them into your digital marketing strategy for the year. 

Remember those tools you weren't using? Take another look and see if any of them offer functionality that can help you include any of these new tactics. If not, it's not only time to ditch them, it may be time to look for new tools that can streamline your processes. Or you can take a deeper dive into online fundraising to learn even more tips and tricks for making this your best fundraising year yet.