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Nonprofit Marketing Tips and Resources

Landing a Google Ad Grant: 4 Step Guide for Getting Started

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Google Ad Grant Guide

Nonprofit organizations are familiar with the process of grant acquisition. Since grants are often a necessary lifeline for programming, outreach, and even administration, organizations need to know what grants can help them achieve their goals. If a grant is contested, has rigorous requirements, or limited usage, it may not be worth the time and effort necessary to apply for it. Therefore, nonprofits need to be aware of grants that promise a high return on their investment.

One such opportunity is the Google Ad Grant. Over 100,000 organizations have used the Grant to increase awareness of their organization, drive traffic to their website, and engage with their audience. The Grant can be used effectively by nonprofits of any size. Finally, the grant is acquired for free and can be easily maintained by any nonprofit with a committed digital presence. At Nonprofit Megaphone, we help nonprofits achieve, manage, and utilize the Google Ad Grant. As experts on the subject, we’ve helped nonprofits of all sizes use the Grant successfully.

The Google Ad Grant gives eligible nonprofits up to $10,000 every month to spend on Google Ads. These sponsored links within Google search results are valuable because they bypass traditional search engine optimization algorithms, taking out much guesswork. Instead, Google Ads are assigned based on relevancy and website quality, which are much easier to control. Google Grant funds allocate automatically, and your spending does not affect your compliance with the Grant.

Instead, Google asks that you achieve minimum success with your Google Ads, ensuring that you’re using the Grant to improve your overall website performance. Considering the low costs of compliance, acquiring the Google Ad Grant can increase website traffic and sustainably promote your organization substantially.

Google Ad Grant 101

The Google Ad Grant is a program started and administered by Google. As their search engine gained supremacy, more businesses used their Google Ads platform to spread their message. However, as more organizations began to use the forum, competing for valuable space became more and more expensive. This eventually priced out many nonprofits, especially those with fewer resources. The Google Ad Grant was launched to give certain nonprofits the chance to use Google Ads cost-effectively.

The Grant is known for its affordability, making it an ideal option for any eligible nonprofit. Once acquired, your organization will have the Grant forever, so long as you maintain compliance with Google’s standards. However, these standards are clear, simple, and variable, depending on your organization’s size and scope. While organizations with more resources may meet them more easily, good management can result in stress-free compliance.

The Grant serves a valuable purpose as it gives nonprofits the ability to market themselves without tremendous financial risk. The primary function of the Grant is to drive traffic to your website. This is an essential first step in any marketing effort, but an organization’s overall success depends on whether they can convert that traffic into something of material value.

If your organization is interested in the Google Ad Grant, continue reading and take the following steps to confirm your eligibility and acquire the Grant.

Step 1: Determine Eligibility

Like any grant, the Google Ad Grant has specific eligibility requirements. Thankfully, they couldn’t be more simple. An organization is eligible for the grant only if they:

  1. Are a registered 501(c)3 nonprofit organization.
  2. Are not a school, hospital, or government agency.

If your organization is eligible, you’re free to continue onto the next step.

Step 2: Create a Google for Nonprofits account.

Now you’ll need to confirm your eligibility with Google. This involves the simple process of creating a Google for Nonprofits account. This account allows you to interface with Google and will be the hub for your Ad Grant activities. After creating the account, you’ll need to confirm your eligibility. This is done by creating an account with Techsoup. Techsoup will verify your eligibility on Google’s behalf and will issue a token to you. You can then apply the token on your Google for Nonprofits account and officially begin the acquisition process.

Step 3: Set up your nonprofit website.

The first official step in the acquisition is ensuring that your site can safely and effectively use the Grant. These requirements are designed to make sure your site meets the minimum standards for compliance.

Install Google Analytics

Google requires that your site have a form of conversion tracking installed. A conversion is an action of value that a user makes on your website and is a significant indicator of success—as such, tracking conversions is a great benefit to your grant manager. The easiest way to track conversions is to install Google Analytics on your website. In addition to conversion tracking, Google Analytics will give you numerous other tracking tools, giving you a full suite of data analytics tools to evaluate the performance of your website.

State your nonprofit status and EIN on your site

Google Ad Grant regulations require that a nonprofit’s Employer Identification Number be placed on any page where a visitor may donate. However, we recommend that nonprofits put their EIN in the footer of their website. This ensures that it’s always displayed and won’t ever have to be adjusted if your website undergoes significant changes. Further, since the EIN is public information available via the IRS, this poses little security or privacy risk.

Ensure your site is secure

Google requires that your site have an SSL certificate to use the Google Ad Grant. An SSL certificate is a simple security measure that ensures your website is protected from common security risks. Further, SSL certificates are often provided free of charge from popular website providers or can be purchased at a meager cost. Website security is important to keep your organization and its users safe, so invest in broader measures if necessary.

Submit your site to Google for review and approval

After doing the previous steps, you’re ready to submit your grant application for approval formally! After submitting your application, Google will take a few days and evaluate your website based on the requirements above. If everything is up to their standards, your application will be approved, and you’ll be permitted to begin part 2 of the acquisition process. Part two entails setting up your initial Google Ads account and ensuring that the account can meet the minimum compliance standards.

Step 4: Set up your initial campaign in Google Ad Grant

After your initial application is accepted, Google will move you to the next phase of the acquisition process. This step involves getting into the Google Ads interface and setting up your account for long-term success. If done correctly, completing this step will make your organization ready to easily meet Google’s minimum compliance standards.

Create your first campaign

Google Ads accounts are required to have a specific structure in order to be successful and remain compliant. This structure starts with campaigns. Campaigns are the largest units within Google Ads and usually signify a broad category. Within campaigns, it is necessary to have at least two Ad Groups.

Ad Groups are more specific categories within a campaign. Further, each Ad Group must have at least two ads. Ads are what appear in Google searches and are specific to certain keywords. Having two ads within each Ad Group allows you to compare the performance between the two. This act of comparison is crucial to successful grant management. By tweaking underperforming ads, you can learn why some ads perform better than others and improve the success of your account over time.

Submit your site to Google Ad Grant for review and approval

Once your account is set up correctly, you’re free to submit the second part of your application to Google. After a few days, Google will respond to your application. So long as the structure is consistent with the guidelines, you’ll be approved and can begin using your account.

Receive approval

At this point, you’ve successfully received the Google Ad Grant. So long as your account remains in compliance, you’ll be able to create new campaigns, ad groups, and ads in accordance with your organization’s priorities. From here, the goal is to manage your account successfully, drive traffic to your website, and grow your base of supporters.

Landing the Google Ad Grant is a big accomplishment that can lead your organization’s long-term growth. As an easy, cost-effective way for nonprofits to market themselves, the Grant can be used to share your organization with a brand new audience. The acquisition process is designed to familiarize you with the basics of Google Grant management, helping even small organizations learn the basics.

Once your Grant is acquired, your goal is then to use it to maximum success. This involves learning more about successful grant management. In addition, organizations should continually invest in improving their website, ensuring that visitors have a plethora of high-quality content to engage with. With proper grant management and a high-quality website, you’ll begin to see increased traffic, conversions, and growth.

Five Ways Nonprofit Directors Can Build Brand

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Nonprofit Branding

In 1990 the most valuable labels were General Motors, Ford, Exxon, and IBM. By 2020, not one of those brands would be among the most valuable. Instead, 30 years later, Apple, Amazon, Google, and Microsoft led the list of most powerful brands by distinguishing their goods, services, and people from the competition. They found ways to stand out from the crowd and to win better opportunities. Savvy directors of nonprofits understand that brands influence how people perceive an organization or an individual, both the impressions that can be controlled and the ones that can’t.

When directors think about their roles in building and sustaining a brand, they usually concentrate on the organization’s brand, too often ignoring their personal brands. Organizational brands and personal brands, however, must march in lockstep precision to guarantee growth. When clients connect emotionally—because they share the same values and beliefs as those who made decisions about the brand—it leads to higher sales and better brand differentiation. A resilient brand encourages loyalty, advocacy, and innovation. Since clients often pay more for a brand they recognize, a strong brand can even protect price in times when competitors rely on promotional discounts to drive sales. A strong brand will also serve as the ideal platform from which to expand.

In businesses, names, products, logos, colors, fonts, voices, and reputations contribute to or detract from the brand. Similarly, individuals build personal brands through recognition of their faces, personalities, communication styles, talents, traits, and behaviors. These coalesce to cause others to think about a person in a particular way. When we think about the personal brands of directors, all these factors combine to form reputations that precede them and usually explain why they were asked to join a mission-driven board in the first place.

Here are ways directors can build durable personal and organizational brands:

  1. Start with the mission. A mission statement should play the same role in an organization and in a person’s life that the Holy Grail did in the Crusades. The mission defines the reason for being, the touchstone against which to evaluate strategy, activities, and expectations for overcoming the competition. Without this, directors will diffuse resources, enable individual units of the organization to operate in silos, create conflicting tactics, and confuse customers, suppliers, financiers, and employees. Conversely, when directors have a well-articulated sense of purpose for themselves and the organization they serve, they build a firm foundation that provides clear guidance for all significant decisions and establishes a point of reference for setting strategy and planning its execution. How clear is the mission statement? Does it inspire people to work to accomplish it? Remember it should answer four and only four questions:
    – Why do we exist?
    – What is our business?
    – Who are our customers?
    – What do they value?
    These are the same four questions directors should ask themselves about their role on the board. They also help to define the brand. A robust brand promotes the nonprofit, connects it with the donor base, and differentiates the organization from others in the nonprofit space.
  2. Think of a brand as a person. Each person has unique characteristics, talents, experiences, and perceptions. Would everyone on the board describe the nonprofit’s brand with the same adjectives? If not, no unified message will come from directors, and ultimately customers will get confused. No one likes confusion, so when it exists, risk follows. Each year, as directors discuss and adjust the upcoming year’s strategy, also examine how the organization’s brand has changed or remained the same since last year. Things like a global pandemic are bound to suggest changes to the brand—not necessarily or usually the mission.
  3. Revisit the driving forces of the nonprofit, which exist by default, even if you have not deliberately chosen them. How do you explain the nonprofit’s success? What we sell? To whom we sell? Our production capability? Our method of distribution? Make sure everyone agrees about the unique contribution of the organization and leverage what works. Resist the temptation to engage in that’s-the-way-we’ve-always-done-things-around-here thinking. Each year ask the question, “If we weren’t already doing things this way, would we now start?”
  4. Do business with donors who believe in what the nonprofit does. Build evangelism among your best donors, and they will help you build the brand. Also, develop personal relationships with these best donors and check in with them frequently to find out what they need and expect from the organization. Develop referral relationships with those upon whom the organization relies. For example, board directors at a pediatric bridge hospital would benefit from forming personal relationships with physicians from local hospitals and supporting their fundraising and outreach efforts.
  5. As a director, figure out your unique contribution. What can you do for this nonprofit that no one else (or not many others) can do? Boards should attract like-minded people with diverse backgrounds and talents. Each will have a way to help build the brand. Additionally, employees and donors should see board members living the mission of the organization. For faith-based organizations, this often means directors do more than attend church services; they become actively involved in their churches, of ten assuming leadership roles. In secular organizations, directors should demonstrate in tangible ways a passion for the mission.

Brand development depends on directors’ playing the long game. Dressing up products, raising expectations, and breaking promises don’t do that. When directors take control of building their personal brands, they position themselves to help build the nonprofit organization’s image in the industry. They understand how to create trust and remain true to their own values and those of the organizations they serve. When directors, management, and employees all speak to the donors with a consistent tone, they work together to establish a coherent, distinctive identity and reinforce the organization’s character. They innovate and make decisions to grow, not by diluting their brand with indiscriminate discounting but by offering more and better products and services.

Email Marketing – Top Challenges Keeping Your Emails from the Inbox

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Email Fundraising TipsEmail marketing is a crucial channel for nonprofit marketers. In fact, email accounted for 28 percent of all online revenue for nonprofits in 2017. Given how nonprofits rely on email to connect with their donors, volunteers, and advocates, it may come as a surprise to learn that nonprofit marketers are struggling to reach the inbox. A recent study by Return Path found that, on average, 19 percent of nonprofit emails are sent to the spam folder—more than double the overall spam placement average of nine percent.

So what’s causing this loss in email opportunity? Poor sender reputation.

As mailbox providers receive incoming messages, they check the reputation of the sender to determine where to deliver the message. Senders with a strong reputations are delivered to the inbox, while those with a poor reputations are delivered to the spam folder. There are hundreds of signals that determine your reputation which contribute to determining how your mail is delivered. Following are the two biggest factors that may be harming your reputation, along with tactics to help nonprofit marketers reach their advocates’ inboxes.

List Hygiene, Cleaning an Email List

List hygiene refers to the quality of the email addresses you have on your mailing list. Mailbox providers look at the quality of your list when determining whether to accept your messages and where to place them. There are three types of “bad” addresses which impact list quality.

  1. Spam traps are emails created to identify marketers with poor list hygiene. Having even one spam trap on your list will lead to a significant decline in deliverability.
  2. Unknown users are email addresses that don’t exist, have been terminated by the mailbox provider, or were abandoned by the end-user. Mail that is sent to these addresses will be returned with an unknown user code.
  3. Inactive addresses are subscribers who have not taken any action with your email in a long time.

To maintain a healthy email list, try the following:

Use a list validation service.  By running your entire list through a validation service, you can eliminate invalid emails and ensure that every address is owned by a real, active user. You should also re-validate periodically as you add new advocates to your list.

Monitor your list and remove inactive addresses. Suppress and remove subscribers who have not engaged with your email program within the last 60 days. This will help you identify addresses that could potentially harm your reputation.

Email Marketing Spam Complaints

On average, nonprofits receive spam complaints on 0.65 percent of their emails. That’s about one out of every 150 emails sent! Not only is this well above the overall average for spam complaints, but it’s also more than three times the recommended complaint rate advised by most mailbox providers (no higher than 0.2 percent).

Complaints are a direct signal from your subscribers that your content is unwanted. As such, mailbox providers factor complaints heavily in their placement decisions, because they want to create the best possible inbox experience for their users.

To combat complaints, try the following:

Sign up for feedback loops. A feedback loop is a service that tracks the messages that receive subscriber complaints and sends a report back to the sender. By signing up for feedback loops at all the mailbox providers you send to, you can get insight into when and why subscribers complain.

Identify why subscribers complain and make adjustments. Once you are signed up for feedback loops, you can begin to analyze the complaints you’re receiving. Are you seeing complaints when you first start emailing new subscribers? Are certain campaigns generating a lot of complaints? Have you made changes to your program and seen complaints spike? Use these signals of subscriber dissatisfaction to identify where you need to improve your subscribers’ email experience.

Newsletters Best Practices for Nonprofits

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Best Nonprofit NewslettersOne of the smartest tools you can have in your relationship-building arsenal is a newsletter. It doesn’t matter if it’s electronic or printed, this regular connection with your audiences is one of the most important assets your nonprofit organization can develop.

What is a newsletter?

A newsletter is a regular and reliable publication produced by your nonprofit organization that shares valuable news and information with your audiences. The key is to present the information in a way that is aligned with the reader’s self-interest.

This is no small point. A mistake too many organizations make is droning on and on about themselves without advancing their business goals with the reader.

Why is it so valuable?

Producing a newsletter may sound old school, given all the platforms and ways we can stay in touch with audiences. But here’s why relying on external platforms, without developing your own, is risky and why you need to think about a newsletter in a new way.

If Facebook or Twitter or Instagram collapsed tomorrow, all your content and contacts would vanish. Not so with a newsletter.

If you regard your newsletter and its subscriber list as assets, you’d focus much more of your time and effort on building your newsletter. In fact, it’s one of the most important activities of your marketing initiatives.

Your development team only has so much time and energy available, especially if that department is one person or smaller. The development office has to focus on the highest value relationships—in other words, donors with the highest giving capacity. They are not able to spend as much time with donors who contribute smaller amounts.

Herein lies the rub. These smaller donors are still critical to your nonprofit, especially if you’re a membership organization or need demonstrable proof to another entity that you’ve got community support. And you never know when these smaller donors turn into larger ones nor who else they know.

Your newsletter then is the virtual (or paper) representation of your nonprofit organization that gets out there to cultivate your relationships.

Nonprofit Newsletters: Best practices

Here are seven tips to make sure you create your newsletter using best practices.

  1. Know your audience. Why are they connected with your nonprofit? What do they need to know? What do you hope to gain by communicating with this group?
  2. Write for your audience. Gear the content to your reader. If your audience is too diverse, consider multiple newsletters.
  3. Short and to the point. Everyone’s busy. Keep it brief and pithy.
  4. Use images. People learn in different ways. Interesting photos make your newsletter interesting to read and look at.
  5. Hire a graphic designer. Poorly designed newsletters will be deleted (or thrown in the trash). Invest in resources to make sure your newsletter gets read.
  6. Be regular and consistent. It’s how you build trust.
  7. Sum of the parts creates the whole. Showcase multiple areas of your organization so that you’re building a relationship, communicating lots of interesting tidbits, underscoring your success and impact, and engaging your audience.

How do you get started?

First determine whether having a newsletter is aligned with your organizational and marketing strategies. Then make a commitment to get started. Spend time conceiving the purpose, brand, and regular features of your newsletter. A staff member or team must take responsibility and be accountable for producing it with the support of external resources, as needed, on a regular basis.

Whether it’s in-depth and periodic or short and frequent, have fun with the newsletter and with engaging the important people in your community.

 


Nonprofit Marketing Resources to Help You Reach More Donors

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Nonprofit Marketing ResourcesA marketer’s job is to utilize their budget to drive as much revenue as possible, and for nonprofit marketers this need is heightened.

But for the nonprofit marketer, “driving revenue” takes on a different and more delicate aspect. The goal isn’t to sell people on an expensive product they don’t really need. It’s to show potential donors the impact their funds can make, and reassure them it’s a good place to spend their philanthropy dollars. Because nonprofits invest so heavily into the vital programs they run, their marketing budgets are limited and their expectations are high.

The resources below were collected especially for nonprofit marketers, covering a variety of overlooked opportunities, free marketing tools, and special discounts offered exclusively to nonprofits.

Internal Resources You Might Not Be Maximizing

Because nonprofits are typically on a tight budget, it’s important for nonprofit marketers to maximize the resources they already have access to.

Google Analytics

Many nonprofit websites already have Google Analytics installed – in fact, Google’s Chief Business Officer Nikesh Arora was quoted in 2012 saying that more than 10 million websites worldwide do!

Most marketers have experience using Google Analytics, but fail to capitalize on the full benefit of this free software. Here are a few ways to use Google Analytics that go beyond looking at sessions and traffic sources:

    1. Create custom dashboards for automated reporting. Wired Impact has a few free dashboards made especially for nonprofits.
    2. Monitor site speed. Having a website that loads very quickly helps your visitors’ experience, and is beneficial for SEO. Significant changes in site speed may also indicate greater technical problems that your developer or webmaster can address. To view your site speed, go to Behavior > Site Speed in the left hand navigation and set your desired date range.
    3. Track custom goals. Setting up custom goals is a great way to track the different actions that you value. For example, you can set up goals to track newsletter subscriptions, donations, or online membership registrations. This helps you understand your conversion rate, or the percentage of users who complete a desired action.

Your Email List

Many nonprofits have email lists of current and potential donors who have expressed interest in the organization. Larger customer lists can be expensive to host and maintain, so it is important to maximize their benefit. Email lists are commonly used for sending updates, newsletters, resources, and requesting donations.

Here are a few other ways that you can use your email list:

  1. Use automation sequences to reach donors at vital points in their “customer” journey. Engage new subscribers immediately by sending a welcome email series. Send automated emails to donors at regular frequencies to solicit new donations. These emails will be in addition to timely campaigns that offer current news and updates.
  2. Cross-promote your social media channels and website. Reaching your donors through a variety of channels helps strengthen your brand and exposure. Encourage your email subscribers to follow your most important social media pages, and explain to them the unique value you provide on each channel. For example, you may share heartwarming volunteer stories on Facebook or re-share photos that your members tag you in on Instagram.
  3. Send surveys learn more about your audience. Quantitative and qualitative surveys can help you learn more about user demographics, perceptions, behavior, and objections.

Note: Respecting your members’ data privacy is vital, especially where email is concerned. Immediately set the expectation of exactly how you will use your member’s data and the types of emails they will receive before they subscribe – this is especially important for members from EU, where GDPR (general data protection regulation) applies. Discussions around GDPR and other governmental privacy regulations are beyond the scope of this post, and deserve specific attention by your legal team.

Online Reviews

If your nonprofit is active online, chances are you’ve already garnered reviews on Facebook or Guidestar. Online reviews can provide compelling, emotional testimonials that may attract new donors and members. Consider placing testimonials on your website, or using them for social media marketing.

Note: Be sure to ask the reviewer’s permission to use their positive testimonial in your marketing materials and retain documentation of their consent. Using testimonials may not be appropriate for all nonprofits such as those serving vulnerable communities or helping with sensitive topics.

Online reviews can also provide insight into the language your donors use. Reflecting your member’s concerns and objections using the same terminology they use doesn’t just help reduce miscommunication, it also helps you connect with your audience and build rapport.

Organizational Communications

Anyone in your nonprofit in a consumer-facing role will have valuable information about the challenges and objections your donors have, as well as the language they use when they talk about your organization.

Customer service representatives, sales people, and corporate donor managers are all valuable resources that you can use to take your marketing a step further. Try this:

Sit in on sales and customer service calls

Both sales and customer service calls can be leveraged for marketing. There is often a divide between departments, but working together can truly benefit everyone in the organization.

From these calls you can learn common objections that potential donors have, and you can begin to craft communications to overcome those objections before they ever speak to a representative.

You can also record calls to review or transcribe later, but you may be required to gain the consent of the caller to do so.

Ask customer service the most common questions they hear

Understanding the questions your donors ask allows you to clarify your messaging and answer customer questions. This increases the number of users who donate, subscribe to your newsletter, or register as members. Calls like this can also mitigate and reduce demands on customer service.

Free Marketing Tools and Software for Nonprofits

In addition to internal resources that many nonprofits already have but may be under-utilizing, there are dozens of free marketing tools that nonprofits can leverage.

SEO

Screaming Frog has a free website crawling tool that can help you identify broken links, analyze metadata, and see duplicate pages.

Web Page Test allows you to test your site speed performance from multiple locations, and identify opportunities to improve your site speed.

Email

Mailchimp has one of the most robust free packages available to nonprofits. Their basic membership covers up to 2,000 subscribers, 12,000 monthly emails, and includes automation features.

Hubspot offers robust contact management software including features like Gmail integration, pop-up forms, and email templates.

Social Media

Hootsuite has one of the most robust free plans that allows you to schedule up to 30 posts to 3 accounts.

Buffer’s free plan allows you to schedule up to 10 posts at once and create custom graphics.

Followerwonk is a Twitter tool that allows you to gain insights into your Twitter following, including their locations and when they are active online.  

Website Conversion Rate Optimization

Google Optimize is a free tool that allows you to run A/B and multivariate tests on your website. It has an easy to use visual editor, and integrates seamlessly with Google Analytics.

Stock Photos

Shopify Burst is a directory of free images that can be used for personal or commercial purposes with or without attribution.

Pixabay has a free library of 1.6 million photos and videos that can be used for advertising and marketing.

Create Her Stock is a free subscription service that specializes in authentic stock photos featuring black women.

Surveys

Google Forms allows you to easily create and share free surveys and polls. Responses are easy to view or download as an Excel file.

Typeform has a basic free plan that allows you to ask up to 10 questions, and collect up to 100 responses per month.

Events

Evite allows you to send digital invitations by email or social media, and track RSVPs for your event.

 

10 Marketing Tools With Nonprofit Discounts

The following marketing software companies offer exclusive discounts with proof of nonprofit status. If you have an existing paid account with these companies but do not have a reduced rate, many of them will apply the discount to active accounts.

  1. Moz – 75% off – Moz is a leading SEO software that can help you track your backlinks and important keywords.
  2. Buffer – 50% off – Buffer is a tool for social media that allows you to post, review analytics, and engage with users from all social media platforms in a single location.
  3. Todoist – 50% off – Todoist is an organizational tool that helps you manage tasks and projects.
  4. Eventzilla – 25% off – Eventzilla is event registration software that helps you sell tickets, process payments, and survey attendees.
  5. Wordstream – 25% off – Wordstream helps organizations maximize their results from multiple ad platforms including Facebook, Google Ads, Instagram, and Bing.
  6. Paypal – 24% off transaction fees – Paypal is a payment processor that can be used for donations, ticket sales, and e-commerce payments.
  7. Mailchimp – 15% off – Mailchimp is an email provider. They have a free plan for up to 2,000 subscribers, and offer 15% off to nonprofits for paid plans.
  8. Zapier – 15% off – Zapier helps you connect and integrate different more than 1,000 softwares and apps.
  9. Shopify – unknown discount – Shopify is an e-commerce website platform that allows you to build, host, and maintain an e-commerce site for your nonprofit. Contact their team for details on nonprofit pricing.
  10. VWO – unknown discount – VWO is a visual editor that allows you to test design modifications with A/B and multivariate tests. Contact their team for details on nonprofit pricing.

Marketing success doesn’t have to be defined by whoever has the biggest budget. Most marketers aren’t using the full potential of their marketing tools and the teams that make up the organization. There are also a wide array of useful free programs online that can help with everything from SEO to event management. And when expensive enterprise software is inevitable, many marketing software companies offer nonprofit discounts.

Remember, as a nonprofit marketer your career offers unique rewards. Not only will you be more successful: the farther you take your budget, the greater impact your organization can have on the community you serve.

 

6 Essential Email Tips for Nonprofit Marketers

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Nonprofit Email TipsNavigating the world of email marketing for a nonprofit can be tough, especially as inboxes become more and more crowded. To break through the noise and make a genuine, helpful connection with your donors, consider how automation, mobile design, calls to action, subject lines, list growth and segmentation come into play within your email marketing. The following piece will explore those topics in more depth.

 

  1. Automate to reach donors at the right time.

Some marketers are hesitant to embrace automation, but it’s an easy way to both save time and send more personalized messages. Nonprofits should consider it a win-win. Think of a thank you email: if someone makes a donation to your nonprofit, that should trigger an automated email thanking them for doing so. Or, if someone signs up for your email list, you should automate a welcome series that asks them to set their preferences, introduces some of your biggest projects, and asks them to get involved.

Email Nonprofit MarketingNot only will you be able to scale your work more efficiently, you will get great results in the process: Automated email messages average 70.5% higher open rates and 152% higher click-through rates than “business as usual” marketing messages, according to Epsilon Email Institute. These are some of the highest-performing emails you could ever send, so don’t miss this critical opportunity to build customer loyalty.

  1. Design with mobile in mind.

Your audience is likely checking their inbox on a phone, so now more than ever, emails should look beautiful whether they’re opened on a smartphone, tablet, or desktop. When in doubt, design for a small screen first. Nonprofit marketers can create compelling mobile-friendly content by focusing on the following strategies: arranging content in a single-column format, Incorporating white space throughout and organizing content with sections clearly designated with headers and dividers. Effective mobile design helps boost click rates, helps engage your audience when they are on the go and increases credibility for your brand.

  1. Include a compelling call to action.

Speaking of mobile: be sure to use buttons over text links for your primary call to action, since buttons are much easier to see and tap on a small screen. An effective CTA button should tell you exactly what happens when you click through. That doesn’t mean every call-to-action button should say “donate now,” though. For instance, charity: water often gets creative with their call-to-action language, avoiding words like “donate” in favor of language like this: “Say it with water.”

email for nonprofits

  1. Test your subject lines.

Because it’s one of the primary criteria recipients will use to decide whether or not to open or delete your email, subject lines should be compelling and irresistible to open. Subject lines are competitive by nature, so marketers should take advantage of this behavior by split testing them against one another. Split testing is an easy way to boost open rates, and simple subject line changes can produce big results for nonprofits.

  1. Make list growth a priority.

Your email marketing can only be as successful as the quality of your subscriber list. Because the average list churns 25-30% year-over-year, you need to constantly be growing your audience with new subscribers.

Growing your list ultimately starts on your website, and knowing how and where to use the right tools on your site is important. For instance, Emma customer Thistle Farms set up their lightbox signup form to appear on a 7-second time delay. That way, people have enough time to get to their website, comprehend what they’re doing, and sign up for the Thistle Farms email list if they want to. If not, it’s easy for website visitors to exit the form and go about their business.Nonprofit Donor Marketing

  1. Segment for relevant messaging.

Once you’ve gathered subscribers and welcomed them to your list, you NEED to be segmenting whenever possible, even if it’s just by how they signed up or their engagement with that first welcome email. The best email marketing relies on relevant, personalized messaging, and segmentation is what will get you there. Some key things to segment by…

  • How they signed up
  • Location
  • Engagement (highly engaged, inactive, etc.)
  • Donation amount
  • By any action, really. If you have the data, use it!

 

Wrapping it up

Strategic email marketing is critical to nurturing current donors and converting prospective ones. Email is king for all organizations, but especially nonprofits. Take into account this stat: 47% of marketers report that email generates the most ROI for their organization, and 58% plan to increase spending on email marketing during the next year. Now’s the time for nonprofits to optimize their email marketing strategies, and the tips in this article should help set them up for success.

 

5 Ways Nonprofits can Drive More Value from the Email Channel

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email for nonprofitsNonprofits are dependent on their ability to connect with donors, volunteers, and advocates—and drive them to action. Without this generous audience, most nonprofits simply couldn’t exist. And yet it’s well known that nonprofits are often strapped for time, budget, and resources—so reaching supporters in a cost-effective way can be challenging.

Today, many innovative and successful nonprofit organizations are turning to one solution to help with this task: email marketing. Email is truly a perfect fit for all of a nonprofit’s communication needs; it is a cost effective channel that’s easy to use, it can reach a vast audience quickly, and it’s proven to drive results.

Whether it’s being used to raise funds for a worthy cause, drive attendance at an upcoming rally, or otherwise mobilize supporters, email is a critical channel for nonprofits. In fact, a recent study of nonprofit marketing found that email raises an average of $36 for every 1,000 messages sent, and accounts for 26 percent of online revenue.

With numbers like those, it’s important for nonprofits to take full advantage of the email channel. And that means really digging into how email works, to understand the various factors that can influence the success of an email campaign. Following are five areas to consider as you build—or improve—your nonprofit’s email program.

  1. Understand the importance of reaching the inbox

Email provides a great opportunity to appeal to advocates and raise much-needed funds. But in order to be successful, your email campaigns first need to land in the inbox.

Not every email reaches its intended destination. Some are “bounced” due to bad email addresses and other factors. Others get caught in spam filters before they are delivered. Only those messages that actually land in the inbox have the potential to mobilize your audience, so maximizing inbox placement is critical.

As of 2017, the average inbox placement rate for nonprofits is 76 percent—which means that one out of every four messages cannot fulfill its intended purpose. Inbox placement is influenced by many factors—including sender reputation, list quality, and subscriber engagement—so there’s plenty that a nonprofit marketer can do to improve this critical metric.

  1. Get to know your sender reputation

As a nonprofit marketer, your main goal is to get supporters to take action. However, the mailbox providers that decide whether your email reaches the inbox (like Gmail, Yahoo, and AOL) have a very different agenda. Their primary objective is to provide the best possible inbox experience for their customers—email recipients. And that means delivering only the messages that consumers really want, and sending any unwanted mail to the spam folder.

Sender reputation is a significant factor in these filtering decisions. Much like a credit score helps a bank to determine a borrower’s creditworthiness, sender reputation provides a way for mailbox providers to distinguish between legitimate senders and spammers. Many factors contribute to your sender reputation, including spam complaints, sending practices, and list quality. A good reputation increases the chances that your email will be delivered to the inbox, while a poor reputation will land your messages in the spam folder.

Return Path offers a free tool for calculating your sender reputation, called Sender Score. Our research shows that nonprofit companies have relatively few reputation issues, but it’s always a good idea to monitor your sender reputation to prevent possible inbox placement concerns.

  1. Learn about list quality

Having a “clean” subscriber list is important for any email marketer, but it’s especially challenging for those in the nonprofit sector. Because nonprofits aren’t selling anything or offering subscribers any direct benefits (like sales or discounts), they often struggle to grow and maintain a high-quality list.

Some nonprofits resort to renting or purchasing a list, but this is generally not advisable. Although they can provide quick and easy access to a large number of subscribers, rented or purchased lists can be littered with spam traps, unknown users, and other undesirables. Sending to these bad addresses will damage your sender reputation and limit your ability to reach the inbox. The best way to acquire new subscribers is to do so organically.

Of course, building your list is only half the battle. It’s also critical to monitor your list and take action to ensure that it remains as clean as possible. This includes keeping an eye out for inactive subscribers, removing any address that produces a hard bounce, and taking advantage of the feedback loops that are offered by many mailbox providers.

  1. Make a real connection with your subscribers

Every nonprofit marketer knows the importance of loyal, engaged donors and volunteers. But engaged email subscribers serve another purpose, beyond ensuring that worthy causes are supported. They can also help to make sure your email messages reach their intended target.

As part of their ongoing efforts to combat spam and other threats, mailbox providers like Microsoft, Google, Yahoo, and AOL have begun using “engagement metrics” to understand what content their users truly value. These metrics go beyond sender reputation to look at how users interact with messages from a given sender—things like how many messages are read, replied to, forwarded, and deleted without reading.

By understanding how subscribers engage with a sender’s messages, mailbox providers are better able to determine whether those emails are wanted by subscribers. Our research shows that nonprofits tend to have some difficulty with subscriber engagement, as the average read rate for nonprofit emails is just 17 percent (compared to 22 percent for all commercial emails). Additional insights can be found in this report – The Nonprofit’s Guide to Email Marketing 

  1. Take advantage of whitelisting

Whitelists are the “secret weapon” of many successful nonprofit marketers. A whitelist is a record of senders who meet established standards for reputation, engagement, and sending practices, thus proving themselves to be legitimate and responsible. Email from whitelisted senders receives special treatment, including reduced filtering, resulting in higher inbox placement rates.

Individual mailbox providers offer whitelisting services, but these benefits are limited to email sent to their own users. Since most nonprofits have subscribers at a variety of email clients, most opt for a more universal whitelist that provides preferred handling with multiple mailbox providers.

Nonprofit Marketing : Challenges, Strategies and Best Practices

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Nonprofit MarketingNonprofit organizations are inherently unique. Spanning nearly ever sector and industry, nonprofits are driven more by a mission than simply the financial bottom line.

Most nonprofits promote a purpose that tugs at the heartstrings, giving people a reason to care—and still, many organizations struggle to use this as a foundation for their marketing efforts. While a number of the obstacles nonprofits face in their marketing efforts can be attributed to budget and staffing shortfalls, nonprofit marketing success is, by all means, possible.

By investing in tactics that provide the most value for your dollar, nonprofits of any size can create and nurture a marketing strategy that will further their organization’s purpose and build a strong community of supporters.

Use earned media to your advantage

Unlike traditional paid advertising campaigns that can quickly deplete any budget, investing in public relations and earned media is an effective way to deliver your organization’s message to your target audience without forking out loads of cash.

A major benefit to leveraging earned media is that it is an effective tool for nonprofits of all sizes. While it’s not always possible to attract national attention from the start, a regional nonprofit could pitch local media outlets for broadcast interviews during events to raise awareness of its programs and services. Once that media relationship is established, the initial coverage can be leveraged to bring in bigger media outlets.

Media coverage is a cost-effective tactic that allows your organization’s leaders to drive home the impact the organization is making through effective, personal storytelling.

Sage worked with Washington, D.C.-based Halcyon House to promote the personal stories of the fellows and the organization’s support of their work to establish several personalized stories in target media outlets.

Use email to directly engage with stakeholders

According to Campaign Monitor, personalized email marketing for nonprofits is 40 times more effective at engaging new supporters than social media. With that being said, an effective email marketing campaign allows nonprofits to build relationships with people who have already expressed interest in your cause.

For any email campaign, an organization should aim to execute the following tactics:

  • Tell the organization’s story and promote the brand
  • Show donors how their donations are making an impact
  • Initiate a call-to-action at the end of the email

Recently, Sage worked to create a three-month, two-tier email influencer campaign to give away unique experience through an online contest to raise funds and awareness for Halcyon House through the “I am Halcyon” campaign.

Use your website to tie your campaigns together

For any nonprofit, the website should serve as a focal point for your target audience to learn about and engage with the organization. A well-designed website can be instrumental in engaging new members, raising funds and communicating with decision-makers.

A nonprofit’s website should be optimized to drive traffic to the website, connect with other marketing campaigns and intertwine with social media content.

Sage has worked with a number of Washington, D.C.-based organizations to create a website that houses the information needed to inform and engage their target audiences, including Halycon House, DC Jazz Festival and Capitol Riverfront.

Use authentic, targeted content to reach your target audiences

Cause-driven organizations have to communicate with members of their audiences in a personal and genuine manner. And unlike other industries, this means that nonprofits must generate content that is authentic and hyper-targeted to each segment of the target audience in order for it to be effective.

For nonprofit organizations, content development can make a significant positive impact on achieving their mission. In order to develop and maintain a strong pipeline of content, organizations should do the following:

  • Develop a hierarchy for target audiences so that content tailored to primary stakeholders is prioritized
  • Create a content calendar on a weekly, bi-weekly or monthly basis
  • Identify key themes to address throughout the year
  • Publish content on a central location and share through all available channels
  • Repurpose content to save time and make the most of what you’ve already created

Use social media to promote your message and engage with members of your audience

Social media marketing is a one-on-one, relationship-building tool for all organizations. By cutting through the barriers established between an organization and the average person, a nonprofit is able to reach a large audience and engage with them on an individual level.

Best practices when it comes to social media include:

  • Targeting your audience through tailored content and posting times
  • Prioritize certain platforms based on your organizational mission (Facebook may reach more of your target audience than Twitter)
  • Interact frequently with your followers
  • Leverage analytics to improve and reposition your overall strategy

In addition to what organizations are doing right, we’ve all seen the negative impact mistakes can have on organizations when it comes to social media. It is important, even for nonprofits, to avoid making common mistakes on their social media accounts, including using generic messaging, failing to post regularly and ignoring individual comments.

There are numerous opportunities for nonprofits when it comes to a marketing strategy. Despite budget, staffing and other restrictions that exist, today’s expansive communication landscape has made it possible for any organization to reach their target audience with their messaging.

Nonprofits already have the upper hand when it comes to marketing—their purpose. A well-planned and executed marketing strategy can turn any nonprofit’s purpose into a major phenomenon among individuals who identify with the cause.

How to Optimize Your Nonprofit’s Storytelling Skills for Marketing Success

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Marketing Nonprofit TipsTelling a good cause story: It can be the biggest difference between you and your competitors. Storytelling can help set you apart in a field of similar charities and nonprofits, and it all comes down to how strong your strategies are. It isn’t enough to simply have your mission laid out on your website – and with so many avenues and creative outlets online, why would you even want to stop there?

The truth is, adept storytelling can do a number of things: It can help position your nonprofit as being both sympathetic and dynamic; it can bring in new donors while retaining current ones; it can expand your reach and establish your brand digitally. It’s the foundation of cause marketing for good reason.

Here are five ways you can strengthen your storytelling skills to help your nonprofit’s marketing:

  1. Play to your potential donors emotions

One of the best ways to reaffirm your nonprofit’s vision is by creating a solid emotional connection between you and your potential donors. Appeal to the soft side of your audience by crafting a story that hinges around how donations can end suffering, provide help, or make the impossible possible – just think about how well those humanitarian aid commercials go right for your heart. For example, the Animal Humane Society put out a video designed to tug on the heartstrings of anyone watching – it’s easy to get caught up in the humanized voices of the animals and their pleas.

Also, don’t forget to keep up with those emotional appeals once you’ve got a solid donor base! Now that you have regular donors, keep them updated with stories of how their contributions are helping you help others. Check out the storytelling episode on the Asking For More podcast for more great ideas.

  1. Social media is key to communicate your nonprofit’s story

Storytelling is vital in today’s attention economy. Social media values stories, and you, as a nonprofit, clearly have plenty of amazing stories to tell – whether they’re about the goals you’re striving towards, the projects you’ve completed, or the ongoing help you’re providing to the community. You’re making a significant impact on the lives of others, and there’s no better way to communicate this than through social media.

Social media tools are the perfect avenues to share these stories and to get instant feedback, validation and confirmation of the important work you’re doing. Set up accounts on the most popular social networks – Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram are good places to start – and have a set schedule for posting fresh content. Nonprofits like Doctors Without Borders use Instagram to show photos of their on-the-ground relief efforts, and the American Heart Association on Twitter utilizes its own hashtags to start conversations.

  1. Try real-time communications

Your nonprofit’s storytelling efforts don’t need to be static; in fact, if they’re happening in the moment, they’re more likely to engage more people. Think about the telethons of old – people would tune in to watch variety shows and celebrities work the phone lines as nonprofits and charities called for pledges. It’s about the in-the-moment participation with demonstrable results – and it’s easy to bring this type of strategy into modern-day marketing.

A fantastic example Keeping Up With The Kattarshians livestream video from Iceland. Broadcasting company Nutiminn capitalized on the Internet’s love for all things feline and set up a live webcam to continuously broadcast the antics of some very cute kittens (all available for adoption!). Not only are they jumping on the reality TV train for a good cause, they’re demonstrating a strong awareness of what can catch fire with online audiences.

  1. Involve your donors in problem solving

Storytelling tactics are often very effective at bringing out emotion. Why not try something as simple as laying out a problem and presenting the solution your donors can be a part of? Your nonprofit can use this outline as an exercise in an appeal letter, a social media post, or an email.

Your outline should look something like this:

  • Begin with a sharp introduction to get the reader involved, with a clear example to create a mental visual.
  • Keep sentences short to help develop a sense of urgency, and repeat pronouns like “we” to make the story more personal and help the reader feel directly involved.
  • State the problem and your nonprofit’s goal in human and visual terms, making it very relatable, while referring directly to the reader, who feels like they are now a part of the story.
  • Last, be sure to offer your  nonprofit’s thanks and reinforce your message.

  1. Have a sense of humor

Last but certainly not least, don’t be afraid to present your nonprofit’s story with a touch of humor. It’s possible that going too grim or dark could turn off potential donors, so consider your cause and how you might be able to lighten things up a bit. Take this commercial for Furkids Animal Rescue and Shelter – the Huffington Post called it a “low-budget masterpiece,” and it still holds up today. (Bonus: sometimes the funniest content is low on cost!)

It may seem like an extra use of resources, but trust us when we say that creative forms of storytelling can be the secret weapon you need to get even more attention for your nonprofit. Keep building on these strategies to spread the word about your cause – and before long, you might start seeing an organic increase in those who believe in you.

Crucial Considerations When Conducting an Organizational Rebrand

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Nonprofit RebrandingDevereux Advanced Behavioral Health was founded in 1912 by special education pioneer Helena Devereux. What began as a small school in a private home serving 12 students has since grown into one of the nation’s largest non-profit behavioral healthcare providers, servings thousands of individuals and families across 13 states annually. Devereux Advanced Behavioral Health was founded in 1912 by special education pioneer Helena Devereux. What began as a small school in a private home serving 12 students has since grown into one of the nation’s largest non-profit behavioral healthcare providers, servings thousands of individuals and families across 13 states annually.

Naturally, as our organization’s mission has grown, so too, has our brand. An expansion of programs and services led to a need for change and, in late 2014, Devereux began a sweeping review of its name, brand promise and purpose – embarking on a comprehensive rebranding initiative. The goal was to clarify and amplify Devereux’s long-term vision and supporting strategy, and to guide its day-to-day operating focus with a robust brand that more fully embodied the breadth of the organization’s services, reach and impact.

Exploring and establishing Devereux’s new brand identity was exciting and transformative, but it was not taken lightly. It was a tremendous undertaking and required significant input, time and talent from people across – and outside of – the organization. After two years of extensive research and planning with internal and external stakeholders, a new name and brand identity emerged – moving from the name Devereux to Devereux Advanced Behavioral Health. Our new tagline: Unlocking Human Potential.
A strong brand is one of an organization’s greatest assets. Your brand aligns all of your organization’s constituents by guiding the creation of meaningful strategy and engaging staff at every level, which ensures your brand promise is kept for those the organization serves.

For nonprofit organizations looking to rethink, refresh or enhance their brands, below are a few points to consider when starting the process:

  • Don’t lose sight of the ultimate goal: A strong brand represents the spirit of an organization and communicates a simple and incredibly powerful promise to constituents. For a nonprofit that needs to satisfy not only its leadership and clients, but board members, donors, partners and other key stakeholders, checking all the boxes throughout the rebranding process can be daunting. Therefore, it is crucial to not lose sight of the overall goal: To help people understand, commit to and actively support your mission – and ensure your organization is working at its peak to fulfill that mission.
  • Brand promise is everything: When it comes to rebranding, organizations may tend to focus on creative execution. Of course, designing a fresh logo and visual impact is important – it’s often the first impression you make on key audiences – but a strong brand is so much more than a cool or clever logo. A solid brand drives an organization to be disciplined in its operations and visionary in its strategy. Without the foundation of a strong, unique brand message, your creative identity will ultimately fall flat. Developing a brand message that embodies your mission and goals, aligns your organization’s day-to-day work and drives your long-term impact is far more critical.
  • Engage all stakeholders: When developing a new brand, staff engagement is key – these are the people who live your brand every day. In addition, remember to be inclusive by gathering input from all external partners. For Devereux, that meant working closely with families, clients, community advisors, educators, donors, referring agencies, schools and health professionals to understand their perception of – and connection to – our brand and future direction. Connecting with all stakeholders provided us with important insight and feedback that served to strengthen our brand, build early buy-in and understanding of our rebrand initiative and allowed us to reinforce our mission and the value of our brand promise.
  • Capitalize on the opportunity: While the work behind any rebrand effort is tremendous, it also creates an opportunity to generate excitement, engagement and pride among key stakeholders – and more closely align constituents and strengthen long-term strategy. The rebranding process is a critical time to re-tell your story to galvanize employees and remind clients, partners and other stakeholders about the critical work you do.
  • Refresh all branded resources and materials: While this may seem obvious, leave no stone unturned when it comes to finding and updating all brand assets such as websites, business cards, letterhead and signage. Another consideration: make sure your marketing materials reflect your new brand not only in look and feel, but also in tone. Your new brand must suffuse all copy and communications, so that the brand mission and promise come across clearly.
  • Communicate, communicate, communicate: Once an organization introduces a new brand, it can be tempting to think the work is done, but it is truly just beginning. The most important component of any rebranding effort is to inform and consistently engage all employees, partners and stakeholders. These are your brand ambassadors – and are the vehicles through which a new brand identity is cemented, and more importantly, through which a brand promise is upheld. Make sure these ambassadors understand how and why the brand is changing, and what that means to your organization and industry – and above all else, what that means to those you serve.

Taking on the task of rebranding an organization is no easy feat, but if it is approached in a thoughtful, inclusive and disciplined way, the result will make a positive and long-lasting impact.

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