How to do marketing for a non-profit organizations

Being tight on budget is a very common situation for an NGO. It does not mean though that you should compromise on the quality of your marketing promotion. It is just the approach and specifics of using one or another tool that you will have to pay attention to. 

Why is marketing so important for an NGO? Nonprofits do always have a goal just like a business organization. You help people, help animals, try to change the situation on one or another matter,  – those are your goals. Use the digital marketing solutions to reach them! Here’s how you start.

Step 1. Goals

Define and write down the goals. Each goal is a small plan and all together – a real strategy on how to promote your idea, venture, project, and so on. With clear plans it will also be easy to understand how you need to invest in the marketing activities to reach those goals. 

Step 2. Plan

Use the defined goals and complete a plan of promotion. Each objective can be reached by making certain marketing steps. For example, creating, publishing, spreading, and promoting right content you will be able to raise awareness of your audience. Define channels & complete the plan for each of them. 

Step 3. Be S.M.A.R.T.

Each activity, each goal, and each step should be Specific. You should know how to Measure it, as well as what to do to Achieve it. Is it Relevant to what you need? And what are the Time limits? Your venture should be SMART as well as your marketing approach. 

Step 4. Audience

You do many things and you do really good things. But for whom? You definitely know it so you should take a moment and describe those people. Because each marketing message should reach them. You can target multiple audiences and multiple personas within each audience. It is very important to differentiate and describe them separately as you will most probably use different ways to reach them.

Step 5. Messages

Here come the messages. They should be clear and later they should be “packed”. Why do you need to state those messages? Because those are the basic principles and ideas you need to include into each activity, each piece of content, each media, each event. Then even if you trust the marketing of your nonprofit to somebody else, even if those people or agencies change you will still know that the key messages are kept and shared with your audience.  

Step 6. Track

You have goals, messages, strategy, and a plan. Now you need to track how well your marketing activities perform. Analyzing their performance you see if you are getting what you need and if not what you should change: the tactics or the whole strategy – to get better results. 

How do you track your marketing results? By setting and tracking KPIs:

• Clicks & opens of your emails for email campaigns
• Ticket bookings & sells for event promotion activities
• Views, comments & subscriptions after running video campaigns
• Shares, likes, saves, comments of your social media publications
• Traffic, activity & logs on your website

and so on. 

Step 7. Improve

Whatever channels for marketing your nonprofit you chose you should keep in mind that they are dynamic, as well as their performance. Sometimes you will need to implement changes: 

• freeze one or few of them
• change tactics
• introduce & test new ones
• combine or separate them
• change KPIs tracked
• reconsider way the budget is distributed among the channels

and so on. 

Secret tool

Non-profit solutions in marketing are similar to basic business ones. It’s just that the accents vary. For example, content marketing is one of the most efficient and must-have channels for NGO promotion. Content is communication and good communication is exactly what you need to deliver your message to the audience. When we talk about content we mean articles in your blog, emails you send, photos and videos you create and publish on your social media accounts. It means that content will be the base of any promotion – it is a cross functional and multichannel tool. You will need content for SEO promotion, even creating ads you will use content.  So use this tool to make your promotion as efficient as possible:

1. Create more visual content. Photos, videos, illustrations, animated content, – those pieces of content are processed faster and easier than anything else. Show your audience your message, don’t only tell it.
2. Personalize the content. Let it make your audience feel, activate their emotions – it’s the emotion that makes them act, not just knowledge.
3. Educate your audience. Informative content is a must-have, especially if you need to attract funding and attention.
4. Stand out with your content. When your content is different your audience notices you, shares and spreads the word. Inspiring and outstanding ways of presenting information will help you raise awareness which is always a basic top goal for each NGO.
5. Pack your messages with content. Mission and values, principles and ideas, trends and news of the industry – all those things packed in content make a strong and powerful marketing asset that will help you reach your goals.

Use this plan when dealing with promotion of your nonprofit to make it smooth & efficient. Well planned & implemented marketing works well for both profit & non profit organizations, letting you invest your budget into the activities that will bring you necessary results. Promote your nonprofit, help your audience, deliver your messages, strengthen your position & reputation, attract funds, volunteers – let the world be aware of you!