A Modern Approach to Fundraising with Facebook

Most nonprofits receive the bulk of their donations during the last quarter of the year. The last two weeks are especially critical if you want to capitalise on the spirit of generosity, goodwill and concern for others that is so prominent during the holidays. Use the following strategies to avoid the pitfalls and put Facebook to its best use in your end of year fundraising campaigns!

Help Your Supporters to Create and Share Personal Stories

Most Facebook users like to share content with their family and friends that show them in their best light. Help your supporters to spread the news about your nonprofit and the work that they are doing with you to help your cause. Create text and images that show what a difference a supporter’s donation or volunteer effort is making in your community and invite your volunteers and donors to use them on their own Facebook pages and other social media and ask their connections to join in and help them help you increase your impact!

Expand Your Reach with Facebook Ads

Even if you are on a tight marketing budget, Facebook Ads can be a cost-effective way to expand your audience and increase your donations. Use demographics and other built-in Facebook tools to target who is likely to see your ad and increase the chances that they will respond with a donation or other form of support.

Show Your Gratitude

Facebook isn’t just a place where you can share your nonprofit’s stories and engage with supporters. Don’t forget that it’s a great platform for expressing your thanks for the work and efforts of your volunteers and advocates as well as calling attention to donations big and small from donors of all levels. Use Facebook to give thanks to everyone that is involved in your cause and helping your community on a regular basis.

Seek Balance in Your Approach

Many nonprofits fall into one of two camps when it comes to using Facebook. They either ignore it altogether or, they use it exclusively and ignore all their other communications channels. Seek a balanced approach when it comes to using Facebook to build your brand and raise funds. Make sure that you integrate your Facebook marketing efforts into your overall marketing strategy and use a voice that brings all your messaging on all your channels into alignment with your mission and the impact that you wish to create in your community!

Want to learn more about how to create a Facebook page for your nonprofit that will improve your brand and increase your connection with your supporters? Check out our article New Facebook for NFPs, published on our sister site for more tips and tricks on using the platform to boost your results!

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Are You Being Left Behind In The Marketing Stakes?

As the current focus for many NFPs at present is on budgets and figures, it should be noted that marketing for the next financial year will enter heavily into the equation. Did you successfully track your successes during the previous 12 months? Are you aware of which fundraising campaigns brought in the most money? Was there something that just didn’t work for your nonprofit?

Understanding your annual budget looking at both past and future options can be very exciting, but it is not without consequence. Allocate too little in a campaign, and you may fail to execute it appropriately. Allow too much, and you find yourself short in other areas. The decision you make now will determine the outcome 6 or 9 months down the line. So where should you be focusing your efforts to make a real difference without paying through the nose for the privilege?

Content Creation

Your focus should be on content creation with a twist. You want to engage, delight and inform. You want to surprise and inspire. It is no surprise then that storytelling should continue to be a significant aspect of this year’s goal. With the right stories, you can challenge and engage your viewers – this year’s nonprofit conversation needs to be all about you.

Influencer Marketing

Your NFP must source reputable personalities to get behind your brand and spread the word. Influencers are generally people not associated with a business but can promote and endorse and act on a company’s behalf. Influencer marketing takes the focus from more traditional marketing forms involving more of a personal connection to your organisation.

User Generated Content

With so many budding artists and storytellers out there, utilising user generated content is a great way to make yourself heard. Why not run a creative campaign asking for submissions to a competition? You can ask users to film an advertisement or photograph a relevant subject which you can then circulate across all of your social media avenues.

Thought Leaders

Thought leaders are becoming a popular way to market both for-profits and nonprofit organisations. Is there someone in your company that you could promote to this position? As a thought leader, they would need to be very vocal about all things related to your nonprofit, but it can be a very effective form of marketing if done well.

Live Video

We have seen an increase in the use of video for non-profit, but now organisations are beginning to realise the importance of live streaming video. The Motor Neurone Disease Association (MNDA) did a live internet stream of their conference in Australia with great success. They weren’t the first to utilise this technology, and they definitely won’t be the last.

Not all NFPs have huge budgets to compete with others. Many of these ideas can be incorporated into a more restricted budget yet still provide excellent results. What do you plan to add to your marketing budget this year?

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The Importance of Story Telling in your Marketing Campaigns

We see it time and time again. Costly PR campaigns are created and fail to gain an emotional connection with their viewers.

If you want to increase your donor funds and gain more supporters, it is imperative you tell a story that connects with your readers. Simple facts, while interesting, are just not good enough for today’s modern donors.

It doesn’t matter which way you turn; you will be undoubtedly bombarded with marketing. Magazine ads, newspaper ads, billboards, bus station advertising, television advertising, radio advertising – all of these ads are fighting for your attention. Which campaigns are you likely to remember? The one that tells a story – the one that has something to say – the one that isn’t trying to sell you a product but rather an experience.

Using storytelling to represent your brand allows your audience to see behind the scenes. It takes them past the desks of the marketers and into the lives of the volunteers making a real difference in society. You can be more than just a name or a brand – you can show your human side to draw them in and elicit an emotion. This is a wonderful way to gain customer loyalty, especially in the long term. Your audience is after an authentic story that resonates with them – they want to be part of an organisation that really makes a difference.

As you define your brand through clever storytelling, you can also give it a personality. This personality should, of course, be representative of your overall mission and values. It is through your storytelling that you can develop and build on a relationship with your target audience. Those that feel a bond with your brand will not only give; they will in all likelihood be wonderful advocates for your NFP and share your information with friends and family.

Stories also stick in our memories the most. Remember all those fairy tales and nursery rhymes with moral messages at the end? Of course you do – stories stay with us, over and above everything else.

So go out there and tell your story. Creativity above everything else is a must in your next PR or marketing campaign. The power of words can be truly magical.

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Make Your Point with Infographics

Why are infographics so popular with bloggers and marketers? Attractive images not only grab our attention, but they also help us tell our stories visually.

An infographic combines images with text to help simplify complex concepts, and make information easier to recall. Studies have shown that posts that contain them are more popular, and more likely to go viral, than those that only include text. Infographics are also a clear, easy way to call attention to the social impact of your organisation’s work.

The following list of tips and tricks can help you create more effective infographics that resonate with your target audience, and drive their engagement with your organisation.

Tell Your Story

When creating an infographic, focus on the story that you are trying to convey to your audience. What is its main point, moral, or meaning? Think of the many ways that you can use images to tell the story visually, and keep written text to a minimum and still get your point across. Are there charts or graphs that can help you illustrate the problem? What types of images will best help you to demonstrate your NFP’s impact?

Customise Your Content to Strengthen Your Brand

Since infographics are so easily consumed and shared, it really is a good idea to create your own, custom infographics rather than merely resharing ones that have been made by someone else. This way, you can combine facts, figures and other statistics with your text and images, such as your nonprofit’s name, web address and logo, to strengthen your brand identify and make the content more relevant to your supporters.

Create a Series to Make Your Content More Readable and Easier to Understand

Rather than overloading the minds of your supporters with overly long visuals that contain too many facts and statistics, keep your message short and to the point. Focus on one main message, or concept, for each infographic. For longer content that contains multiple facts and test results, create a series, breaking out each main idea or concept into its own post.

Include a Call to Action

When customising your infographics, don’t forget to identify the specific problem or issue for your supporters. Let them know what specific action you need them to take that will best advance your mission forward.

Apply Best Practices When Designing Your Visual Aids

While there aren’t any hard and fast rules when it comes to creating visuals for your nonprofits, you should keep the elements of good visual design in mind to produce the desired effect. Make sure that your images are optimised for the social media channel or website where you will post them.

Be consistent throughout the infographic in your design choices to avoid confusing your readers and creating an image that looks disorganised, cluttered or messy. For example, don’t mix line art in with photos on the same infographic. Stick to one or two fonts and sizes of text rather than a hodge-podge of several sizes and types.

Keep imagery and colour combinations simple. For branding purposes, you may even wish to choose background colours that will match, or at least coordinate well, with your logo. White, or empty space, is just as important in a visual aid as it is in written copy. Use spacing to help readers avoid eyestrain and to help them remain interested in the content.

Creating a great infographic might seem challenging at first, but with a little practice, these design tips will become second nature to you. You may even begin to enjoy the process of creating visuals for your nonprofit and surprise yourself by having fun during the process!

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What Can A Press Release Do For Your Business?

Press releases are known for their effectiveness when it comes to business promotion and popularisation. They have a number of advantages for your business or not for profit as long as you learn how to use them properly.

Below are some of the things you can achieve with the help of a press release if you master their use and post them at the right time.

First of all, a press release is bound to spread the word for your business or company. Press releases posted via online distribution sites are designed to be constantly posted over and over again from the moment they appear. However, you should bear in mind that there are certain patterns in the way press releases are viewed online. For example, recent research shows that press releases are viewed more frequently at the end of the week than in the middle, especially by the media. So if you are aiming for the reporters and journalists, make sure you post yours when the appropriate time comes.

A press release will help you build links and improve your SEO. You will receive external links from various resources around the web each time your press release is used on another site. Don’t forget to include the keywords you are optimising for in your release.  This will help you build your ranking for them. However, don’t depend entirely on the press release – it is not enough to keep your SEO up!

Another advantage of press releases is that they present you in the way you want to be seen and give accurate and precise information for your business. Thus, if a journalist wants to write about you, they only need to check out your press release where they can locate all the information they need about your event or story.

And last but not least, a press release will help you refine your message and convey it to the public.

Before you start writing, there are a few things you should strive for in your press release in order to make it work for you.

First, always include statistical data and facts.  This adds more weight to the story and builds your credibility. Second, always be accurate and don’t exaggerate your story.  Journalists are after facts, not creative writing.  Finally, start your release with the facts.  You only have a few sentences to capture a journalist’s attention so give them the juicy details straight away.

Press releases can be great tools for your business or not for profit but only use them when you have a story to tell.  That’s when they will work for you.

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Why You Should Have A Newsletter

A newsletter can have an important role as part of your advertising, promotional and marketing strategies and if you currently don’t use one to promote your organisation then consider developing one as soon as practical.

With the success and acceptance of many social media sites the newsletter may seem old fashioned or even out of date but a newsletter has significant benefits that when applied well can make a significant difference.  With Twitter you are limited to 140 characters and Facebook you often only use a few brief sentences whereas with a newsletter you can include far more detailed content.  Here are some benefits of using a newsletter:

• Customers have opted in to subscribe to your newsletter so they have an active interest in your organisation and the goods and services you may provide.
• Newsletters provide a way to directly communicate the message to your customers as they are sent directly to them.  You are not waiting for your customers to contact you as your newsletter initiates the contact.
• Based on information you may have obtained when they subscribed, you can segment your customers that then allows you to target content based on their preferences.
• Newsletters provide a great way to stay in regular contact with your customers and keep them up to date with any new issues that may relate to your industry or organisation.
• As an incentive to your subscribers you can offer special discounts or offers.  This also allows you to monitor the effectiveness of this strategy as you can directly monitor the number of responses.

One last point that is worth highlighting is that to maintain and increase the subscribers and the effectiveness of the newsletter make sure you include content that is of use and value to your customers.

Do you have a newsletter going out to your people?

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