Build a Better Nonprofit Marketing Plan. Nonprofit organizations generally lack a clear marketing direction that can propel their organization towards gradual growth and objective fulfillment.
We’ve compiled a comprehensive guide to optimize your nonprofit marketing plan that aligns with your organizational goals. Here are the elements you need to consider for a better nonprofit marketing plan:
Set Your Mission
Nonprofit organizations rely more on their vision than for-profit organizations, and logically enough, every marketing plan must stem from, and reflect, their mission.
As the founding principles behind the organization, they set the strategic priorities that in turn lead your marketing campaigns. Your mission and vision need to be aligned with the strategic goals you have in place for your organization.
Conduct A Marketing Audit
Before evaluating the ground realities for your future growth, it is imperative for you to analyze what you have done so far in terms of marketing potential.
Be it large multi-national nonprofits or a small community-based organization; there must be key performance indicators (KPIs) and market insights that guide the path for your marketing efforts going forward.
How much traffic does your website experience? What is your email engagement rate? How many people follow your social media accounts? – You get the idea.
Conduct a complete SWOT analysis and pick areas where you need to improve.
Align Your Efforts With Organizational Goals
One major gaffe nonprofits commit is the severe misalignment between organizational goals and marketing efforts.
Organizations need to start with a plan and a mission first, and then follow up with a marketing plan that follows the path set down by the preceding plan.
Not only does it eliminate, ‘nice-to-have’ goals that unnecessarily burden the limited budget and manpower, but also enables you to prioritize your otherwise scattered goals.
Identify Key Stakeholders
Who has significant influence over your organization and its mission values? Are they individual donors or board members? It is important to narrow down your target stakeholders so that you can further identify how to influence them through your marketing efforts.
Nurturing a deep understanding of your stakeholder’s aids in formulating a plan that resonates with them, allowing you to achieve your marketing goals.
Develop Key Messages
Nonprofits do a lot of talking – that’s how the industry works. However, not everything you say will stay in the stakeholder’s mind.
Key messages are the points you want your stakeholders to take home with them and act upon. Personal key messages used by employees are inconsistent and possibly biased, which is why it is important to create standard key messages.
They lead the team in a uniform direction – forming a vital part of everything from the website to the newsletter.
Segment Your Tactics
After determining your goals and the people that will help you achieve them, the next step is choosing how to make it happen – the tactics.
There are various marketing efforts that can be utilized such as the use of social media, email marketing all the way to a personalized outreach program. However what you should send to a regular donor should be different from what a stranger is scrolling down your Facebook page should see.
The tactics should follow the AIDA approach which works in tandem with a conversion funnel approach. Your marketing efforts should lure in a customer, and psychologically influence them into completing your desired objective which can be signing up to your newsletter or sending a quick one-time donation.
If you’re still looking for ways to improve your nonprofit marketing plan, consult with our team – leave us a message here to let us know what your project is and we’d be excited to help!
