Marketing strategies aren’t just useful for business purposes. If you’re having a fundraiser of any kind, you need to think about marketing as well to maximize your earnings. The following are some general things to keep in mind when it comes to marketing strategies for a nonprofit or a particular fundraiser event.
Social Media
It’s difficult to overstate the value of leveraging social media for your fundraiser.
Social media is one of the most powerful marketing tools you have at your disposal, and there is a myriad of ways you can put it to work, including:
- Create a Facebook Event. Facebook Events are a simple, straightforward way to let people know about your fundraiser and invite them to attend. You can make an event public or private, depending on your needs. You can also include a separate signup page link.
- Create an event hashtag. With a unified hashtag, you can not only use social media for marketing the event ahead of time, but you can also use it to organize photos and press of the event after the fact. Encourage all of your staff, committee, and board members to use the hashtag on social media whenever possible as they’re talking about the event.
- When you’re marketing on social media, you want to diversify what you post as much as possible. People will get bored and tune out if you’re sharing the same things over and over again. Video is a great way to mix up your posts. You can edit videos giving a behind-the-scenes look at your organization or how you’re preparing for the fundraiser. You can also create brand stories that showcase the why’s of what you’re raising money for. Instagram Stories are also incredibly popular, and you can add your hashtag to them.
- When people register for your event or donate in any capacity, make sure you add a share button to include their participation on their own social media.
Use Google Ads
Something a lot of nonprofits and fundraisers might not know is they can potentially use Google Ads for free.
Google Ads has a program, Google Ad Grants. They award thousands of dollars in advertising to nonprofits. You can get up to $10,000 in monthly advertisements for free, and the ads can be customized to show to local visitors.
You do have to apply and be a certified 501(c)3 or have charity status outside the U.S. You also need to have a live website and agree to Google’s terms of use.
Create a Landing page
You may already have an organization website, but you should consider creating a separate event landing page just for this particular fundraiser you’re working on now.
The landing page should be entirely dedicated to the event, and this is where you want to direct all related traffic. You’ll include event information, sponsor information, auction items, or a link to the online auction and a media gallery. You might also have an option for visitors to donate on the site directly.
If you have a homepage for your organization, put something highly visible that will direct site visitors from that page to your event page if that’s what they’re interested in.
Create an Event Promotional Video
A promotional video is worth investing time in because you can then share it across all social media platforms, upload it to Google, and add it to your landing page.
You want to convey as much information about your event as possible.
Videos are great from a marketing standpoint because they’re digestible, more likely to be watched than written content is to be read, and they are shareable.
Email Marketing
Email marketing is free or very low-cost, and you benefit from gathering analytics that can be helpful in decision-making.
When setting up an email marketing campaign, your goal should include exciting, compelling content in every message you send. Really ask yourself if what you’re sending has those elements because you don’t want to spam people on your email list.
Secure Media Sponsors
Finally, if you can successfully reach out to local media outlets and get sponsors, you can get free ads. Media sponsors can donate in-kind advertising within their channels. This means you might feature the media outlet’s logo or other promotional content on your materials, and then in exchange, they promote your event.
You can send out a press sponsorship letter asking for this type of donation, highlighting the benefits for the media channel in agreeing to this arrangement.
