Archive for the ‘Marketing’ Category

How To Raise The Bottom Line With Content Marketing

Are you looking for ways to raise your bottom line with digital marketing? If so, this blog was tailor-written just for you! In this article, we’ll take a few moments to discuss content marketing and how marketers are using it to take their brands to the next level.

As a small business, it’s essential to stand out from the crowd. One of the best ways to do so is by producing high-quality content that delivers value to your audience. After all, marketing is impossible without great content. Therefore, coming up with engaging content should be at the core of your business strategy.

But what makes good content, and how can it help your business grow? Let’s take a few moments to explore this topic in greater depth. But first, let’s make sure everybody understands the definition of content marketing and why it’s critical for businesses of every size.

What Is Content Marketing? 🤔

Content marketing is a branch of marketing used to plan, develop, and share highly-valuable content to a targeted audience. In a nutshell, it’s a way to raise awareness around your brand, increase credibility, and engage your audience.

Below, we’ll discuss the different types of content marketing and review a few common examples. But for now, you need to understand that it’s a digital distribution method that aims to boost profitable customer behavior.

SEO guru and entrepreneur Neil Patel takes this definition one step further. He explains, “content marketing is a long-term strategy that focuses on building a strong relationship with your target audience by giving them high-quality content that is very relevant to them on a consistent basis.”

Unlike traditional one-and-done marketing tactics, he’s trying to say that content marketing shows your customers you care. By distributing valuable content regularly, you gain more attention. In other words, your customers become more loyal and stick around for longer. But the advantages don’t stop there.

How Does Content Marketing Help Businesses?

When executed correctly, there are many advantages. For one, businesses use a content marketing strategy to increase sales, get new customers and educate their audience.

According to a Hubspot blog, “content marketing is important because it answers your audience’s questions and helps you build trust, develop relationships, improve conversions, and generate leads.” At any rate, producing consistent, high-quality content significantly impacts the customer’s decisions process.

5 Content Marketing Examples to Raise Your Bottom Line

These days, there are hundreds of digital formats to explore. Aside from the four main types (videos, blogs, images, and infographics), new methods are constantly emerging. For those looking for more examples, here are five more popular strategies.

1. Podcasts

Unsurprisingly, podcasts are one of the most popular forms of content marketing to date. With more than 50% of the US population tuning in this year, podcasts can generate massive traffic.

2. Case studies

The case study format provides a way to share information from a study or research. Case studies are a powerful way to convince your audience that a product or service is worth purchasing. They make fantastic additions to any website and provide digestible information about complex topics.

3. Ebooks

Without a doubt, ebooks can bring in some serious profit. Think of it as a book in digital form. You can write about any topic under the sun related to your business. In addition, ebooks are an effective way to create lead-generating content.

4. Webinars

Web seminars or webinars are online events hosted by a business or organization. In most cases, the purpose is to educate their audience via videos, workshops, presentations, courses, and everything in between.

5. Vlogs

Vlog stands for ‘video blog’ (or log). Essentially, it’s the same as a blog but in video format. The sky is the limit when it comes to vlog content. There’s also no shortage of social media platforms to help it go viral.

Still, looking for ways to expand your digital storytelling? We like your marketing spirit! Please read through our recently published blog about content marketing strategy in 2022. We cover more than 15 different formats with plenty of examples.

Take Your Storytelling To The Next Level With Content Marketing Services From Elevare! 🚀

Elevare is a content marketing agency focused on helping small businesses elevate their bottom line. We are a team of strategists specializing in website development, design, branding, search engine optimization, and social media management.

We look at every component of your business and come up with a customized plan catered to the trajectory of your business. After all, digital marketing isn’t a one-size-fits-all solution, meaning every project is unique. Contact us today and let us help you tell stories that the world will love.

15 Content Marketing Strategy Tips To Explore In 2022

In all fairness, coming up with engaging content for every day of the week is a daunting task. If you don’t already have a well-defined content marketing strategy, you may feel overwhelmed.

The good news is the internet is host to a wide range of highly-effective formats for content marketing. And we’re here to tell you about fifteen of the best methods for 2022 and beyond.

Consider These 15 Content Marketing Strategies

First, you’ll need to open yourself to exploration because many content marketing examples on this list are reasonably new. Above all, it’s important to remember that quality content is always king. It’s also a good idea to conduct thorough research and take your time to produce the best content in your niche. But where to start?

Let us take a moment to explain how you can take your digital storytelling to the next level with these content marketing tips and up-to-date strategies.

1. Videos

Without a doubt, publishing consistent high-quality video content will increase your traffic. According to HubSpot, 62% of marketers consider video a top metric. Since 2020, 95% of consumers have engaged with video content. What’s more, online videos account for 82% of all consumer traffic. Without video content, it’s safe to say you’re missing out on billions of potential views and a lot of visibility.

2. Podcasts

This year, 58% of the US population has listened to a podcast. And 103 million people admitted they regularly engage, according to BuzzSprout. Regardless of your experience, podcasts are on the rise around the globe. Some even refer to podcasting as radio 2.0. If you’re new to podcast creation, check out Podbean, Anchor, and Libsyn.

3. Live streams

Live streaming platforms like Twitch, Vimeo, and Tik Tok Live are becoming increasingly popular, especially with the younger demographic. It’s fair to say they’re no longer a novelty meaning you can easily tap into a new audience pool with the right strategy and platform. Think IRL streams and raw, unfiltered audio and video content for any topic imaginable.

4. Audio blog posts

Not all people enjoy reading. As a result, there needs to be a content style for every type of audience. Enter audio blog posts. Essentially, audio blog posts are what it sounds like — audio clips featuring content from your blog. You can even automate the process using text-to-speak tools like BlogAudio and BlogCast.

5. Case studies

Case studies are in-depth research that proves a product or service is worthwhile. For customers in the consideration stage, case studies are powerfully convincing. In addition, case studies make excellent additions to your websites, helping boost sales. Want to see some examples? Here is a list of 28 case studies worth reading.

6. Infographics

If you’re looking for visual content that serves a wide variety of purposes, consider using marketing infographics. They come in handy when explaining complicated processes using simple graphics that everybody can grasp. Not to mention, you can slap them anywhere, making your website look impressive and informative.

7. Influencer marketing

These days, it’s never a bad idea to align yourself with a prominent social media influencer for content projects and endorsements. Influencer marketing is big business, and it’s one of the best ways to boost social media traffic and brand awareness. Not to mention, more resources are popping up every day to help connect businesses with relevant influencers.

8. Webinar classes

Web seminars (webinars) are the perfect tool to educate people on any given topic. Webinars come in many forms. Most notably, video presentations, events, workshops, lectures, and training classes. Choose a topic, find a speaker, plan an event, and watch your traffic soar!

9. Landing pages

In the world of digital marketing, landing pages are standalone web pages. Content marketing agencies build them for visitors to “land” after clicking on emails, ads, or other digital sources. In a nutshell, the purpose of landing pages is to convert, and it’s common practice to collect user info in exchange for a product or service. Landing pages are also relatively quick and simple to develop.

10. Email marketing campaigns

Email marketing is a widespread tactic that uses email to share information about offers, promotions, or any other type of desired content. You can take the time to write custom emails or simply set up an automated system to reach a massive amount of people in one go. There are a lot of reliable tools to help convert sales, so don’t be shy. Mailchimp is the industry favorite.

11. White papers

Whitepapers are authoritative documents that provide information on any given topic. They are usually written by the company and published on their website. The purpose of a whitepaper is to educate and promote services and products.

12. Virtual conferences

By the day, virtual summits are emerging from Twitter and many other social media platforms. Aside from discussions, virtual events meet various needs, including workshops, exhibits, presentations, courses, informal meetups, and AMA’s, to name a few. This content marketing tactic can pay off when planned and executed correctly.

13. PPC campaigns

PPC stands for pay-per-click. It’s a form of digital advertising that drives traffic to websites using search engines like Google. Basically, you pay a small publishing fee when a user clicks on your ad. Google launched its platform to assist users with PPC campaigns. It’s called Google Adwords.

14. SEO

You can apply SEO or search engine optimization to your website content to rank higher with search engines. The goal is to develop content that ranks well for a specific keyword. Although it’s a highly complicated process, your job is to create a large amount of high-quality content that adheres to Google’s standards. When SEO is correctly applied, your web traffic can soar.

If you’re looking for an SEO guru to help with your content marketing strategy, reach out to Elevare Agency for more information.

15. Polls

Finally, social media polls are a fantastic way to engage with your audience regularly. And they’re a potent marketing tactic as well. You can find slews of them on Twitter and LinkedIn every day. The best part about this method is its simplicity. Creating a poll is as simple as coming up with a solid question and making a post. If you want to see some examples, pop over to Pinterest for 81 samples.

Are You Looking for a Content Marketing Company?

In short, Elevare is on a mission to streamline your storytelling by building masterful processes and content marketing strategies that engage your audience like never before.

We’ll collaborate on a roadmap focused on your unique needs right from the start. Our comprehensive plan of action will drive your success in the future marketplace.

Reach Out to Elevare for Content Marketing Strategies and Services

We’d love to speak more about elevating your brand with effective content marketing services, including high-quality videos, website content, and killer social media marketing that fans love.

If you’re looking to align with one of the best content marketing agencies in the game, don’t hesitate to reach out! Finally, if you liked this article, be sure to check out our blog for more insights on content marketing strategy. Otherwise, feel free to contact us or follow Elevare on social media!

The Difference Between Marketing Vs. Branding

Are you building a business from scratch? If so, you might be feeling overwhelmed with all the buzzwords being thrown around. It can be challenging to keep them straight! Two concepts that are often thrown together yet are distinctly different are marketing and branding. So, what’s the difference between marketing vs. branding?

And, why is this differentiation significant in business? The truth is if you want your business to succeed, you must understand the differences between the two! So, what exactly is marketing? What is branding? And, most importantly, how can you utilize both in building a successful business?

Defining Marketing Vs. Branding

Before we discuss the difference between marketing and branding, it’s essential we first define these terms.

Marketing Definition

Marketing refers to “the activity, set of institutions, and processes for creating, communicating, delivering, and exchanging offerings that have value for customers, clients, partners, and society at large.”

In simpler words, marketing is the process and strategy utilized to promote your product or service. Marketing is the actions you take to build relationships with customers and lead them to buy what you’re selling. There are different types of marketing out there such as: email marketing, digital marketing, direct marketing, mobile marketing, and inbound marketing and more!

Branding Definition

Branding, however, is the practice of actively shaping your brand’s identity. Branding defines who you are as a company; it’s your missions and values. Your key brand elements such as your logo, website, and style guidelines are also considered branding.

However, branding is not just a logo or a symbol that represents your brand, it is often a combination of physical and emotional cues triggered by a symbol, logo, or message that is specific to your company. Any product can be quite easily copied by other players in a market. For example, Pepsi and Coca-Cola. They taste remarkably similar, but for some reason some people feel more “connected” to Coca-Cola and thus prefer it, and vice versa.

Let’s take a look at different water brands. The product is water, but to convince people to buy a particular water, companies have developed different water brands. Each brand represents something different.

Here are a few examples:

Fiji Water: It’s pure, healthy & natural
Evian: Makes people feel youthful
Perrier: It’s refreshing, bubbly and sexy
Voss: It’s stylish and modern

Thus, it’s evident that branding is what makes your company or product unique, compared to your competitors. Branding gives a specific meaning to a company, product or service in the consumer’s minds. It is a strategy that is designed to help people quickly and effectively identity and experience a brand, and thus, allow them to choose a specific product over another.

If marketing brings people to engage with your company or organization, then branding keeps them coming back to you!

A way to think of this is to imagine a hamburger. Your company is the burger, and your branding is the “special sauce.” Your marketing would be everything you do to get your customers excited about eating a hamburger (such as commercials, ads, and other various campaigns).

The Differences Between Brandings Vs. Marketing

Now that you understand the definitions of these two terms, let’s discuss the differences. While marketing is utilized in helping to promote your product or service, branding shapes your brand and, further, who you are as a company. It would be best if you incorporated strategies for both marketing and branding as they have different goals and results.

Marketing grabs a customer’s attention; branding keeps their attention
Marketing can drive sales, while branding pushes loyalty and brand recognition forward
Branding should come first and marketing second
Marketing strategies change all the time, while branding should stay consistent

In short, marketing is a fantastic way to grab a customer’s attention, but branding retains their attention in the long term.

It doesn’t matter what industry you are in; many competitors are likely vying for the same customer base. If you want to get customer attention, you must learn to market well. However, once you have the customer’s attention, you can’t stop there. This is when your branding should come into play. You should aim to build a brand that people connect with. This will keep them coming back to buy from you.

Why You Need Both

Think of marketing and branding as a pair. Someone may see your branding, for example, your logo on a bumper sticker, and be interested. But that initial impression is not likely to result in a sale. This is where marketing comes in.

While marketing and branding are two different business components, and they work hand in hand and rely on each other to succeed in closing a sale. Thus, it’s clear that marketing efforts will be most successful when a solid foundation of branding is in place.

Need Help With Branding Or Marketing?

Now that you understand the differences between marketing and branding and why they are essential for business success, it’s time to implement them.

However, as a business owner, where do you start? Does your company have solid branding in place? What are your branding strategies? Have you defined your brand? Have you developed a comprehensive marketing plans? Do you know your target audience?

If you don’t have either of these defined and set, we can help you reach your goals – affordably and efficiently. At Elevare, we are experts in branding, including logo design. We also offer various marketing services, from website design and development to running ad campaigns, running social media accounts, and content marketing.

If you need branding or marketing help, contact us today for your free consultation!

What Is Content Marketing?

Content marketing is the creation and distribution of valuable and relevant content to acquire and engage a target audience. The ultimate goal of content marketing is to drive profitable customer and donor action, whether this is through donations or volunteer support.

Traditionally, marketers have basically “rented” attention from other people’s media through displays such as websites, booths at trade shows, billboards, or advertisements. A Super Bowl ad would be considered part of more traditional marketing. However, on the other hand, content marketing allows marketers and business owners to become the publishers who create and distribute their content. Content marketing helps to establish a relationship of trust with consumers as they move through a sales funnel.

Benefits Of Content Marketing:

Higher website conversion rates
Increase organic traffic to your website
Increase authority within your industry
Increase brand awareness
Can help appeal to a broader audience
Can increase social media engagement
Close gaps in the conversion funnel

Some examples of content marketing include websites, blogs, social media copy, and more.

1. Charity:Water

Charity:water is one of the most well-known and successful nonprofits in the world. They work to bring water to underdeveloped countries. For many years, they have been a trailblazer in marketing within the nonprofit sector.

On their fifth anniversary, they launched a content marketing campaign thanking all their supporters. While the idea itself was not new – thanking supporters for donating, the way they did it was a bit different. They created an online video. This video thanked their supporters and donors while also encouraging their staff to participate.

Staff began publishing their videos, thanking different people and groups for their support, and these videos quickly began racking up thousands of views on YouTube. These videos also encouraged people to start their campaigns, and 100 percent of what they raised or gave would go towards a specific project that month.

By the end of the month, they had raised $1.2 million. Now that is a successful content marketing campaign!

The takeaway: You don’t have to be a significant player to raise millions in donations. All you need to have is a unique take on an old idea. Get brainstorming!

2. Make-A-Wish

This nonprofit was founded in 1980 and now grants a critically ill child’s wish. A wish is granted by Make-A-Wish in the United States every 40 minutes!

Make-A-Wish has launched a variety of successful content marketing campaigns. This nonprofit loves to leverage celebrity endorsements. They also share their video wishes on YouTube, publish all their granted wishes on their website, and post them to social media. In doing so, this nonprofit has a solid online presence.

The Takeaway: Are you using your content wisely? Publish testimonials and reviews and what you are doing to all your social platforms and your website. Populate your site with proof of what your nonprofit is doing daily. This serves as a completely free advertisement for your services. How will people know about you if you don’t talk and show what you do?

3. March of Dimes

The March of Dimes, a nonprofit organization dedicated to helping babies receive a healthy start to life, has been around since the 1930s. However, their marketing approaches are anything but dated.

What March of Dimes does well is market their life-changing stories online. Over the years, they have shared thousands of inspirational stories on their website and blog. They also repurpose this content expertly by posting different variations to their social channels such as YouTube and Twitter.

They have continued to increase their brand awareness ten-fold by constantly updating their blog with a focus on all things moms need to know about caring and raising a baby. They publish resources routinely.

The Takeaway: Does your nonprofit have a blog? Are you regularly updating it? Not only will this help boost your authority online, but it also showcases your services.

4. Best Friends Animal Society

The Best Friends Animal Society is a nonprofit organization that places dogs and cats into loving homes. A major campaign that has proven successful is their Invisible Dogs Campaign.

This campaign has the goal of finding every single pet in the United States home. Utilizing an app called My Dog ID allowed people looking to adopt to take a picture of themselves and be matched with a dog available for adoption. The app then promoted the user to share the match on social media.

The campaign was a huge success! By the end of the campaign, they had received nearly 2,000 donations!

The Takeaway: Best Friends Animal Society’s campaign was successful because they genuinely mobilized their supporters to share their content. Are you encouraging your current followers to spread the word?

Ready To Develop Your Nonprofit’s Content Marketing Strategy?

Here at Elevare, we have many resources to ensure your content marketing campaigns bring in results.

Why Nonprofits Need Social Media Marketing

Are you struggling to make your nonprofit’s cause known and to gather more donations and support? Not sure where to allocate your small budget? Well, you are not alone. With millions of nonprofit organizations out there, it is time to start utilizing the proper channels and the right marketing strategy to bring in the support your cause deserves.

More than ever, the world is moving digital, and your nonprofit is no exception. How do you stay above the curve and the competition? A lack of time, funding, and resources can all contribute to dwindling success for nonprofits in their marketing efforts.

However, if you are not using social media platforms, you could miss out on traffic and opportunities for organic reach and more donations!

Why Do Nonprofits Need Social Media Marketing?

First, let’s discuss why you should be marketing your nonprofit in the first place. According to HubSpot, the main priorities for social media marketers for nonprofits are to generate brand awareness, fundraise, recruit new volunteers, and share news.

Social media is the perfect platform for all of these goals to be met.

Social media correctly can promote your nonprofit and help you discover and directly connect with new people to work with you and your mission. Social media can make it straightforward to interact with potential supporters.

Social media doesn’t only help you interact with new people and help you continue to engage with current donors and supporters. In a few seconds, you can update your audience or post a message for free. Messaging can help retain engagement, increase brand awareness and promote fundraising initiatives, all with a few clicks! How easy is that?

Digital Age

Everything is increasingly digital. Over 3.6 billion people worldwide used social media in 2020 – this staggering statistic means that there are many opportunities for people to find and support your cause through these social platforms. If you aren’t already familiar with them, you should be!

Gone are the days of looking for flyers at community centers for upcoming events. According to Statistica, the need for a mobile-friendly social presence is more important than ever, with over half of all web traffic coming from mobile devices.

Now people turn to their smartphones and laptops. However, there are now hundreds of social apps out there. It can feel overwhelming to decide which ones are best for your nonprofit.

What Social Platforms Should I Use?

Each social media platform has its unique functions, pros, and cons. In a survey conducted by MissionBox, this data showed that Facebook is the top platform nonprofits use.

According to research by Amplifi, 39.5 percent of people discover new nonprofits to donate to through Facebook alone. This social platform boasts 2.07 billion monthly active users! Facebook also offers a robust digital communication platform that allows businesses to quickly and strategically interact with their audience through video, posts, and chats.

Yet Facebook is not the only platform utilized by nonprofits and popular with their audiences. Twitter comes in as a close second. Other popular channels include YouTube, Linked In, Pinterest, and Instagram. Instagram retains 800 million monthly active users, Twitter has 330 million, LinkedIn has 500 million, and Pinterest has 200 million.

That’s a lot of potential donors and supporters.

Each platform has many benefits, such as access to potential influencers and sponsorships, built-in ad management capabilities, and analytics systems.

How To Start Promoting My Nonprofit With Social Media

The audience is out there, just waiting for you to reach out to them. So, how do you reach the right audience? You may not even be sure what exactly to start posting…

Before we dive into the details, the easiest way to start a social media marketing campaign is to create a social media plan. Like any other marketing strategy or drive, you should know what you are working towards to promote your cause effectively.

To do this, follow these steps:

Set clear goals and objectives

What exactly do you want to achieve? Be as specific as possible. Where is your focus? Do you wish to receive more donations, raise awareness or recruit more volunteers?

Determine your target audience

This step is crucial in any marketing campaign! It would help if you had a clear idea of what you are doing and who you are targeting. You’ll need to create marketing personas.

Study your ideal donor or volunteer. What type of ad and language would they like to see? What are their interests? This will help you determine what kind of content they would enjoy and want to see.

Determine which social platforms to use

What resources do you have? Do you have someone dedicated to social media, or does an unpaid intern run it? If you don’t have much time to run socials, it is probably best to choose one or two and focus on those.

Don’t spread yourself too thin, or you’ll risk decreasing the quality of your posts.

It is wise to focus on the platform most of your target audience will be using. Then, if you see success, you can reach out to other platforms later.

Craft a strategy and execute

Creating a detailed plan with goals to hit will help you stay on track. Create a weekly schedule that allows you to post content consistently without burning you or your team out.

4 Ways Nonprofits Can Use Social Media With A Limited Budget

Did you know that, according to HubSpot, over 67 percent of nonprofits have no social media strategy policies or goals set in place? Don’t be like them.

Even with a limited budget, human resources, and resources, you can make an impact with social media. You have to know where to start.

Here are some ideas to get you started.

Create And Post Interactive Content

Crafting interactive content will help people engage with your account and stop their passive, aimless scroll! Don’t believe me? Businesses that use interactive content average a click-through rate of over 50 percent, according to Oracle. What types of content encourage interaction?

Things such as polls, Q & A sessions on Instagram Stories, hosting a survey, or simply asking your audience questions are all ways to encourage it.

Include Hashtags

Hashtags are an understated yet essential part of any social media marketing strategy. They help other people find your posts! While each social media platform has different rules for hashtag use, they benefit every campaign.

You can jump on trending hashtags for more exposure or create your own to draw attention, such as The British Red Cross’s Twitter account did. In their bio, they show it right away: #PowerofKindness.

Some popular hashtags used for charities are:

#charity, #dogood, #fundraising, #activism, #donate, #nonprofit, #philanthropy, #charitywork, #socialcause, and #change.

Remember, slapping hashtags onto a post won’t make it work like magic. You will need to do the proper hashtag research and test a handful of different ones to see what resonates with your audience.

Use Lots Of Visuals

People are much more likely to engage with a photo or video than just plain text. If you are looking to raise brand awareness and continue driving more traffic to your website, use big, eye-catching images! Use infographics, GIFS, or short videos for added emphasis.

Make Donating Easy

If your socials are doing their job, then they will be driving people to want to donate. Your next and most crucial step is to ensure it is as easy as possible to donate! Make sure your social media profile’s bios include a link to your website.

Need Nonprofit Social Media Marketing Help?

You and your organization are doing a great job working toward your cause. Don’t work hard in vain! Let Elevare help take your organization to the next level. We can assist you with your social media presence, email marketing campaigns and various other digital marketing initiatives.

12 Ideas for your Nonprofit’s Blog

You’ve got heart. You’ve got the vision. Now, all you need is the money. Perhaps you have decided to start a blog for your nonprofit’s website to help bring in more traffic. But…you don’t have any ideas for content. Don’t let your marketing efforts be futile! Don’t worry, that’s why we have curated 12 ideas for your nonprofit’s blog.

Keep reading!

Why Your Nonprofit Needs Content Marketing

We understand how daunting marketing for your nonprofit can be, especially content marketing. It can feel like an uphill battle to pull something together for a blog post, specifically if you’re trying to post on a weekly basis.

However, content marketing can be a vital piece of your marketing strategy. If you are correctly and effectively utilizing content marketing strategies, then you’ll be working to increase the traffic that visits your site. The more visits to your website equate more potential donors and supporters.

The better your website ranks on the search results, the more people will come across your nonprofit. Your blog is the cornerstone of this strategy! It’s extremely important you are doing the necessary keyword research, writing the right topics and producing high-quality blogs.

The success of your blogs depend on two things – quality and quantity. Posting regularly is a must. But, you can’t simply push out low quality content.

What type of content will keep people on your site longer? Creating high-value content will help the right audience encounter and stay engaged with your nonprofit.

Thus, slapping just about anything together and pressing publish is a big NO.

We get how hard it can be. Use these 12 blog topic ideas for your nonprofit’s blog and see the difference.

12 Nonprofit Blog Ideas

1. Tell stories about those you help.

Stories and testimonials are extremely popular. Donors and potential donors want to see the work your charitable organization is doing in action. It’s also important to remember to keep the story or testimonial compelling and short. Make sure you include before and after details.

And, throwing in a few photos or videos are a great way for some added sparkle.

2. Share about your staff.

Nonprofits are unique – unlike businesses, people really care about the “who” behind the organization. Share background information about your staff and volunteers on a daily basis. Help your audience get to know the people behind the mission who are doing the daily work! Plus this is a great way to highlight and thank staff and volunteers.

3. Invite guest bloggers to write a blog post.

This can be anyone such as a client, staff, volunteer, or board member. They can share a story, their background or why they chose to donate/spend time/ work with your nonprofit.

4. Share about events.

A great part of having a blog is it is a free way to advertise! Make sure you are blogging about upcoming events and even blogging afterwards. Even if the blogs are short and to the point, this helps your audience stay up-to-date with what’s going on event-wise.

Include as many details of the turnout and pictures as possible! Those who didn’t attend will want to see all that they missed. Those who did attend will want to see themselves in the photos! This also serves as a way to show off to potential donors the good work your nonprofit accomplishes in the community.

5. Ask your staffers.

If you don’t have any grand ideas for a blog post that week, talk to your front-line staffers. Do they have any funny or interesting stories from the week? It’s important to get in the habit of asking them what has warmed their hearts recently!

6. Summarize press releases and current company news.

Donors and volunteers alike want to stay updated. Feel free to post your press releases or summaries of current news (even if it’s a little boring!) to the blog. Outbound links will also help to boost the credibility of your site and positively impact your site’s ranking as well as bring in your target audience.

7. Highlight an individual donor.

This is a fantastic way to show your appreciation for your supporters! It can be a great idea to highlight a specific donor for their impact in your nonprofit.

8. Share about your nonprofit’s backstory and/or founders.

Your supporters want to know more about what makes your nonprofit tick. If donors are giving large amounts of money, they want to know exactly the who and why of the nonprofit. So, writing a blog post detailing all of this information can be helpful.

9. Repurpose newsletter and eblast content.

Don’t be afraid to reuse and repurpose content that was already posted to social media or sent in an eblast. Don’t worry – most people won’t remember if it’s been used before!

10. Attending an event or conference?

Share what you learned. If you attend a nonprofit conference or event, feel free to share your experience and how it will help advance your nonprofit’s mission and goals.

11. Talk about work accomplished by volunteers.

Just like you should be thanking your donors and paid staff, you should also thank those who passionately help out for free! They are greatly impacting your nonprofit and a simple “thank you” blog post with some statistics or updates could be a powerful way to acknowledge their efforts and encourage more volunteers to join the cause.

12. Share some statistics!

Yes, we know, it sounds boring. But, statistics are powerful! You’ll want to share stats on increases (such as seeing a 15% increase in adoptions in this month) and other positive metrics.

Ready To Start Blogging?

We hope these blog post ideas have provided you with enough momentum to start typing away. However, if you still aren’t sure where to begin or need help bolstering your content marketing strategy, don’t worry.

We have proudly worked with a variety of nonprofit organizations throughout the years. Nonprofits trust us to support their mission while providing high-quality nonprofit marketing campaigns that produce the donations and results your nonprofit deserves. Need nonprofit fundraising help? We can help you attain the funding you need.

You have the heart. Let us help you craft the strategy you need to reach more donors and get the nonprofit funding you need!

8 Social Justice Nonprofits Working Towards Equality

Racial equality can never be achieved by a group or single person. It will take a variety of coordinated efforts and approaches to create change. Whether you are trying to volunteer or donate, it’s necessary to find an organization dedicated to equality and one that you can believe in. Unfortunately, it sometimes is difficult to find the right nonprofit to invest your time and money into. To make your search easier, here are 8 social justice nonprofits working towards equality in America.

Race Forward

For the past 40 years, Race Forward has been tirelessly working toward racial equality through media, policy-making, and educational resources.

Their goal? To eliminate racial oppression and exploitation around the world. Through research, publication, and practice, Race Forward hopes to create an environment where people of color can thrive across all industries.

The organization’s primary publication is Colorlines, an online media source reporting socioeconomic inequities and people of color making a positive change in the world.

Media is not the only way Race Forward fans can educate themselves, as this grassroots organization also offers informational training courses on racial justice.

One of these, a webinar called #RaceAnd, features industry experts discussing the interaction between race and a specific social issue. For example, one episode titled #RaceAnd the Gender Binary educates viewers on the history of gender in regards to modern-day transphobia within a racial context.

This webinar series has been so successful that tickets are currently sold out, but the content is uploaded to YouTube after the webinars conclude.

Intersectional Environmentalist

Why advocate for one social justice issue when you could work toward two? Intersectional Environmental, an environmental advocacy group, does exactly that.

While working toward environmentalism and climate change, IE also promotes historically underrepresented groups and giving a voice to racial minorities.

Founded by Leah Thomas just over a year ago, the organization has seen tremendous growth in its first year of life – gaining over 392,000 followers on Instagram.

The organization’s largest project thus far has been Thomas’ book The Intersectional Environmentalist, where she describes her own theories on how to “dismantle systems of oppression to protect people + planet.”

IE has taken advantage of the share-ability of social media, creating aesthetic infographics that followers can re-share to their own platforms. By collaborating with graphic designers, IE has appealed to the media-crazed Gen Z population.

IE also produces a podcast titled Dismantled which features environmental experts speaking on the power of racial equality within the industry.

KIND

Kids In Need of Defense, or KIND, works to reunite migrant children who have been separated from their families.

Founded by Microsoft and actress/activist Angelina Jolie, KIND has been assisting children in need for the past 14 years. With over 600 legal partners and 50,000 volunteers, KIND has referred more than 20,000 children in need.

KIND works with a large network of pro-bono attorneys to help unaccompanied children gain access to legal assistance that they would not have otherwise. In 2020, the organization had a 95% success rate for completed legal cases.

Working with legal professionals and volunteer translators, KIND’s mission is to ensure every unaccompanied child gets access to high-quality legal services when appearing in immigration court.

Dream Corps

Nonprofit organization Dream Corps believes that “diversity is the source of our nation’s strength”. To promote and restore respect in diversity, Dream Corps works with ex-convicts to offer opportunities instead of jail time.

Many organizations are working to reform the criminal justice system. However, Dream Corps is unique in its focus. They not only work toward prison reform but also promote an environmentally friendly economy and establish equity in the technology field.

One popular campaign has been the 2020 Day of Empathy, where Dream Corps hosted 14 virtual events for almost 43,000 participants. Led by celebrity guest speakers like Kim Kardashian West and Martin Luther King III, the community discussed racial injustice and ways to enact future change.

Dream Corps also regularly updates its social media promoting other social justice causes and charities.

Kathy’s Legacy Foundation

After losing Kathy Scharbarth to domestic abuse, her family turned their grief into positive social change by starting the nonprofit Kathy’s Legacy. Not only does the organization raise funds for domestic abuse victims, but also created Assembly Bill 2467.

Known as “Kathy’s Law,” the bill ensures that domestic abuse perpetrators are electronically investigated and victims are notified when perpetrators are in the area.

Although the foundation is based in San Diego, CA, it helps victims throughout the victims by increasing awareness and offers mental health resources.

Campaign Zero

In the past year, the United States has seen a sharp increase in police violence. Campaign Zero plans to eliminate police violence in America and instate racial equality within the justice system.

One of the organization’s initiatives works to end “Broken Windows Policing”. This policing refers to minor offenses, potentially something as simple as a broken window, leading to police violence, murders, and arrests.

According to the organization’s website, “in 2014, police killed at least 287 people who were involved in minor offenses and harmless activities like sleeping in parks, possessing drugs, looking ‘suspicious’ or having a mental health crisis”.

Campaign Zero focuses on ten main goals, including community representation and demilitarization, to halt unnecessary police violence.

The Bail Project

Rapper Lil Nas X has been outspoken about his passion for racial equality. In hopes to make concrete change, the young musician recently teamed up with nonprofit The Bail Project to decrease mass incarceration.

The Bail Project has targeted a specific aspect of the justice system — paying bail. This unfair system often sets people up for failure, guaranteeing jail time for minor offenses simply due to a lack of funds.

Over the past ten years, the organization has helped more than 18,500 people pay for their bail. By collaborating with TED Talks, UCLA Law, and many others, the organization has continued to grow and assist those unfairly incarcerated.

Reclaim the Block

George Floyd’s murder will go down in his history as one of the most influential and tragic instances of police violence. Reclaim the Block knows this struggle better than anyone, as the nonprofit is dedicated to decreasing police violence in Minneapolis.

However, Reclaim the Block does not simply want to decrease police brutality but instead restructure the city’s economy. The organization works to reroute police funds to other Minneapolis organizations that would spend the money toward truly keeping the community safe.

With over 348,000 Instagram followers in just three years, Reclaim the Block has made a splash in the social justice nonprofit community. The organization uses social media as a way to share important infographics and connect with a younger audience. It also hosts in-person and online events to increase education regarding the inequalities of the police system.

Do you work for a nonprofit organization?

At Elevare, we work for social justice causes, helping nonprofits around the country achieve their goals. We hope these top nonprofits and national organizations working towards equality help you in your search.

Through social media marketing, SEO content, and other professional services, we can help your nonprofit grow into an industry leader in the long-term.

Schedule your free consultation today.

The Small Business Guide to Social Media Marketing

Welcome small business marketers! We have put together this guide for small businesses that contains everything you need to know to get started with social media marketing.

Social Media Marketing Guide

It can be hard work finding the right strategies and tools to help your small business succeed on social media. We are here to help you find the right options for your business.

Why Social Media Is Valuable For Small Businesses

As a small business owner or marketer, you probably wear a lot of hats. You may have your hands in operations, graphic design and advertising, and more.

Whether you are just starting to scale your digital marketing initiatives or looking to implement social media for the first time, time seems to run out. We get it! There never seems to be enough time to do everything you want to do.

That’s why it is important to know where to use your time wisely. And, social media is a great place to start.

Not convinced yet? Social Media Marketing is valuable for your business in three keys ways.

Social Media Helps Drive Buying Choices

Social media offers a unique opportunity to break down the barrier between customer and seller. People enjoy buying from brands they trust and find personable and relatable.

Show off who you are and your values as a company. Use social media to connect and build real relationships with your customers.

Use your posts and Stories to share a more real side to your brand and business. In fact, 86 percent of consumers say that authenticity is a key factor when deciding what brands they like and support (Stackla, 2019).

People like to buy from other people, not a nameless, faceless entity.

Social Media Builds Brand Awareness

How will you reach more customers if they don’t know about you? Social Media helps, once again, to overcome this barrier to entry. Utilizing social media platforms gives you a social advantage.

By actively engaging with your community you can promote your brand to newer and bigger audiences.

Social Media Marketing Is An Affordable Way to Advertise

As a small business, you are probably strapped for cash! We get it. You need to save money where you can. Luckily, almost every social media platform offers ads, and most of them are very, very cheap.

Now that you are convinced of the benefits, let’s dive into implementation. What social media platforms should you use?

Where do you go from here?

How To Craft A Social Media Marketing Plan

Before you choose your platforms, you must have a plan and set goals.

It is important to create a strategy before you start the social media marketing process. The goal of your social media marketing should never be to simply bulk schedule and blast out posts without a plan!

Social networks will not reward you for publishing at random and neither will your customers. It’s important to note that being too promotional is one of the top reasons consumers will unfollow you on social media!

Research Your Audience

Start by looking at your competitors. Look at their strategies. What platforms do they use? How frequently do they post? What types of content resonate with their audiences?

For example, if you run a business in the real estate industry, your customers are looking for real estate, perhaps they would like to see content on what types of properties are worth investing in, they probably aren’t looking for lifestyle content.

Once you do the appropriate market research (i.e. demographics, audience, etc), you should be able to start to plan out what types of content will work for your business.

Set Goals Using The SMART Framework

Once you do the appropriate market research (i.e. demographics, audience, etc), you should be able to start to plan your strategy.

To create a strategy that drives engagement rates high, use the SMART framework.

SMART is an acronym that helps set achievable goals. This method helps you develop a plan that makes sense for your goals.

We are experts in all things digital and social media marketing related!

We created our free Marketing Cheatsheet for people just like you. Download it today.

Once you have determined your plan of action, it’s time to determine which social platforms you will utilize.

How To Choose The Right Social Media Platforms

There are so many social media platforms out there. Luckily, there is no reason for you to utilize all of them! You just need to choose a few that are most applicable to your business’s goals.

Take a look at a few of the most popular platforms right now.

Top Social Media Platforms

Youtube

More of a search engine than a social media platform, YouTube is a powerful channel! With SEO-friendly tags, descriptions, and titles, it is a great platform utilized to help boost search results.

Facebook

There are over 2.7 billion active users per month. Facebook is a must-have for most brands, especially for their ad offerings. You can run ads through Facebook’s Business Suite for both Facebook and Instagram.

Instagram

Instagram is one of the fastest-growing social media platforms to date. It boasts over 1.2 billion active users and is especially popular for businesses with shop-friendly features. It is constantly updating as well with new features like Reels.

Twitter

Twitter has some serious brand-name recognition, however, it is not as profitable as other platforms. Unless you’re in the media or news business, or a specific niche, it may not be the best platform for you to focus on.

Don’t sleep on the power of Reddit! The anonymous posting platform is perfect for hyper-specific communities loyal to their niche. If you can tap into those areas, you can easily engage with extremely loyal customers.

However, Reddit has some extremely picky guidelines so beware of following the rules and not posting promotional content outside of the guidelines specified.

TikTok

With over 700 million monthly active users, TikTok still has plenty of room for growth! It exploded onto the scene and only continues to grow. The short-form videos are fun and engaging. If you are willing to create videos this could be a powerful way to sell products creatively.

Pinterest is a fantastic platform for retail-based businesses. It’s an easy way to earn organic traffic and reach if you can curate engaging content.

Medium

Brands and users alike flock to Medium to spill their thoughts on just about everything. This could be a good way to bring in more traffic to your site.

Vimeo

Vimeo, while less popular than YouTube, offers a lot of fancy features and editing capabilities. You can expect Vimeo to rise in popularity as the demand for both recorded and live video content continues to increase.

Honorable Mentions

There are many, many more social media platforms such as Twitch, Discord, Meetup, Telegram, Snapchat, Linkedin, MeWe, WhatsApp, and more!

Each platform offers different capabilities. If you are a product or retail-based platform, investing your resources into Instagram or Facebook is probably the best bet. If you are a software or streaming business, you may want to invest time into Reddit or Twitter. It depends on your business’ audience.

Now that you have an idea of what platforms you should use. Focus on two or three platforms, and go from there.

Developing A Posting Schedule

Now that you have defined your audience, developed a plan, choose your social platforms…now it’s time to set your marketing strategy in motion! In other words, it’s time to post!

Where do you start?

First, you’ll want to set up your social media accounts. For example, we will use Instagram.

You will need to fill out all relevant information per platform, including:

Your bio
Website link
Profile image (can be your company’s logo)
Connect contact information

Once your profiles have been created, it’s time to post. But, before doing that you need to create a posting schedule and strategy. By developing a calendar and keeping track of all your posts, your team can stay organized and on track.

How to Create A Social Media Content Calendar For Small Businesses

A social media calendar is an overview of your upcoming social media posts and captions. This information can be organized in the form of a spreadsheet, Google calendar, or even via an interactive dashboard.

Here Are The Main 9 Steps In Creating A Calendar:

Audit your current content and social networks
Choose the social media channels you’d like to use
Decide what exactly your calendar needs to track
Make a content library for your assets
Establish a consistent workflow
Craft your posts
Invite your team members to review and use feedback to improve
Start publishing and scheduling your posts
Post!

Why Use A Social Media Content Calendar

Using a calendar helps you stay organized and on track. It can be hard to keep track of all the social posts for all the different platforms! Maintaining a calendar that clearly tracks when what and where posts will be posted, helps your team stay on top of things

Using a calendar helps you post consistently. If your posts are ready to go and scheduled out in your calendar, you’ll stay consistent. Posting consistently matters, big time, in the social media world.

Consistently showing up on your audience’s feed is the best way to authentically engage and build relationships with your followers. Populating your calendar with posts ahead of time gives you the opportunity to post consistently, whether it’s a slow week or the busiest week of the year!

Using a calendar helps you craft higher-quality content. Now that everyone is practically on social media, the quality is getting higher and higher. Today, it’s not surprising that some businesses have entire media teams dedicated to creating social media content! Thus, a social media calendar assists you in allocating your assets effectively.

Social Media Calendar

While the format for social media calendars may vary, they each contain these common elements:

The exact date and time the post will go live
The social network/account/platform where the post will be published
The post’s copy and content (image, graphic, video, etc)
Links and tags that will be included with the post
Any additional information (i.e. is this post or Instagram Story)

Depending on your social media strategy, this platform may include one or many networks.

There are hundreds of free social media templates out there for free! Or, there are posting platforms such as SEMrush, Hootsuite, Loomly, Buffer, and many, many more that offer their services for a pretty penny. Additionally, almost every social media platform offers scheduling for free – you just have to explore a bit to locate these settings.

Social Media Marketing Tips for Small Businesses

Alright now that you’ve set up your content calendar and identified your platforms and maybe even made your first post…it’s time for some tips to help you ensure success!

Keep Analytics In Mind

Some posts may flop and others may perform better than you ever anticipated! There is a little bit of mystery with social media. You must continuously monitor analytics for your posts.

Look at what does well, look at what flops, and implement these changes into your future social strategy. What works this month, may not work next month! Keep an eye out for what you can improve.

Engage, Engage, Engage

You aren’t just posting to help spread the word about your brand, you (we hope)) are also trying to provide real and valuable information for the world. Engagement is critical on your social media accounts. 71 percent of customers are likely to purchase from a brand after a positive experience on social media, according to SproutSocial!

Even if you don’t have a dedicated employee focused on social media, you should put some effort into responding quickly and answering questions as soon as you receive them. Remember, there are real people on the other end of the screen, and you should be reminding your audience there are also real people behind your brand.

Post At Optimal Times

Each social media platform comes with its own system that is optimized for them. You will have to adapt to each platform in order to get the most out of them. It is important to post at the right times when more of your audience is on the platform.

However, there is not necessarily one “best” time. However, there may be a “best time to post” for your business specifically.

Take a look at your analytics after a few weeks of posting. What time is your audience usually active? That is your best time to post.

Use The Right Hashtags

Hashtags are critical for social media growth, especially on Twitter, Instagram, and Facebook. Hashtags help your post reach more people, so, using the right hashtags can put you in front of the right audience.

Create Great Visuals

Blurry pictures and not-so-great graphics are a great way to get low engagement. You want your pictures and graphics to stand out and catch your attention. Either hire a graphic designer through a freelance site or use creative apps like Canva to craft beautiful graphics cheaply!

Video content is another great way to increase engagement.

Consider Ads

If you think you have got your social media strategy under your belt, but you just aren’t seeing the returns you want, it may be time to consider ads. Luckily, you can run ads on almost every social media platform for cheap – most start as low at $1.

Small Business Social Media Is Easy: Start Posting!

If you have made it all the way through this post, we know you are serious about making your business’ socials succeed.

If you have any questions or need help optimizing your social media marketing strategy or choosing marketing tools to use, give us a call today. We offer a completely free estimate!

Top 5 Ways to Leverage Newsletters for Nonprofit Fundraising

Running a nonprofit organization is hard. More specifically, marketing a nonprofit can be hard. With countless amazing organizations out there, some find it difficult to attract loyal donors. If done right, email newsletters can be an incredible asset for your nonprofit fundraising strategy.

5 Nonprofit Newsletter Tips

The purpose of your nonprofit’s newsletter is multifold. Email marketing is highly effective! Putting out a weekly or monthly newsletter is great way to keep in touch with your audience base and help retain interest over a longer period of time.

It is also a fantastic opportunity in which you can advertise upcoming events, notify people about fundraising events, raise money, highlight updates or simply keep in touch with you donors.

Whether you’re justing starting out setting up your newsletter or you need a few ideas, keep reading!

Below are a few things your newsletter needs to garner success.

1. Donor & Board Member Spotlights

One large part of creating a newsletter is establishing unique and consistent columns.

As nonprofit donors, your audience is clearly a giving group. However, their charitable spirit does not mean they would not like recognition of their generosity.

Give them a pat on the back. Spotlighting donors in each newsletter offers a positive affirmation to push them to become loyal supporters.

A spotlight section will also show your followers how much you value their support. Not only is their donation going toward an amazing cause, but it is also appreciated by your team.

Treat your donors like family and your community will follow suit.

2. Write Quality Content

Tell a story.

If you don’t hook your audience within the first two sentences, they will likely click away. Use your newsletters to pull your readers in and tell a story.

Nonprofit organizations like the Be Positive Foundation support childhood cancer patients and their families through medical treatment while also funding key research. When working with such emotional and sensitive situations, the foundation uses photos, videos, and thank you notes from patients in their email newsletters to pull at their reader’s heartstrings.

When you donate to organizations like Be Positive, you send donations off with no real benchmark of your effect on the children’s lives. However, when the newsletters include firsthand stories from affected children, donors know they are truly making a difference.

Let your storytelling speak for itself. Connect to your readers with a shared empathy and keep the emotional connection alive between donations.

3. Celebrate Successful Statistics

If your friends jumped off a bridge, would you?

Every frustrated teenager has heard this response from a parent when begging to do what everyone else is doing.

So, if everyone else is donating to a nonprofit, would you?

People like to be validated in their actions. When users see other people doing something, they are more inclined to try it themselves. Use your email newsletter to share benchmarks and analytics.

Did your organization hit a new social media follower goal this month? Share it!

Looking for some inspiration from other successful nonprofit campaigns? Check out the ultimate nonprofit marketing guide here.

4. Add a Call To Action

A newsletter is nothing without a solid CTA.

You can share all the positive information you want, but to turn interested readers into leads, you must include a path to do so.

At the end of every newsletter, summarize your organization with a question for your audience.

Do you want to help a child in need? Are rescue animals a passion of yours?

When writing these CTAs, make sure that the answer to these questions is an unquestionable yes for your readers. As they nod their head along in agreement, provide a place for them to take this newfound need.

Provide embedded links and buttons that lead to your website, donation pages, and other resources.

5. Don’t Miss Out On Mobile

Have you ever opened an email or website on your phone to find the design has glitched?

Immediate click off.

When sites are optimized for computers, they are not made to be opened on a mobile device. This creates funky visuals, misplaced buttons, and an incorrect layout.

While most people write and design email newsletters on a computer, 61.9% of email opens happen on a mobile device according to Adestra.

One easy way to avoid readers abandoning your newsletter is the mobile layout. Ensure your newsletter can be easily accessed and read on any kind of device, especially a mobile phone.

This also applies to embedded links and buttons that should lead readers to an external location like Instagram, Facebook, or Google.

Setup Your Newsletter for Nonprofit Fundraising

With a few consistent columns, great visual graphics, and positive community connection, your newsletter is sure to boost donations and keep your followers engaged. Newsletters can be a very effective marketing strategy for your nonprofit and a great way to help drive money towards a fundraising campaign.

Whether you’re looking to increase online donations or simply help bolster your fundraising efforts, newsletter could be part of the answer.

While these tips and tricks will assist your organization in developing a successful newsletter, the trusted team at Elevare has years of experience helping nonprofits increase donations.

Schedule a free consultation today!

The Ultimate Nonprofit Marketing Guide of 2021

In 2016, there were over 1.5 million registered non-profit organizations in the world.

Additionally, around 63 million volunteers work tirelessly every year to help the vision of nonprofits come to life.

When you think about it, that’s a lot of good humanity is doing in the world!

However, not every nonprofit gets the attention it deserves. This is where branding and marketing play a critical role in the success of your nonprofit!

How Nonprofits Can Benefit From Marketing

The most difficult part of running a successful nonprofit is wearing so many hats.

Your organization most likely takes up most of your time.

Yet, with millions of nonprofits in the United States alone, having a passion does not always equate to making money.

The reality is this – to stand out, you must build awareness and help potential donors sift through the crowd of nonprofits.

Branding is all about creating meaningful and impactful experiences that can have an extraordinarily positive impact on your business and those you serve.

Marketing is a powerful tool that can be yielded to help grow your brand to help more people and better serve your community.

Not only does branding and marketing help you attract and bring in new supporters, but it can also assist in better connecting with donors and engaging with your community on a daily basis.

Below are a few more reasons why nonprofit marketing is worth the investment.

Marketing Increases Awareness

Many nonprofit founders don’t like to view their mission as a business.

Interestingly, however, the most success nonprofits look at themselves as a brand; a symbol of the vision they hope for the world.

As a brand, in order to reach a new audience or expand your audience, you must raise awareness.

Marketing efforts assist in this process of reaching a broader audience and spreading the word about your cause and your organization’s efforts.

Marketing Raises Funds

With greater awareness, comes more funding!

The more people you reach the more donations will come in.

Marketing and fundraising go side-by-side. The broader the audience, the more funding can be brought in.

Marketing Drives Donors, Repeat Donations, And Volunteer Support

At the end of the day, you need people to be lifetime supporters, not single instance donors.

You want them to get involved and stay that way. Marketing can help you not only reach the right people but keep them involved.

This can be through a variety of ways, either through in-person events and fundraisers or virtually through blogs and social media.

If people care about your mission, they are more likely to stay and keep donating their money and time.

For example, many nonprofits offer monthly giving programs such as this notable one from Charity: Water.

Nonprofit Marketing Promotes Your Mission And Services

Finally, nonprofit marketing helps to promote you and your services.

Donations, awareness, and volunteers are all part of a thriving nonprofit. However, marketing can help get the word out about those you are actually helping!

The bigger the audience that knows about your organization, the more people that will help.

These are just a few reasons why your nonprofit should consider implementing a nonprofit marketing strategy today.

Nonprofit Definitions

Whether you have been in the nonprofit industry for years, or are just starting out, it’s important to know your definitions! We have compiled a list of the most important terms you should know about the nonprofit sector.

Nonprofit

A business or organization is a nonprofit if its main purpose isn’t to make money for its owners. Nonprofits usually raise money for charities.

501(c)(3)

This term refers to a portion of the U.S. Internal Revenue Code and a specific tax category for nonprofit organizations. If nonprofits meet the requirements, then they are legally exempt from federal income tax.

Board Member

The Board of Directors is the governing body of a nonprofit. Individuals who sit on the board are responsible for overseeing the organization’s activities, and regularly discuss the management and operations of the organization.

Executive Director

The director oversees all firing, hiring, compliance, and other administrative duties within a nonprofit. They are also responsible for managing all financial practices such as fundraising.

Donor

A donor is an individual or organization that provides financial support to the nonprofit.

Donation

This is the money given by the donor to be used only by the nonprofit.

Form 990

While nonprofit organizations do not have to pay taxes, they must file a form with the IRS – a Form 990. This 990 ensures that the nonprofit conducts its business in a responsible manner.

Foundation

Foundations are organizations that did not qualify as public charities. They are very similar to nonprofits, except money for a foundation usually comes from a family or a corporate entity, whereas nonprofit money often comes from their revenues.

Fundraising

Fundraising or fund-raising is the process of seeking and gathering voluntary financial contributions by engaging individuals, businesses, charitable foundations, or governmental agencies.

Grant

A grant is a financial donation that is given to an organization, typically by a foundation or corporation.

Press Release

A press release is an official statement given by members of the news media for the purpose of giving information or making a public announcement.

Planned Giving

Planned giving refers to the solicitation of major gifts for a nonprofit organization, usually through a will, bequest, or trust. For many donors, planned giving is an opportunity for them to give their life new meaning after their death.

Pledge

A pledge is a verbal or written promise to donate a specific amount.

Target Population/ Target Demographic

The target audience or population is the entire market of potential customers your nonprofit identifies with.

Creating Your Own Ultimate Nonprofit Marketing Strategy in 7 Easy Steps

Now that you have an understanding of the terms associated with nonprofit marketing and you’re ready to get started, it’s time to start creating your strategy. Having a strategic approach to accomplishing your marketing goals can ensure the success of your campaign!

This can be accomplished in 7 easy steps.

1. Define Marketing Goals and Objectives

Before you start, the first and more important step is to define your goals and determine your objective. Then, focus your approach based on these definitions.

A great way to do this is to use the SMART framework. This is an acronym that stands for specific, measurable, achievable, relevant, and time-based. Each part of this framework works together to help you craft a goal that is carefully planned and trackable.

2. Do Your Research On Your Market/Audience

This is easily the most time-consuming part of developing a comprehensive marketing plan. However, it is extremely important for success. You must understand your audience in order to effectively appeal to them.

This is also where nonprofit marketing differs from for-profit marketing. Your audience is different from the typical audience because nonprofits are targeting more than one group – donors, volunteers, and customers.

Your marketing strategy will differ based on your understanding of each group, and who you are talking to.

How do you determine your target audience and build a buyer persona? Do your research! Start googling.

How to create a buyer persona:

Determine demographics: Age, gender, location, education, etc
Determine professional demographics: industry, job, etc.
Evaluate values: What type of people are likely to donate/volunteer for your cause? What is important to them? What is the driving force behind their purchasing decisions?
Check out preferences: Where do these types of people get their media? What are their hobbies?
Also, determine the negatives: What characteristics do you not want in an ideal customer/donor?

By answering these questions, you can stitch together a donor persona.

3. Define Audience and Target Niche/Donors

After you fully understand your audience, you can more easily craft compelling copy for your campaigns and know where and how to reach them. Now that all of your questions are answered, zero in on your ideal/client or donor.

If you’d like more information of how to find your target audience check out this blog post.

4. Craft Key Messaging

Key messages are information that you want your audience to hear and remember about your organization.

Just like you have determined your audience, mission, and goals, it is also important to write key messages before launching your campaign in order for you to stay consistent.

Write out a few key messages before you start your campaign. This will ensure that all your marketing messages are similar and encompass the same intentions, no matter who takes over your social media accounts or marketing work.

Let’s look at an example for clarity. Let’s say that you are an animal rescue nonprofit.

An example of a key message: We honor and protect dogs and cats in our community by offering adoption and foster care services and shelter for abandoned animals.

However, you work with volunteers, donors, and those looking to adopt.

Donors: You can assist us in protecting animals in the community by donating with our monthly giving plan.

Supporters: We protect abandoned animals in our community, by offering 24/7 care for lost dogs and cats.

Customers: You can help abandoned animals, by adopting or fostering.

Through these three examples, you can clearly see how the message, while adapted for the audience, stays the same and true to its original purpose.

5. Determine Marketing Strategies

You should have your audience, mission, goals, and key messaging down. Now, it’s time to move on to determining which channels to use to deploy your message.

This is a step many marketers jump right to launching an ad campaign, posting to social media, or sending off an eblast. But wait! Tactical planning is an integral part of your nonprofit marketing plan’s success or failure.

Marketing tactics and strategies refer to the specific channels that will be used throughout your campaigns such as email, social media, or etc. Regardless of which ones you choose, be certain you conduct careful planning before you execute it.

Ask yourself these questions:

Who is managing our marketing campaign?
What is the budget?
Which social channels will we use?
What paid channels will we use?

There are so many different approaches to marketing effectively. If you aren’t sure which tactic to employ or which platform to use, that’s where we can help. We offer a free consultation where we can help you determine the best use of your resources! Contact us today and kick off your marketing goals.

6. Create content/plan

Finally, it is time to create some content! Whether you hire someone to help you curate and create the content, graphics, videos, blogs, etc, or you do it yourself, it’s time to get creative.

The hardest part of this process is to stay organized.

It’s important to delegate. Determine who will create the content necessary. You may need to hire someone or pay a freelancer for some work. Luckily there are some great sites out there for affordable freelancers such as Fiverr or Upwork.

If you are creating the content on your own, rather than hiring a professional, there’s plenty of free and affordable programs out there to make your life easier. A few apps we love for content creation are Canva, Google Suite, and Grammarly.

7. Analyze Success/Failure of Marketing Campaign

Success may take time as you fine-tune your message and strategies.

Don’t worry! Every few weeks, check on your metrics to see if your strategy is working. If you aren’t seeing the results you want, you may need to adjust your approach.

Key metrics to look for:

Email marketing: email opens
Events: ticket sales
Video marketing: video views and downloads
Website: conversions or engagement or page views
Social media: shares, comments, and followers
Content marketing: page views, conversion rate, engagement rate, etc

There are also software and systems you can use to help you evaluate your analytics such as Google Analytics (which is free) or you can pay for programs like those from SEMrush or HubSpot. Evaluating your analytics regularly will help you optimize your content.

Different Types of Marketing Strategies for Nonprofits

Great, so now you have created a solid non-profit marketing plan. Now, let’s talk about how you will execute this plan. There are many different marketing platforms that you can use to your benefit.

Usually doing more with less is the best option.

For example, in regards to social media, your nonprofit probably doesn’t need a Pinterest account.

Most likely for you, Instagram or TikTok is the most valuable platform, so it makes more sense to focus on that one over the others.

Ultimately, don’t hesitate to outsource your marketing efforts wherever needed.

If you are looking for some inspiration, check out these massively successful nonprofit marketing campaigns.

Here are a few different types of marketing you may want to consider utilizing:

Email Marketing
Event Marketing
Video Marketing
Social Media Marketing
Content Marketing

Email Marketing

Email marketing can be highly effective for nonprofit organizations. 77 percent of marketers claim that email marketing is one of the top two most effective digital marketing channels, according to HubSpot.

Here are some ideas for using email marketing:

Send a weekly or bi-monthly newsletter to your donors and supporters with the latest update and announcements. This will help them stay engaged with your community.
Sends monthly emails with requests for help, and volunteer opportunities and engagements.
Send emails as thank-yous for donors and volunteers.

While email marketing can be tedious and time-consuming, there are plenty of systems out there that can help you automate these processes. MailChimp offers great email automation services.

Event Marketing

Event marketing can be extremely impactful and effective! A few examples of event marketing would be webinars, fundraising events (like sponsoring a 5k), and more. These are great ways to offer something of value and connect with your community while still raising awareness (and raising money) for your cause.

A nonprofit that has mastered the art of event marketing is TED. TED provides free and paid-for talks and conferences that align with their mission of “ideas worth spreading.” Odds are you have seen a TED Talk on YouTube!

While you may not have the draw of TED, you can employ event marketing for your benefit.

Video Marketing

Of all the digital marketing strategies you could employ, arguably the most important is video. 60 percent of businesses use video as a marketing tool, and an impressive 68 percent of marketers say video has a better return on investment than Google Ads!

These statistics speak for themselves, people prefer to see videos, over static imagery and other traditional methods. At the end of the day, videos are fun, enjoyable, and easy to watch. They keep people engaged!

Here are a few reasons why video marketing can be effective:

Video is visually entertaining. We actually process video content incredibly fast – over 60,000 times faster than standard text. Thus, visual stimuli are more interesting and will keep your attention longer.
Video can be personal and emotional. Showing is always better than telling. This can be clearly shown in video marketing. For example, if someone tells you that abandoned dogs are dying on the streets due to lack of water, this will probably make you sad.
But, seeing it? That inspires an entirely different set of emotions. We can all probably recall the heart-felt SPCA commercials, where actress Sarah McLachlan narrates over footage of sad and emaciated animals.
Video is easily shareable. Did you know that around 91 percent of consumers will share videos with others via mobile?

Social Media Marketing

Not only is social media becoming increasingly popular for businesses to utilize in their marketing strategies, but it is also free! Social media also provides an avenue for you to show off your brand’s personality and mission.

Here are a few ways your nonprofit can use social media:

Share about your mission, goals, and initiatives
Share updates and announcements
Fundraise
Help recruit volunteers and donors
Celebrate your wins publicly

Did you know, 71 percent of small-midsize businesses use social media to market their services?

Content Marketing

Content marketing is a powerful marketing tactic. Similarly to social media, you could be increasing organic traffic to your website through a blog for free.

Yes, hiring a content writer may cost you, boosting your organic traffic and improving your SEO could put you in front of hundreds or thousands of more eyes.

Bolster Your Marketing, Ensure Success

We hope these marketing tips help you craft a successful nonprofit marketing strategy.

If you strategize and implement the system we’ve laid out, we are confident your organization will grow exponentially!

If you liked this article, and want to work with a team that can implement this proven system for you, click below and get started.

Schedule My Free Consultation

Archive for the ‘Marketing’ Category

What Is Content Marketing? 🤔

How Does Content Marketing Help Businesses?

5 Content Marketing Examples to Raise Your Bottom Line

1. Podcasts

2. Case studies

3. Ebooks

4. Webinars

5. Vlogs

Take Your Storytelling To The Next Level With Content Marketing Services From Elevare! 🚀

Consider These 15 Content Marketing Strategies

1. Videos

2. Podcasts

3. Live streams

4. Audio blog posts

5. Case studies

6. Infographics

7. Influencer marketing

8. Webinar classes

9. Landing pages

10. Email marketing campaigns

11. White papers

12. Virtual conferences

13. PPC campaigns

14. SEO

15. Polls

Other content marketing formats to explore:

Are You Looking for a Content Marketing Company?

Reach Out to Elevare for Content Marketing Strategies and Services

Defining Marketing Vs. Branding

Marketing Definition

Branding Definition

The Differences Between Brandings Vs. Marketing

Why You Need Both

Need Help With Branding Or Marketing?

What Is Content Marketing?

Benefits Of Content Marketing:

Top 4 Nonprofit Content Marketing Campaigns

1. Charity:Water

2. Make-A-Wish

3. March of Dimes

4. Best Friends Animal Society

Ready To Develop Your Nonprofit’s Content Marketing Strategy?

Why Do Nonprofits Need Social Media Marketing?

Digital Age

What Social Platforms Should I Use?

How To Start Promoting My Nonprofit With Social Media

Set clear goals and objectives

Determine your target audience

Determine which social platforms to use

Craft a strategy and execute

4 Ways Nonprofits Can Use Social Media With A Limited Budget

Create And Post Interactive Content

Include Hashtags

Use Lots Of Visuals

Make Donating Easy

Need Nonprofit Social Media Marketing Help?

Why Your Nonprofit Needs Content Marketing

12 Nonprofit Blog Ideas

1. Tell stories about those you help.

2. Share about your staff.

3. Invite guest bloggers to write a blog post.

4. Share about events.

5. Ask your staffers.

6. Summarize press releases and current company news.

7. Highlight an individual donor.

8. Share about your nonprofit’s backstory and/or founders.

9. Repurpose newsletter and eblast content.

10. Attending an event or conference?

11. Talk about work accomplished by volunteers.

12. Share some statistics!

Ready To Start Blogging?

Race Forward

Intersectional Environmentalist

KIND

Dream Corps

Kathy’s Legacy Foundation

Campaign Zero

The Bail Project

Reclaim the Block