It doesn’t matter if you work for a large nonprofit or a small one; creativity is essential for any marketing campaign. A massive budget with boring, unimaginative ideas and blog posts won’t get your nonprofit anywhere. To help inspire you and your team, we’ve collected a list of 4 of the top nonprofit content marketing campaigns.
The nonprofit industry can be challenging. Often, many nonprofits are run and operated by a select group of people who wear many different hats. And now, more than ever, businesses are moving online. If your nonprofit is looking to expand its reach and bring in more awareness and donations, you should consider content marketing.
However, we understand that it can feel overwhelming to implement an entirely new marketing strategy! That’s why it’s essential to look at content marketing campaigns that have already been successful.
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.
Top 4 Nonprofit Content Marketing Campaigns
Ready to start crafting a compelling content marketing campaign? But, perhaps you’re not sure where to start? Check out these top 4 nonprofit organizations that had successful content marketing campaigns.
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.
Contact us today, and your nonprofit can experience the power content marketing can bring to your organization.
