Marketing has changed dramatically in the last couple of decades. In the last century, there was no such thing as digital marketing. When you wanted to get the word out about your organization, you had limited options. There was print advertising (direct mail, print ads, billboards, etc.), television or radio ads, or in-person marketing (networking, events, word-of-mouth). Digital marketing has changed the game when it comes to how you promote your organization. Now, you have to consider things like digital ads, email marketing, search engine optimization, social media marketing, podcasts, and more. Because of the complexity involved in marketing on some of these platforms, many organizations turn to a trusted nonprofit marketing agency in San Diego for help.
Marketing agencies that focus on nonprofits understand the unique needs of these types of organizations. Nonprofits aren’t looking to make sales like businesses are. Instead, they are often looking to increase awareness about their causes and bring in new supporters. Achieving these types of goals requires a different type of approach.
First of all, people don’t typically search the internet for charities to support, like they would for a business to patronize. This makes search engine advertising and search engine optimization for nonprofits a challenge. But just because something is challenging doesn’t mean it should be avoided. There are ways to use search engines to the advantage of a nonprofit—it just requires some added creativity.
Beeline, a nonprofit marketing agency that works with San Diego nonprofits (as well as nonprofits throughout the United States), utilizes an approach that often includes “lead magnets.” Lead magnets are digital resources that can be used to attract the types of visitors to a nonprofit’s website that have a high potential to become supporters. These digital resources could be e-books, webinars, quizzes, or anything else that might be of interest to a potential donor. The key is to link the resource to the cause.
One of Beeline’s success stories in this tactic is a Jewish food bank near Chicago. They were looking to increase their number of supporters through digital marketing. Beeline helped them create a digital cookbook filled with Jewish holiday recipes from famous Jewish influencers, and then ran ads on Google (using the Google Ad Grant) to promote the cookbook to those searching for recipes online. In exchange for the e-book, people provided their email address. Now, the food bank has thousands of new email addresses of people to whom they can send regular communications about their charity. And because these are people who were searching for Jewish recipes, they are also the types of people who would be more likely than the average person to support a Jewish food bank.
This multichannel approach to nonprofit marketing, which uses digital resources, search engine advertising, and email marketing, can be extremely successful when executed properly. Unfortunately, many nonprofit organizations don’t have the capabilities in-house to pull it off. That’s why it can be extremely beneficial to work with an experienced nonprofit marketing agency in San Diego—one that will work to understand your nonprofit’s goals for growth and create a plan that will help you accomplish them.
