Nonprofit Marketing Missed Opportunities (and resources to fix this)

Have you ever watched the Francis Alys video, “When Faith Moves Mountains“? It’s crazy what amazing changes can happen when people come together and use all the resources available in their community toolkit. In a similar way, it’s amazing what can happen for a nonprofit’s marketing presence on the web, when they optimize all the resources available to them.

As a nonprofit, it’s likely that you believe in the ability of community to pull together their resources and overcome challenges. But it’s similarly likely that you’ve been discouraged by the online community, assuming nonprofits that have grand websites and standout social media campaigns know some secret you’ll never grasp. It’s daunting to try to keep up with the digital sphere.

To instill some greater confidence, I want to point you to all the online resources your nonprofit marketing team has available to them and shed some light on how these can move your online presence forward. You might not have been aware of nonprofit marketing missed opportunities passing you by.

Nonprofit Marketing Missed Opportunities

– using Free resources –

– Following bloggers & subscribing to newsletters

There are writers and influencers out there that are offering free news updates, guidebooks and webinars on all things nonprofit. They want you to follow them and engage with them. If you come to their page, share their articles and ask them questions, you’re actually helping them out through increasing their site traffic and their relevancy. Meanwhile you’re learning, for free. It’s a win-win situation.

– Read more in “Best Nonprofit Bloggers to Follow” and “Subscribe to These Five Nonprofit News Updates“

– Receiving your free money

Did you know that most nonprofits qualify for a $10,000 grant from Google? Yes, they want to grant you help as you try to show up on their front page of search results.

-Read about how you might be missing out in “Not Fully Utilizing Your Google Grant?” and gather some best practices in “Google AdWords for Nonprofits [Slideshare]“

– Using a social media network most nonprofits under-utilize

As a nonprofit, you likely have quite the profound story to share. Video is one of the best ways to communicate this in a way that really grabs viewers. And you have a free platform for which to do this on: hint hint = YouTube. What’s more, YouTube has a nonprofit program. They want to help you, yet again!

– To get started read, “Optimized YouTube for Nonprofits.”

– Taking advantage of free tools

If you feel like you’re always one step behind the next greatest gadget or tool, we’ll point to a few resources to help you keep up. There are far more apps and sites in place than nonprofits may think.

– Discover all the ways Google helps nonprofits besides what we’ve mentioned above: Review of Google Apps

– Wearing too many hats? Review some more free tools/apps that suit marketers well in “7 Free Tech Tools,” “Digital Marketing Lessons on Demand,” “Expand Your Digital Knowledge Base.”

– Informing your visitors –

– Blogging

Whether visitors are coming to your site to discover more about your nonprofit or not, they should definitely learn something about your cause. Your nonprofit’s blog can be a space for learning about the realm in which your nonprofit works (ex.: news updates about the cause). It can provide a resource for gathering resources on volunteerism and community building. And perhaps the most specific to your nonprofit, it can be a venue for learning about the broader world through stories you share about the people your nonprofit effects.

– Still not blogging? Take a look at “Is Your Nonprofit Blogging?“

– Sending a consistent newsletter

Similarly, you can curate information for your subscribers so they don’t have to seek it out themselves. Just make sure you’re sending the right info to the right people; you’ll want your newsletter to resonate with your audience, and it’s likely not a one-size-fits-all matter.

– Learn to better segment your newsletter with, “How to Configure List Segmentation for Email Marketing” and question if your current newsletter is worth a read or not in, “Would YOU Read Your Newsletter?“

Empowering your visitors:

– Providing a platform for action

We often forget how people want to help and they can help a lot more when they have an efficient method and supportive platform for doing so. Take a look at charity: water. They encourage their site visitors to launch their own campaign. Then they follow-up with their help for making it all work to the best of the volunteer’s abilities.

– Optimizing your thank you’s

Once you’ve done all the leg work of gathering volunteers, donors and the community to help your mission, you want to make sure you thank them and then empower them to do more. One of the most effective ways to do just this is a proper, creative and authentic, “thank you.”

– Gather some ideas in “Follow-Up Ideas for Nonprofits“

For more help in taking advantage of these opportunities, grab a copy of our monthly newsletter, The Nerdy Nonprofit.