Your Guide to Fundraiser Marketing for Nonprofits
Fundraiser marketing for nonprofits comes in many different shapes and forms, from digital marketing techniques like email campaigns, to content marketing designed to raise awareness of your organization and cause. All types of digital marketing for nonprofits are incredibly powerful tools for boosting participation in events, reminding your community of upcoming fundraisers, and raising funds!
Marketing is a key aspect of fundraiser strategy and could be the difference between organizing a good fundraiser and an incredible one. As a nonprofit organization, hosting a successful fundraiser event is essential for your work, and so making sure that as many people know about your fundraiser as possible should be a priority.
This article is designed to be your nonprofit marketing guide and contains everything you need to know about nonprofit marketing, including the best ways to publicise your event, available resources you can use, and a run down of fundraiser marketing with GroupRaise that you receive when you organise a meal with us.
So let’s get started!
The basic nonprofit marketing guide
Before you start your marketing campaign, you need to create a plan. A marketing checklist is a simple way to lay out the steps required to create a successful nonprofit marketing campaign.
You will need to consider your available resources, budget, target audience, and time scale before you start creating content. We’ve created a basic marketing checklist that will help you break down your marketing goals, methods, resources, and the steps required to carry it out.
You can find more information on types of marketing and how to create marketing content further down in the article, but for now, let’s go through the checklist.
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1. Define your goals
Outline the goals of your fundraiser so that you know exactly how to publicize the event. Who or what are you raising for? Why is this cause important? This is information your supporters will want to know!
2. Identify your target audience
Who are you looking to attract with your marketing campaign? Is your fundraiser event for everyone or a specific age group and demographic? Different age groups engage differently with content, so some research into the type of social media sites your audience use will help you create more effective marketing campaigns.
3. Resources
Your marketing strategy has to be achievable! There is little point planning an ambitious ad campaign without the resources or funds to follow it through. There’s more information on email marketing for nonprofits and content marketing for nonprofits further down in this article.
For now, determine what your budget is and the available talent resources you have on your team. Do you have someone already knowledgeable in using marketing tools? Or a team member who is great at design and social media?
4. Content creation
Once you’ve outlined the above points, you can start designing content. This is your chance to get creative!
A good place to start is to check out what your competitors are doing or get inspiration from similar sites you admire. Try and build on their ideas and be sure to harness the skills of your team to create great content!
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These are just some starter points to get the ball rolling for your nonprofit marketing plan. You can use this checklist to refer back to as you create your plan and start designing content to make sure it is tailored to your organization’s needs and goals.
Digital marketing for nonprofits
Digital marketing is essentially any form of marketing that exists online, such as emails, social media, videos, and more.
When it comes to digital marketing for nonprofits, it is vital to consider your main aims and target audience. With the sheer size of the internet and number of online resources available to people nowadays, you need to make sure that the marketing techniques you adopt are as specific and tailored as possible.
There are a number of resources and sites that help you create and deliver digital marketing campaigns, depending on the type of digital marketing you are creating.
Email marketing for nonprofits involves email campaigns that aim to pique the interest of your target audience and encourage them to click on a link or download a resource. This could be a link to your website, donation page, or more information about a fundraiser event.
Some common email marketing resources include Mailchimp, Salesforce, and Hubspot.
Social media
Social media marketing for nonprofits is a more visual form of digital marketing often involving images and infographics to capture your audience’s attention. Strong social media marketing is a great way to reach a large audience, and so having a strong nonprofit social media strategy in place is a smart move.
Resources such as canva pro nonprofit enable you to create infographics and you can schedule posts to Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn and Instagram with sites such as Hubspot.
Ad campaigns
Ad campaigns are a powerful nonprofit marketing tool that have the potential to reach a lot of people. You can easily create Facebook ads for nonprofits that allow you to publicise an event. With Facebook, you can also track your ads to see who is engaging and responding.
SMS Text messages
Text and SMS marketing is a fast and direct way to reach your audience. They work particularly well for reminders of upcoming events and prompts to donate. Certain sites also enable you to set up text donations for your supporters, such as the National Funding Scheme.
Online PR content
This includes more traditional content such as blogs, case studies, and other web-based content that helps to raise awareness of your organization. It is important to have a strong website as a place to direct visitors. For example, from Facebook ads, emails, and social posts.
Email marketing for nonprofits: the basics
Email marketing campaigns are strong nonprofit marketing tools. There are different types of email marketing for nonprofits to consider.
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You may choose to launch an email campaign for your particular event. This typically consists of sending a few emails leading up to the event. A first email will introduce the event and direct audiences to resources with more information. A second and third follow up email will act as reminders and encourage them to sign up to take part or donate.
Consider the timeline of your email marketing to leave enough room for your audience to read and take action!
Email marketing for nonprofits also includes monthly newsletter and welcome emails to new organization members. You can use these emails to publicize your upcoming fundraiser and direct audiences to your website for more information about your cause.
Mailchimp is a great resource for email marketing for nonprofits. Mailchimp allows you to create, automate, send, and track emails. It also lets you curate a contacts list and landing page for those who engage. The platform is free for up to 2,000 contacts with more features and contact packages starting at $9.99/month.
Content marketing for nonprofits: the basics
Content marketing for nonprofits includes blog posts, ebooks, and more visual content such as images, infographics, and videos.
If you don’t have a website, you can use WordPress to host blog posts and more information about your organisation.
Use social media to direct your audience to your site or fundraiser page. There they can find information about your upcoming event and how to take part. Alternatively, social media is a great way to remind people by posting about your fundraiser as the date approaches.
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Some useful resources to optimise your content and nonprofit marketing strategy include Canva Pro, Buffer, and Hubspot. These sites allow you to design posts and infographics and then include them in your articles or schedule them to various social media channels.
Facebook ads for nonprofits work in a similar way by directing supporters to your site or fundraising page.
The complete package: Fundraiser marketing with GroupRaise
When you book a restaurant fundraiser with GroupRaise, you will receive a complete marketing kit to help your organization publicize the event and engage with as many people as possible.
The GroupRaise blog also has a wealth of resources and information to help you make the most out of your fundraiser, so be sure to check it out if you’re after more inspiration!
Fundraiser Meal Page
Once you’ve booked your restaurant fundraiser, GroupRaise automatically generates an online Meal Promo Page. This includes all the details for your event. Such as time, date, location, how to order and the percentage of sales donated back to your cause. You can use this page to send to members of your community and collect RSVPs.
The Meal Promo Page is a great resource to share in social media posts and emails because it contains all the information your supporters need to know.
Leading up to your fundraiser, GroupRaise will also send out various resources to prepare for the event. We include information on how to create an events page on Facebook so that you can easily invite your community and spread the work about your fundraiser.
A facebook events page is a great marketing nonprofit resource because Facebook automatically sends out reminders to all invitees leading up to the event.
As your event approaches, you will also gain access to a suggested promotion schedule. This includes when to send out marketing emails, reminder text messages, and social media posts. GroupRaise also provides a customized printable flyer and some basic text templates for SMS messages and social posts.
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With these tools, you will be able to create a strong nonprofit marketing plan across all platforms and channels to make sure that as many people as possible know about your event and how to take part.
Time to work some marketing magic!
As you can see, there are lots of tools and resources that enable fundraiser marketing for nonprofits. We hope this nonprofit marketing guide will help you know exactly how to create an effective marketing campaign and utilise your resources for the best result.
Be sure to use the marketing checklist to set out a strong marketing plan, and remember – the most effective marketing campaigns are often those that reach the most people!
While you’re here, be sure to explore local restaurants where you could host your own restaurant fundraiser. After all, we make marketing super easy!
For more information about GroupRaise’s marketing resources, you can read this article that covers a step-by-step guide to restaurant fundraiser marketing.
Don’t hesitate to contact us if you have any questions about organizing a restaurant fundraiser. Or if regarding how to do marketing as a nonprofit.
