How Your Marketing Impacts Donor Experience

Image is everything to a nonprofit, which is why branding is such a major topic of discussion in the world of charitable organizations. However, many organizations are struggling to lay out new branding strategies that properly utilize the highly effective marketing channels we know today. Likewise, it’s tricky to figure out how your approach to modern marketing can be implemented in a way that actually improves the experience of your followers and donors. 

Changing Your Perspective on Marketing

For many committed leaders, marketing can feel like boastful self-promotion. That’s a tough concept for most nonprofits to get behind. However, that’s far from the truth. In reality, your perspective on marketing should reflect its purpose of informing the public about your cause and the impact they can help you make. It’s not about bragging, but about educating and inspiring.

With this perspective, you’ll find that it’s suddenly easier to not only spread the word about your nonprofit and its good work, but you’ll also take note that the people who interact with your “marketing” content are no longer put off or irritated, but engaged and motivated to make a difference. The key is figuring out how to utilize the various channels you have at your disposal to encourage such interactions and impressions, and data will prove invaluable as you go through the selection process.

Choose Marketing Channels Wisely to Improve Donor Experience

It’s important to consider which marketing channels you should prioritize. Are you thinking about the donor experience as a primary factor, like you should? If so, you should focus on your website, social media platforms, and email newsletter. And in that order.

Your Website

Donors are active online, and you need to be, too. Most would consider your website the core of your digital presence. That’s why having a great site that’s easy to find and easy to navigate is an absolute must. However, beyond an attractive layout and intuitive menu, you also need to consider the content you put on your website and the message it gets across. Understanding the psychology of giving will prove helpful.

Powerful imagery combined with the right wording is what it will take for your website to be a truly effective marketing tool. Likewise, you should have an obvious donation button with the right call-to-action. This will influence people to actually click it. Above all, you should think about finding ways to further engage people who are reading or visiting your website. To ensure a great donor experience, you should always be thinking about the next step to encourage further immersion and interaction. 

Social Media Channels

Most organizations have jumped on board with the concept of using social media, but that doesn’t mean you need to be active on every network. In fact, maintaining an active and engaging social media presence is actually extremely time consuming, which is why most organizations will choose to focus on between one and three channels where the majority of their donors can be found.

Once you have identified those channels, you need to remember that people use social media to connect and have fun. So, your content should be relevant, creative, and enjoyable to interact with. Posting a few times a week, or even each day, is important to engagement as well. You should work images, events, testimonials, and more should into your content plan. Also, remember to make engagement a two-way interaction.

Email Blasts

Email blasts, or “eblasts,” make for an efficient means of communicating. You can contact any donors or contacts that you have collected email addresses from. With the right subject line, these communications offer a powerful tool. They’re engaging and a direct means of interacting with folks you need relationships with.

The trick is ensuring your emails always focus on telling your story and sharing your passion by discussing your latest projects and successes. It can be beneficial to ask for money outright. Don’t let every single email you send be a request for donations, though. With no real updates, reasons, or acknowledgment, you’ll run into issues. 

When done right, email blasts are another important element for working on that all-important donor experience. So, make sure you always put yourself in the donor’s shoes. Think about how you would perceive the message. This will help you excel.

Marketing the Donor Experience

Promoting your cause is an integral part to increasing donations. And while you’re not really marketing a donor experience, your promotional tactics can affect this experience. For additional tips on how you can improve in this area and increase giving, Schedule a Discovery Call with the experts at DonorWerx today.