Marketing For Non-Profit 501c3 Organizations

The online landscape is perfectly suited for driving online donations and increasing membership levels for non-profit 501c3 organizations.

What do non-profits need to do to take advantage of the online environment?

We have outlined 5 rules of thumb that non-profits should consider when moving their operation online:

1. Don't skimp on your website

Donors and members want to know what you stand for, and the best way you can educate them is via your website. A non-profits website should contain all the information that will get a potential donor excited, and want to leap at the chance to help. It will also help you learn about who your potential donor is through back-end analytics.

The 501c3 website should be a destination of learning, but it should also be easy to navigate. The homepage doesn't need to be cluttered with scroll after scroll of information, and the navigation doesn't have to be sub-menu after sub-menu long. Go the extra mile with the layout of the site and make it engaging and easy to get around. Make the flow of information intuitive, and take the visitor on a journey through the non-profits cause.

You should have links to your Facebook profile, MySpace profile, Twitter page, LinkedIn profile and blog. These should be updated at least once a week, but more if possible. The more you keep talking about the non-profits cause, the more people will start to listen and identify. The goal...to drive them to your website.

If you have events, fundraisers, or any organization gatherings for your non-profit 501c3...film them! Put them on YouTube and then get your webmaster to embed them on your website for everyone to enjoy.

Harness the database and send out an email newsletter every two weeks to the members of your non-profit. Keep them informed about what is going on and keep them in engaged in the organization.

MAKE SURE YOUR DONATION PAYMENT PORTAL WORKS CORRECTLY! It is incredibly important to make sure that the process of entering personal information along with a credit card number online is secure, well thought out and seamless, instilling a high level of trust in the potential donor to your non-profit organization. No one wants to opt-in to a scam.  Get online seals of approval from Verisign, TrustE, and HackerSafe. Make sure the connection is secure. Once the transaction is complete, there MUST be a "Thank You" page with a "personal" thank you from the head of the non-profit, followed by an auto-responder email.

The website is important. It is the online home-base for yur non-profit 501c3.

2. Keep talking

The reality is, you don't have to write a whole lot in the blogs and social networks.  Small updates about the latest developments of your 501c3, or get personal and speak about why you believe in what you do...it is all good stuff, that your supporters want to know about. Taking out 2 hours in the week to make the updates is not impossible, and it is a great investment in your non-profit cause. Before you look around you are updating and communicating every day, bubbling over with things to say.

It is so important to have a well crafted email news letter. Make sure they are not just please for donations for your non-profit, but full of interesting stuff about the organization. Of course there should be a direct link to the donation portal, along with links to stories on the website, as well as video and pictures.

The key is to keep evangelizing the cause of your 501c3. You will  be surprised at how quickly a good cause can spread through the online community.

An added benefit to all of this content writing is the positive effect it has on your SEO (Search Engine Optimization). SEO is what gives you top ranking positions in the unpaid search results on search engines like Google and Yahoo.

3. Be innovative

Don't be afraid of experimenting with the bevvy of tactics that the digital world has to offer. Apart from the social networks like Facebook and MySpace, there is Twitter (a mobile micro-blog) which can be updated via text messages from your cellphone. The mobile device is the central point of communication for millions of people. Creating an iPhone optimized website,  building a downloadable application, or even getting a shortcode to run text messaging programs for your non-profit are all excellent ways of building a presence and creating buzz around the cause.

Get involved in online communities of like minded people. The beauty of Web 2.0 is the ability to communicate. Take advantage and participate in the conversation. Become a friend.

4. Advertise your non-profit 501c3

Advertising online is cost-effective, highly optimizable, and very effective. There are an amazing amount of pricing models, targeting strategies and messaging tactics that you can employ online to make sure your message gets in front of the right person, and drives them to your website.

Performance pricing models include CPC (cost per click), CPD (cost-per-donation), CPL (cost-per-lead). These kinds of pricing models are generally available on ad networks. The network relies on the fact that the creative is effective enough to drive the person to accomplish the action, click, make a donation or enter information into a database to become a lead. The network will often have an approval process to make sure the ad is acceptable. Once the deal is set and the media buy is in play, the network will continue to serve up your advert, thousands and thousands times over, hoping to drive people to perform the action they are getting paid on. Premium sites often don't offer performance pricing, but rather sell their ad space on a CPM (cost-per-thousand impressions) model.

Targeting the ads helps us make the advertising more efficient.  Apart from the standard demographic targeting, we have psycho-graphic targeting, behavioral targeting, geographic targeting, affinity targeting, re-targeting, cookie targeting, social targeting and contextual targeting. New targeting capabilities are emerging every month, making the online campaign hyper-effective.

Messaging can take the form of paid search advertising also know as SEM (Search Engine Marketing), image based banner ads in a static version or in the more animated Flash.  They can also become as complex as mini websites in the form of a banner ad, that shows videos, plays audio, and has the ability to collect sign-up data. These are known as Rich Media ads. Choosing the right messaging is a very important step. The messaging must drive people to the website,  while creating a lasting impression on people that don't click. That lasting impression will drive them to use a search engine to find out about the cause later on. Once they search they are greeted by paid search results, as well as a whole page of links to all your SEO friendly content you have been writing.

You will be surprised at what online publishers, ad networks, and destination websites have to offer the official 501c3. Free advertising space, front page promotion, and a host of other goodies to help you spread the word about your cause. There is often a lot of red tape and reading that needs to be done, but it is well worth it.

5. Learn about your 501c3 audience

The online environment can teach you lot about who your donor and non-profit member is, and will help you optimize all of your marketing efforts.

Using a free analytics package like Google Analytics will give you amazing amount of insight into who your talking to. It will tell you pages of information on who is visiting your website, where they came from, and where they went.  It will tell you if they went through the entire process of making a donations and if not, at which point did they bail out. It will let you follow the path they took through the site and give you insight into what is working and what isn't.

Any advertising that you run will provide you with a lot of data about your audience, and the longer you run the campaign, and the more you optimize it, they more defined your audience will become. Naturally, you would be able to apply this insight into the rest of your marketing efforts, tailoring your brand and your message to the core supporters of your organization.  This will help you build a strong list of donors and members who will help you spread the word to others through word-of-mouth programs. They will become your influencers, and they will carry your message forward.

Evan Lazarus is President and CEO of LazBro, Inc., a full service digital marketing agency based in Los Angeles, CA, specializing in the online marketing of non-profit organizations.