How to Make Your Marketing Messages More Donor-Centric

Guest post by Meyer Partners

The only way for your nonprofit to acquire donors, raise funds, and sustain your work is to effectively market your cause. But many nonprofits find it challenging to get donors’ attention with their donation appeals and outreach, making it difficult to earn donors’ support. 

If your organization struggles with marketing, it could be because you need to shift your focus. A common roadblock for nonprofits is that their messaging focuses too much on the organization itself rather than its donors. You can solve this problem by using these tips to make your messaging more donor-centric and therefore more appealing to donors:

• Ground your messages in data.

• Tell donor-centric stories.

• Make it easy for donors to act.

• Always incorporate gratitude.

Donor-centric nonprofit marketing is all about showing donors that they can play active roles in your nonprofit’s work to drive positive change. Explore these tips to learn how to celebrate donors’ impact as you invite them to engage with your nonprofit further.

Ground your messages in data.

To center donors in your marketing messages, you must first understand your donor base. The best way to get to know them, aside from talking with them directly over the phone or in person, is with accurate data.

Collect and organize data in your nonprofit’s CRM that gives you a better picture of who your donors are, what interests them, and how to grab their attention. Data that can help you understand your donors may include:

• Demographics: Donors’ ages, locations, and careers may give you insight into their interests and preferences. This data will not only help you understand your existing donors but will also help you target prospective donors with similar interests. 

• Giving levels: Supporters who give at higher levels warrant more personalized communications and different types of outreach. By segmenting your donors based on giving level, you can write tailored messages that better center each type of donor.

• Engagement histories: Analyzing how donors engage with your organization differently helps you send personalized invitations to the right people. Look at attendance data from past events and volunteer opportunities to find out what kind of activities donors like best.

• Personal and charitable interests: Note any personal interests you discover in conversations with donors, and pay attention to the types of campaigns each donor engages with. Then, segment donors by interests to suggest more relevant campaigns and events in your outreach. 

• Communication preferences: Part of centering donors is respecting the ways they want to interact with your organization. If you see that a group of donors only engages with direct mail, for example, focus your efforts there rather than on digital marketing.

To ensure the donor data you use to guide your marketing is accurate and up-to-date, practice good data hygiene by removing duplicate data and standardizing your data collection practices. Audit your data periodically to check for inconsistencies and update information as needed. This way, you can be confident that your data presents an accurate picture of your donor base, helping you appeal to them effectively.

Tell donor-centric stories.

Once you understand your donors, the next step is to craft messages that give donors a role in your nonprofit’s story. Using storytelling strategy is a great way to boost your marketing success since genuine stories appeal to readers’ emotions and help them visualize the impact of your cause. However, you can take it a step further by ensuring your donors play an active role in every story you tell.

Meyer Partners’ direct mail fundraising guide emphasizes that a key aspect of successful storytelling is relevance to the donor. To ensure your messages are clearly relevant to every donor, leverage these strategies:

• Use donor-inclusive language. As you tell stories to the donor, make it clear that you’re inviting them to join you in working towards your mission. Use language like “you,” “we,” and “our community.”

• Center the impact donors can make on your cause. Include details and concrete examples of the difference donors can make for your beneficiaries. For instance, you might say “Because of generous donors like you, John received a full scholarship, enabling him to complete his final semester of college and graduate.”

Remember to only tell genuine, respectful stories that represent your organization well. Always ask those involved for permission to tell their stories, and give them the option to remain anonymous.

Make it easy for donors to act.

You can also center donors by thinking about their perspectives and needs when writing marketing messages. 

For instance, think about where and when donors are likely to read your message. If you send a fundraising appeal via direct mail, they may open it when on their way out the door to run errands. Donors often read nonprofit emails on their phones while going about their days. Most donors are busy, and as much as they want to donate, they may not have time to track down your online giving page or search for information about your event. 

With this perspective in mind, you can center donors by making it as easy as possible to take action. Provide straightforward calls to action and clear next steps. Let them know exactly how they can help, and include links or QR codes that lead directly to your donation page.

Getting Attention's awareness campaigns guide provides a great example of a clear and compelling call to action from the nonprofit Color of Change: “Start a petition & amplify your cause.” On their Instagram page, Color of Change paired this call to action with a link to a page on their website that explains how to start a petition, giving readers everything they need to act.

Always incorporate gratitude.

Your nonprofit’s marketing should extend beyond only asking donors to give or engage with your organization. To truly make your messages donor-centric, they should also be infused with gratitude for your donors’ support.

Incorporating gratitude into your marketing strategy could look like:

• Sending a variety of thank-you messages after someone makes a donation, including emails, handwritten letters, and social media shoutouts.

• Thanking donors for their previous contributions in fundraising appeals.

• Expressing gratitude for all contributions to a campaign so far when you ask for donations.

• In year-end donation appeals, reiterating your thanks for all of a donor’s previous gifts that year or the year before.

These efforts will ensure that donors feel valued by your nonprofit every time you communicate with them. Plus, gratitude-focused messages can even help you acquire new donors by showing them that your nonprofit fosters a positive supporter community. 

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Centering donors in your nonprofit’s messaging can not only boost your marketing success but also improve your relationships with donors long-term. As you implement these strategies, keep an eye on your marketing engagement data and listen to any feedback you receive from donors. Don’t be afraid to adjust your strategy further as you learn more about your donors’ preferences. 

5 Ideas to Launch Your Next Data-Driven Marketing Campaign

Guest post by Gabrielle Perham, Director of Marketing for AccuData Integrated Marketing

As a nonprofit fundraising professional, you know the importance of understanding your target audience. By tuning in to what makes donors tick, you can craft outreach materials that are more likely to resonate with them. 

One of the most effective ways to get to know donors on a deeper level is to dive into your data. With data marketing, you can take a categorical approach to donor management and stewardship using information that you know to be true, rather than guesses.

There are a few different ways to put your donor data research into practice to launch a successful marketing campaign. Use these tips to kickstart your next campaign:

1. Take a more strategic approach to your email campaigns. 

2. Give digital targeting a try.

3. Revamp your direct mail strategy. 

4. Refine your supporter segmentation practices.

5. Put your prospect research to use.

Data marketing opens up untapped opportunities for your organization to explore. It allows you to tailor your marketing materials to align with your audience’s interests and preferences. Whether you’re looking to raise awareness of your nonprofit or launch a full-fledged fundraising campaign, these tips will help you make the most of your donor data.

1. Take a more strategic approach to your email campaigns. 

Email marketing has quickly advanced in the past several years. A basic email strategy will no longer cut it. If your email approach is generic or lackluster, your supporters will send your messages right to the trash. In addition, upcoming changes related to consumer privacy mean that emails will have a harder time making it to the inbox.

Whether you’re looking to promote an upcoming fundraising event or initiative, engage donors in your monthly giving program, or promote another aspect of your fundraising efforts, you can kick off your campaign with an acquisition email marketing strategy. 

Acquisition email marketing is the process of engaging new supporters using email communications. If you’re interested in kickstarting your next data-driven marketing initiative with an email acquisition campaign, there are a few best practices to keep in mind: 

• Craft your ideal audience with the help of a data marketing firm. You can build your organization’s database by partnering with a dedicated data marketing provider. These specialists help organizations craft their ideal target audience using prospect lists. Prospect lists are lists of potential supporters who are most likely to be interested in your cause. 

• Send prompt welcome emails to prospects. Whenever a supporter signs up for your email list, send a warm welcome email thanking them for their support. 

• Re-engage lapsed audience members. If certain prospects open your emails less frequently, reach out to them with a targeted message to win back their support. For example, you might send an email along the lines of “We missed you! Here’s what’s been happening since we last talked.” 

With a strategic email approach, you can capture your audience members’ attention, especially your millennial audience. Don’t underestimate the power of email marketing  — you can use this channel to speak directly to supporters and maintain their support. 

2. Give digital targeting a try.

Did you know you could send digital advertising to individuals based on their home address? IP Targeting/Addressable Geofencing is the process of identifying and marketing to audience members based on their physical location. 

According to AccuData’s guide to IP targeting, this process is an effective way to put your data research to use. You can pinpoint your organization's exact target audience based on their physical location and get your marketing materials directly in the palms of their hands.

You can use IP Targeting/Addressable Geofencing to access supporters on a certain network. Let’s say you’re looking to ramp up your marketing campaign ahead of your nonprofit’s next local donation drive, and you’re specifically seeking donations from college-aged students. Using these digital targeting techniques, you can market your event to individuals who access the network of a local college. You can do this by sending digital advertisements to all devices on the university’s network.

When conducting digital targeting strategies, keep these best practices in mind:

1. Don’t over-target. Keep your specifications for the audience members you are targeting to just two or three parameters. This ensures that you’re casting a wide enough net and not excluding valuable supporters.

2. Use A/B testing to refine your ads. A/B testing is the process of creating two ad campaigns with slight variations and determining which receives more engagement. In the context of digital targeting, you can change your audience parameters to determine which segments engage the most with your outreach.

3. Deploy effective ad copy. Even if you reach your target audience, they won’t respond to your messaging if it’s not compelling. Ensure your ad copy is streamlined and inspirational. You can also use A/B testing to create different versions of your ads and assess which is more effective.

This is another area where working with a data marketing firm can provide a boost to your strategy. Digital targeting is a more advanced marketing strategy, but it can be highly effective for reaching your desired audience. 

3. Revamp your direct mail strategy. 

Although it might seem old-school, direct mail is still a highly effective marketing channel for nonprofits. Direct outreach campaigns that combine direct mail with at least one digital media element have a 118% increase in response rate. 

Using your supporter data, you can revamp your direct mail strategy to only reach out to those who are most likely to engage with your content. This can decrease direct mail expenses significantly, as you won’t be sending mailers to individuals who are unlikely to respond.

For your next data-driven marketing campaign, pursue a combination of a housefile campaign and a prospect campaign:

• A housefile campaign involves sending direct mail to addresses already in your database. Marketing experts recommend starting your direct mail campaign with a housefile effort because it has a higher chance of success. You can reinforce and grow relationships with your existing audience. 

• A prospecting campaign involves sending mail to audience members who don’t have a previous relationship with your nonprofit. The objective of prospecting campaigns is to establish contact with those who are most likely to support your organization. This allows you to add more supporters’ information to your in-house database, growing your audience. 

Use your digital marketing efforts to supplement and support your direct mail campaign and vice versa. For instance, include a QR code on your direct mail materials that sends audience members to your website or online giving page. 

Additionally, you should use uniform branding across all marketing materials to promote cohesion and unity with your marketing strategy. Doing so helps you foster greater brand recognition and awareness. 

4. Refine your supporter segmentation practices.

Donor segmentation is the process of grouping supporters based on shared characteristics. 

The point of supporter segmentation is breaking your audience into smaller categories and marketing to them based on their unique circumstances or preferences. 

There are plenty of different options for grouping your donors based on your nonprofit’s marketing and fundraising goals. You may choose to group them based on their:

• Engagement type: You may have audience members who are donors, volunteers, advocates, or peer-to-peer fundraisers. Grouping supporters by engagement type allows you to send messages with information that each group is more likely to be interested in. 

• Demographics: Depending on your marketing goals, it may be helpful to divide audience members into categories based on demographics, such as age, gender, or location. 

• Communication preferences: You can segment supporters based on their preferred communication platforms and frequency. You may find some supporters prefer digital platforms, while others favor direct mail or phone outreach. 

• Engagement frequency: You likely have donors who give regularly, such as your monthly donors, along with those who give more infrequently. Most nonprofits also have plenty of lapsed donors who have gone longer without giving. Segmenting supporters based on how frequently you hear from them allows you to craft different stewardship strategies for each level of engagement. 

You can tie advanced supporter segmentation strategies into your next fundraising or marketing campaign. These techniques can be used on multiple platforms, from your direct mail outreach to your email marketing campaigns. 

5. Put your prospect research to use.

Prospect research is the process of identifying audience members who may or may not have a relationship with your organization yet, but who exhibit characteristics that indicate they would be willing and able to donate to your cause. 

Approaching your next data-driven marketing campaign through a prospect research lens offers many benefits. You can use prospect research to identify opportunities for:

• In-kind donations: Using prospect research, you can identify audience members who work for companies that offer in-kind donations or other forms of corporate giving. Then, you can specifically reach out to these individuals and encourage them to donate or participate. Your organization will benefit from greater access to necessary goods or services that support your mission. 

• Matching gifts: Similarly, prospect research can reveal supporters who work for companies that offer matching gifts. According to Double the Donation’s corporate matching gifts guide, these programs involve companies pledging to match donations that their employees make to eligible nonprofits. Matching gifts allow your supporters to maximize the impact of their single donations and provide your organization with a funding boost. You can reach out to individuals who have made match-eligible donations and encourage them to begin the gift match process.

• Major gifts: You can also use prospect research to identify audience members with a greater level of wealth and a high affinity for your organization. Search for individuals who exhibit certain wealth indicators such as stock ownership, real estate holdings, or a higher-up job title. Then, craft a dedicated strategy specifically for reaching out to and stewarding major donors. 

When you conduct your data-driven marketing campaigns through the lens of prospect research, you can save your organization time and money because you’re sending marketing materials to those who are actually interested and willing to give. 

By focusing on wealthier prospects or those whose companies offer corporate philanthropy programs, you can refine your marketing outreach efforts even more and create messages that resonate with these specific audiences. 

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There are plenty of ways to incorporate data-driven marketing strategies into your next campaign, from firing up your email approach to segmenting your audience for more targeted outreach. Consider your organization’s goals and needs to choose the best idea for launching your next campaign. A combination of these strategies will provide your organization with the reach it needs to market your cause effectively. Good luck!

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About the Author:

Gabrielle Perham, MBA, Director of Marketing

Gabrielle is the Director of Marketing for AccuData Integrated Marketing. She joined the organization in 2017 and possesses more than 15 years of experience in strategic marketing, branding, communications, and digital marketing. She earned a B.S. in Marketing and an M.B.A in Marketing Management from the University of Tampa.

5 Tips For Creating Websites for School-Associated Orgs

Guest post by Murad Bushnaq, Founder and CEO of Morweb

Your website is the face of your school-associated organization, significantly enhancing your ability to connect with potential supporters and engage your audience. Building an effective website can be time-consuming, including researching design tips and gathering analytic information, especially without web design expertise. 

With years of working alongside hundreds of nonprofits, associations, and educational groups, Morweb has built websites for colleges, high schools, and other school-associated organizations. To help you get started building your new website, we’ve put together five key tips specifically for educational organizations.

Your organization should be able to implement each of these tips into your website with a bit of work and research. However, if you find yourself in need of additional advice or help, don’t hesitate to reach out to a professional web design agency that can answer all of your organization’s specific questions about your website. 

1. Find an affordable, intuitive website builder. 

Some website builders are more effective than others for different professional sectors. For example, nonprofits may use a website builder to build donation pages and establish trust with their donors, while schools need a solution that can enhance their educational effort and build smooth communication with all stakeholders including their supporters, parents and students.

While each organization will have its own priorities for what it's website needs to accomplish, here are a few key features to look out for when assessing different school website builders:

• Multimedia support. For many school-related organizations, sharing resources such as educational and how-to videos is a necessity. Assess potential website builders on how well they support these features and how they accommodate the slow loading times that multiple images and videos can cause. For instance, some website builders will automatically compress images, which decreases the file sizes and speeds up page load time.

• Customizable layouts. Your website builder should give your team options. If your team lacks experience designing websites, check out website builders that come with multiple school-specific templates and prioritize ease of use for front-end designers. 

• Mobile optimization. If you’re running a parent-teacher association, your members already have full-time jobs and will likely need to use your website while on the go. Many website builders have mobile options, but be on the lookout for one with automatic mobile optimization that prioritizes usability and fast loading times. 

Additionally, be sure to assess potential website builders’ security. Some platforms perform regular security updates for all websites they support, while others leave it up to individual organizations to protect themselves. If your team is less experienced with cybersecurity or would prefer to limit the number of responsibilities your team takes on, make sure to find a website builder that takes care of security issues for you. 

2. Make your mission clear. 

If you accept donations, recruit volunteers, or encourage website visitors to participate in your organization in any way, you’ll need to make sure your mission is straightforward and easy to find. Remember that your mission isn’t just a summary of your organization, but an external-facing document that new web visitors will want to see. 

A clear mission statement is especially important for fundraisers and donation drives as supporters will want to know how their contributions are making a difference. You can ensure that supporters will find and understand your mission on their first visit to your website by:

• Creating a clear navigation system. Your website will have a few core pages that the majority of visitors will navigate to at some point while browsing your website. For many organizations, these will include donation, services, and about pages. While getting creative with website design can create a new and positive experience for visitors, it’s best not to experiment with your navigation and ensure users will find your mission exactly where they expect to. 

• Branding all additional websites and other online marketing materials. Your website hosts your mission, but all additional websites and platforms (including microsites and social media) should also be branded to your organization and offer a brief explanation of your mission. There are numerous fundraising ideas for schools that your organization can host, and all of them benefit from presenting your mission as clearly as possible. 

• Using images and videos to demonstrate your mission. A plain text description of what your organization is and what your goals are is necessary, but sometimes, videos and images can help supporters visualize your services and role in education more clearly. For example, if your organization helps schools manage after school programs, you might feature photos from past programs you organized. 

Your mission will also be conveyed through other elements on your website outside of your mission statement. For example, the first piece of text on your website will form many visitors’ first impressions of your website, so carefully consider your homepage’s title, subtitle, and descriptive text. 

3. Ensure your website is accessible. 

The best organizations’ websites reach the widest possible audience by implementing accessibility features. Accessible websites improve the user experience and allow visitors using screen readers and other assistive technologies to engage with your content. You can make your website accessible by including the following features:

• Video captions and scripts. Videos are an effective way to break up text and get your organization’s message across in new ways. However, not every user can watch videos or rely on their audio. Subtitling your videos with closed captions or providing a separate script helps these users interact with your video. Similarly, providing captions and alt text for images can also help visitors understand what your images are displaying and why they’re important. 

• Meaningful text hierarchy. Dividing your content up by headers helps keep topics organized and prevents visitors from getting overwhelmed by big blocks of text. Make sure that your headers follow a sequentially descending order with no skips between them (e.g. heading four appearing before heading three). Otherwise, readers using screen readers may get confused since they typically tab through the different headings to understand what content is grouped together on the page.

• Legible text. Text can be unreadable if it’s too small, lacks sufficient color contrast, or is in a hard-to-read font. Use a legible font for the bulk of your page, and save fancy fonts for titles if you decide to use them. Ensure your site builder allows users to resize text up to 200% and adjust the page to greyscale to improve color contrast. 

When performing website maintenance, make sure to include accessibility checks, especially for new content. Doing so will make sure all of your visitors are able to use your page and help you quickly catch any minor slips that might occur during website updates. 

4. Identify key features to include.

Rather than thinking of your website as a collection of pages with text and graphics, try contextualizing it as a place where users accomplish specific tasks. After all, users don’t visit your website to read text; rather, they read text to learn about your organization. 

The features you choose to include on your website will shape your users’ experiences and how they go about completing their tasks. Exactly what those tasks are will vary depending on your organization. CommunityPass’ after-school software page outlines a few common features school-related organizations’ websites should include:

• Registration forms. School-related associations and any participant-based programs need to manage registrants and members, collect fees, and attract new participants. Your registration forms should be as streamlined as possible to encourage additional signups and include time-saving features such as automatic payment reminders and collection.

• Merchandise store. Whether you’re selling event tickets, merchandise for your school’s sports team, or school supplies, an integrated storefront lets your organization quickly update its catalog of items, adjust prices, and collect payments. 

• News page. Regularly updating your website signals to supporters that your organization is healthy and still operating. Plus, maintaining an active posting schedule looks good to search engines, too. Rather than producing brand new content pages every week, your organization can keep a news page or blog that updates supporters on recent events or provides them with new information about your school or organization.

You can monitor how effective these features are at assisting visitors by monitoring analytics. The analytics tools within your website builder will allow you see which pages users are navigating to and how they’re finding your website in the first place, helping you identify things your website is doing well and places where it can improve. 

For example, you might discover that your email campaigns are the most effective way to reach supporters, but that your registration forms are experiencing a higher rate of page abandonment than you prefer. 

5. Create valuable content for your website. 

To attract and engage your website’s audience, you’ll need to create valuable content that provides the insights and details visitors are looking for. This helps you build credibility and also enhances your organization’s visibility on search engines. 

Morweb's guide to nonprofit website builders recommends populating your website with blog posts, interactive content, and other engaging content. Once you’ve developed high-quality content, you can use tools like Google Ads (or, the Google Ad Grant, if your organization is eligible) to get your website in front of as many eyes as possible. 

The Gist

Building a new website requires dedicated time and research. Establish a website maintenance routine early and invest in a robust website building tool to save your team future headaches. 

With the right website builder and a clear, user-friendly design, your website can leave a positive impression, boosting your organization's credibility and trustworthiness.

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About the Author:

Murad Bushnaq is the Founder and CEO of Morweb, a custom-built website design and CMS solution that empowers nonprofits worldwide to achieve their missions through software, design, and strategy. Since its inception in 2014, Murad has acted as CEO & Creative, helping nonprofits amplify their online impact through engaging web designs, intuitive software, and strategic communication. Backed by expertise in both creative and technical services, Morweb is a trusted partner for nonprofits seeking to maximize their online presence.