Guide to Marketing Your Non-Profit Online

Today's charities face an increasingly competitive environment. With challenges like government funding cut backs, an aging donor base, increase competition and more marketing directed at ones disposable income is it any wonder more charities are scrambling to stay a float? In order for non profits to succeed, they need to embrace emerging ways or marketing to their current and future donors. Here are 5 tips that will help!

Action Steps
The best contacts and resources to help you get it done

1. Start a Blog

Blogging is a powerful way to show your organization is up to date on current events and issues related to your cause. A blog will also allow your supporters and donor base to engage with your work on their time, rather than having newsletters and mailers sent to them when they may not want them. If you create and set up your blog properly, you can take advantage of the online social marketing and have your readers promote your content for you. Consider adding tags for Del.icio.us, Digg and Reddit to each post.

I recommend: Some examples of good non profit blogs are:
One Campaign
Invisible Children (check out the "share this" under each post)

Facebook

If your organization wants to stay current and interact with a younger audience, you need to be on Facebook. Start with creating a Facebook group and inviting your staff and volunteers to join it. A Facebook group will allow you to post current events, message members, post photos and videos and inform your membership base of upcoming events. As more and more people join the group, others will see this activity on their "news" feed, a great place for free promotion. The trick to Facebook is to keep it fresh and relevant. Message users once a week, post something on the group wall regularly. Once your group is established, make sure you encourage your group members to invite their Facebook contacts. This will allow the group to grow! GuluWalk is an organization that has harnessed the power of Facebook to raise money. They have a "Facebook It" tab where users can add their personal fundraising page to their Facebook profile - effectivly reaching thousands of individuals who have never

I recommend: See example: GuluWalk Fundraising Page
GuluWalk Facebook Group Example

Google Ad Words, Yahoo Search Marketing and MSN Ad Centre

Advertising on Google, Yahoo and MSN can be a very cost effective way to bring qualified traffic to your webiste. Why is that traffic qualified? Simply because you are in control of who sees your ad and when by selecting the keywords and geographic areas your ads show. Depending on the industry/cause, you may be able to advertise for a few pennies per click. Make sure to define your overall goal for these campaigns and track your performance. All too often, charitable organizations want people to click their ad and donate money and seem to forget the concept of building a relationship with their potential donors. Relationship building works in the offline world and is important in the online world also. Set a goal that is realistic like users registering for your newsletter or viewing a key page of information. Give them something (like an white paper) in exchange for the permission to market to them in the future.

I recommend: Google Ad Words
Yahoo Search Marketing
MSN Ad Centre

YouTube and YouTube Not for Profit

Does your organization have videos? I am not talking about your promotional commercial necessarily, rather some video highlighting some of your projects success. Do your run an event? a run? a golf tournament? If so, assign someone to take video at the next one and post it on YouTube. Encourage those who attended the event to go online and see their video. This is a great way to keep participants engaged in your cause. Videos also allow your supporters to virally market you to others and send those videos to their friends. Be sure to put your YouTube videos on your blog too (see item #1 above). If you are creative, consider running a contest where users can submit a video of their best fundraising idea, top event site, etc etc, and win a prize from your organization. YouTube for non-profit is another great resource. Apply to have your organization featured there (you must be American with the proper 501 to be accepted).

I recommend: YouTube Non Profits

Search Engine Optimization

How does your website rank? Is it visible on search engines for keywords that are relevant to search engines? If not, you have work to do. Being on the first page of the three major search engines is so important to promoting your cause to potential donors. Optimizing your website takes time and energy but the pay off is worth it. Consider hiring an organization to consult with you or do the work on your behalf. There are many right ways to optimize and a lot of wrong ways that could jeopardize the future success of your search engine rankings. Breaking the guidelines that Google, Yahoo and MSN have written can be extremely damaging for your organization.

I recommend: Search Engine Optimization Companies and Resources:
Spark Internet Marketing
SEOMoz.org
SEOBook