This is a guest blog by Meredith Gray, Senior Marketing Manager, Fundraising KIT
Do you find yourself scrolling through social media? Checking the weather before you leave the house? Searching for a hot stock to invest in? Well, by doing these things, you’re looking at the trends around you.
Trends in technology, communications, and the economy can affect the decisions people and organizations make, including nonprofits. Staying on top of current nonprofit marketing trends will set you up for future success.
From email marketing to social media, the ways in which a nonprofit can get their message out into the world seems to grow by the day. Navigating all of the different channels may seem daunting at first, but we’re here to point you in the right direction as you start planning your nonprofit marketing efforts for 2023!
Trend #1: Get Personal
Personalizing your marketing efforts makes your donors feel seen and heard, especially when it comes to email marketing. By personalizing the subject line of your email, your readers will be 26% more likely to open it! If that wasn’t convincing enough, marketers see an average sales increase of 20% when they send personalized emails, which of course means a higher engagement and donation rate for your nonprofit
While we may not think about revenue in the same way as sales, there are a lot of nonprofit marketing trends from corporations that can apply to nonprofits. Personalizing your campaigns to include your donor’s name, past giving amount, and engagement in events or other campaigns is a great place to start to make your donors feel appreciated.
As we look to 2023, we are seeing more organizations looking beyond just personalization and starting to segment based on demographic information. Let’s take a quick look at our most common donor groups:
Millennials and Gen X-ers are most inspired to donate after they have seen something on social media. They are also great candidates for monthly giving campaigns.
Baby Boomers are more likely to donate after having received an email and are your strongest prospects for major gifts and legacy giving.
By understanding the simple stats above, the trends show that running a monthly giving campaign with a social media element would be a great idea to engage your younger audience, while an email marketing campaign around year-end would likely bring in some larger gifts from your older supporters.
Now don’t get overwhelmed, personalization doesn’t always mean more work! This certainly wouldn’t be a trend if it meant customizing every single email manually. Chances are, the email marketing platform you are using has options to include custom fields or merge tags that will automatically pull in each donor’s information into your template before you click send!
Trend #2: Invest in the Digital Realm
The reality is, the effects of the pandemic will continue to impact nonprofit marketing trends into 2023. Your supporters have gotten used to shopping, banking and donating from the comfort of their homes and are adopting a digital-first approach.
While the initial pandemic challenge of moving everything online has settled, digital sophistication continues to grow and a strong digital effort needs to be front and center of all nonprofit marketing endeavors.
Seamless, easy-to-use giving experiences will be the name of the game in 2023. Your online giving options need to be integrated into your marketing efforts and heavily promoted on multiple channels, including digital.
Heading into 2023, we will continue to see changes and evolutions as we emerge from the pandemic. All signs are pointing to a post-covid recession that will impact charitable giving significantly. Having donor-centric online giving options will help keep your donors engaged and eager to support you.
Trend #3: Use Videos
Chances are, your prime prospects spend a good chunk of their day scrolling through social media, who doesn’t, right? But with the volume of content floating around out there, how can you stand out from the crowd? The answer - video marketing!
Millennials in particular are showing more engagement with video marketing. With over 60% of millennials preferring to watch a video over reading an email or a newsletter, inserting short videos into your emails and social channels could help you engage younger generations. Not only that, but adding videos into your social media strategy can generate 1200% more shares than text and image posts AND adding a video to an email can increase your click-through rates by 200-300%. Seems like a no brainer, right?
Now, we know what you’re thinking, how can we create engaging video content when we’re on a tight budget, especially now that you have dangled the threat of a recession in front of us?
Well, the good news is that it doesn’t have to be fancy! Impactful videos can be generated using resources you already have available to you. Maybe you have a staff member that’s looking to step into the spotlight and record a short video on their phone or computer that can be shared on your social media channels? Or even better, why not engage your community to tell their story and inspire your audience to give in your email marketing campaign? Not all videos need to be professionally produced to be effective!
Trend #4: Engage Influencers
Collaborating with influencers to share some of your content can open up a whole new audience that you wouldn’t have otherwise been able to access. Studies show that 61% of consumers trust influencer marketing, leading it to grow into a $13.8 billion industry! Now, you want to do this in a way that makes sense, so there are a few things to consider before you start sliding into DMs.
Find the Right People:
Look for influencers that are aligned with the work you’re trying to do. For example, if you’re looking to use influencer marketing to support a peer-to-peer running event, look for fitness influencers in the city where your event is occurring.
Consider the Timeline:
Influencers typically have a calendar of their content that they need to follow. They have brand deals and deadlines that must be met so be sure to reach out to them early so they can build your content into their calendar.
Think About What’s In It For Them:
Don’t forget that influencers are running their own small businesses. They use social media to make a living so anything that you’re asking them to do could take away from something that could have made them money. Make sure that you’re making the ask in a respectful way and acknowledge the impact of their support. If you’re asking them to support an event, offer them a code so they can register for free and consider providing them a discount code for their followers to use. A little free merch never hurts either so consider sending them a piece of clothing that they could wear in the video to promote your branding.
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As we move our marketing efforts towards a digital-first approach, it may feel like we’re leaving offline donors behind, not to worry, we will continue to see the value in direct mail, offline pledges and in-person peer-to-peer fundraising, but all signs are telling us that digital is the way of the future and there is no better time than now to start seeking out the tools that will help you build a strong online presence!