From using social media sites like YouTube and Twitter to deploying pay-per-click campaigns, digital marketing is becoming increasingly popular among charities hoping to attract donations and boost interest in their operations.
Whatever the size of your organisation, it’s likely that there is scope to improve your digital marketing efforts, and this – when combined with its offline counterpart – can result in a significant rise in the number of supporters you have. Here are just some of the steps you may be able to take.
Make a user-friendly site
First and foremost, your website needs to be user-friendly and easy to navigate.
Keep things simple and functional, so visitors can quickly find the information they are looking for. Text should be as easy to read and jargon-free as possible, while all links ought to be clearly identifiable (it’s worth having a link to a sitemap and your homepage on each page). It’s also a good idea to have audio versions of your website’s text to increase accessibility and ensure those with a visual impairment are able to stay up to date with your organisation’s work.
If users visiting your site for the first time with the intention of making an online donation find that they cannot do this easily, they may be inclined to give up on making a payment altogether.
Ensure donating money online is simple and secure
Let’s look at the issue of donating money online a little in more detail. Charities of all sizes rely heavily (if not entirely) on supporters’ financial donations, so you should encourage all those visiting your website to pledge money.
Having a ‘donate’ button prominently displayed should ensure you do not miss a single opportunity to generate income. Although many of us are increasingly purchasing goods and services over the internet, some people still have concerns about submitting their credit card and/or bank account information online. You can help alleviate such worries by using a reliable hosting provider for your site as well as SSL encryption.
How offline marketing can help
Although you may think there’s no need to link offline and online marketing, this couldn’t be further from the truth. Just because there’s been a greater drive towards the latter in recent years, offline advertising can help bring traffic to your site and encourage more people to donate.
Promotional products are an extremely effective form of offline advertising. In the digital age one of the most popular forms of promotional merchandise is a promotional USB stick. Whether given out for free at events like festivals and conferences or offered as a ‘thank you’ to existing supporters, branded USBs provide people with a physical reminder of your organisation and how they can get in touch if they want to make a donation or find out more about your campaigns.
For added impact, preload your USBs with information about your charity prior to distribution. Make sure that any documents you put on the memory sticks contain a link to your site, and encourage recipients to sign up your email marketing list – and you should soon find more people visit your site in order to make a donation.
Of course, it’s a good idea to have your main website’s URL printed on the USBs, but it’s also worth putting on your Facebook and Twitter profiles too, so you can interact with supporters in as many different ways as possible.
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