Marketing Basics for Fundraisers: Tips to Skyrocket Your Fundraising

Effective marketing is the key to impactful fundraisers. You get the word out about your fundraiser and the reason behind it. You can connect with potential donors and supporters. You can also collect donations directly on some of your marketing channels. 

That said, marketing is a detailed duty. It’s more than just posting what you want to post whenever you want to post it. You need to direct your efforts to what works and master those tactics.  

Your fundraising efforts will be much more successful if you implement these foundational marketing tips. 

Put A Marketing Plan in Place 

You want your fundraiser to get as much attention as possible to reach as many potential supporters and donors as you can. You need a lot more than an occasional post on social media to get that publicity. You need a plan. 

A marketing plan is your blueprint for how you’ll reach your target audience and grow your organization’s reputation. It helps you define your goals, adhere to your marketing budget, and stay consistent. 

You can create a marketing plan for each specific channel and/or an overarching plan that includes every marketing channel. When you write your marketing plan, include the following information: 

• Executive summary: a general overview of your marketing plan for your fundraisers, your mission statement, and what you want to achieve 
• Goals: tangible goals that support your mission with fundraisers
• Unique selling proposition: what makes your fundraiser different from those competing nonprofits are putting on
• Target audience: a description of your ideal audience for your marketing content
• SWOT analysis: strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats that might affect how you market your fundraiser
• Marketing strategies: what exact methods will you use in your marketing? (i.e. email marketing, website search engine optimization, event marketing)
• Key performance indicators (KPIs): the metrics you’ll use to measure progress toward your goals
• Budget: how much you’ll spend on your marketing efforts 

A marketing plan will keep you organized and productive so that you generate real support for your fundraiser. 

Choose Marketing Channels Strategically 

One of the most important decisions you’ll make in marketing is which channels you’ll use to facilitate your marketing efforts. Using a few different marketing channels is a good idea because you want to reach a broad audience. 

If you can establish a solid presence on the channels your ideal donors and supporters are on the most, you’ll have a better chance of reaching who you want to reach and inspiring them to participate in your fundraiser. 

You have a choice of many marketing channels. But we’ll get you started with three that are most effective for nonprofit marketing and getting the word out about your fundraiser.  

Social Media

Social media can be influential in garnering attendance and support for your nonprofit’s fundraiser. You can increase awareness around your nonprofit’s brand and mission by sharing relevant, captivating content with a global audience. 

You can answer questions and resolve any issues donors might be having with your in-person and digital fundraising options, impressing potential supporters with your customer service. You can also leverage word-of-mouth traffic to increase the buzz around your fundraiser. 

Your success on social media comes down to posting high-quality content consistently, engaging with your followers, and adjusting your strategy based on what you learn from the analytics tools. 

Email Marketing 

Email is a great channel to market your fundraiser. 

People who sign up for your email list want the content you send them. This increases the chances of them opening the email. If you personalize these emails and share valuable information in them, you’ll inspire engagement and, hopefully, a donation or registration for your fundraiser. 

Email marketing effectiveness rides on personalization and sending the right emails at the right times, making a dedicated email marketing platform that much more important. 

Traditional Marketing 

Hubspot defines traditional marketing as, “any type of marketing that isn’t online. This means print, broadcast, direct mail, phone, and outdoor advertising like billboards.” As effective as digital marketing channels are, offline marketing can still be impactful. 

People are still reading billboards, magazines, and mailers. They’re still listening to the radio and watching TV. They’re even still answering cold calls and dare we say staying on the phone to listen to the pitches. 

Don’t underestimate the power of calling past fundraiser attendees to see if they’d be interested in your upcoming fundraising event. Or, sending out a postcard to individuals that fit the mold of your ideal donor. Or, getting a few radio spots on local stations your audience listens to. 

Quality and Quantity Matter When It Comes to Content

With all of your marketing channels comes the responsibility of creating content for them. You’ll see a lot of advice from marketers telling you to prioritize creating quality content over churning out as much as you can. But we suggest prioritizing both. 

You must create high-quality content and publish it as often as possible to stay relevant on your digital marketing channels, in particular. One piece of great content per week won’t help you stand out in the sea of digital content your ideal supporters are sifting through each day. 

Strive to publish valuable content every day on the marketing channels that call for it, like social media or the blog on your website. 

For the ones that don’t require daily content, you should at least have a consistent schedule. For instance, you could send a new email every Friday to your email list. Or, you could send out a physical newsletter every quarter. 

The goal is to create solely high-quality marketing content and push it out to your audience as often as possible. 

Getting the word out about your fundraiser is integral to its success. Engage in intentional marketing with these foundational tips to raise awareness about your fundraisers and mission, and inspire people to register for your events.