In order to see your nonprofit growing and succeeding, it must be invested in creating quality content marketing. Your content is ultimately what drives traffic to your website, boosts your online donations and increases engagement on social media.
Here are 5 content marketing strategies that your nonprofit should be focusing on:
1. Create source lists
Create a file that you can reference whenever you are creating new content for your website or social media channels that lists out any partners, websites or organizations that your team often uses for ideas. These sources lists can be created in Word or Excel, and should contain the source name, website URL, social media channel links and notes such as if they are a current donor, if your organization is a member or if they are a valued partner, governing body, etc. It is okay to share, cite and credit other organizations’ content.
2. Don’t be afraid to schedule ahead
Is your nonprofit having a tough time keeping up with their content marketing in real-time? Consider putting together a content calendar each month, which allows you to plan content ahead of time, save ideas and create content for upcoming events. Follow up by investing in a content scheduling tool, such as Hootsuite or Sprout Social, that allows you to input your entire month of planned content and then posts it for you.
Looking for other social media management tools to help you create content and plan ahead? We’ve got them here.
3. Help get senior-level leadership involved
Much of your content and social media marketing success lies in the hands of the senior-level leadership within your nonprofit. How do you get them on board with your content marketing and to agree to spend time and resources on these strategies? Help them understand your content marketing results by sharing social media success stories at monthly staff meetings, asking them to share quotes or stats that you can turn into blog posts or social media visuals and tracking detailed information about your constituents.
4. Treat mobile content differently
Your content marketing must be adapted for mobile users, as well as online desktop users. Take the time to consider who your mobile audience is, why they are viewing your content with mobile devices, and what they are viewing. Keep in mind that your content design should be simple, adapting to small screens or slow WiFi. Clickable links may work better as large buttons that viewers can easily tap on and content should be adaptive to all devices.
5. Measure your content effectiveness
As a nonprofit, content marketing is about creating a conversation and connecting with donors and the community. You must be measuring the effectiveness in order to know what’s working, what isn’t and how to use that information to revise your strategy. Identify key performance indicators (KPIs), or the measurable goals that you will track to gauge success. These KPIs should be specific indicators that will let you know if your organizational awareness has increased and might include measurable goals like:
- Increase number of information request forms filled out online by 20%
- Increase Facebook audience by 100 page likes
- Increase visits to website by 30%
- Increase online donations by $50,000
Track your KPIs on a spreadsheet that will allow you to see growth, as well as share with your organization’s leaders.
One of the best ways to stay on top of your content marketing is to read and subscribe to blogs like ours that specialize in marketing content for nonprofits. We follow 30 blogs on a regular basis, including these 10, and we are often sharing fundraising tips and trends we find the 4aGoodCause Twitter and Facebook feeds!
