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16 January 2019

5 Effective Marketing Tactics for Increasing Nonprofit Donations and Sponsorships

If you have been reading the SofTrek blog for a while, you will know there are a lot of great ways to establish and grow your donor base 

Once you have a clear picture of who your constituents are and how to find them, it is important to use this information in your marketing efforts to ensure that you are employing effective tactics that increase donations and sponsorships alike 

Here are five marketing tactics that we recommend to keep your donors active and engaged:  

1. Direct mail 

The number one way to reach donors is with an annual appeal letter. This is an established medium used by virtually every non-profit organization.  

Related: 3 Tweaks to Make to Your Existing Fundraising Appeal Letter to Drive Response 

When designing your mail piece, consider addressing the donor by name (rather than friend, neighbor, donor, etc.) This creates a positive feeling in the donor and shows that you value their contributions.  

Another element to consider is a variable ask matrix, or list of suggested asks. If a person donated $30 the year before, make that the lowest suggestion and increase the asks incrementally from there.  

Once the campaign is live and has been circulating for a few weeks, make sure to send a follow up letter to donors that have donated in years past but have not responded to this year’s appeal yet.  

2. Live Events 

This is a great way to reach people with several touchpoints: save-the-dates and invitations, email and social media, face-to-face interaction, and follow up/thank you notes, and more.  

Live events are a great way to get in front of your donors and show them the heart of your organization. This is a great chance to show people how much their contributions matter and what the impact is on the people that directly benefit from your cause and programs. An educated and well-informed donor will donate more money to your cause.  

It is also a fun way to get people to interact with your organization and make on-the-spot donations. A well-planned event will leave your donors with a positive experience with your organization and will keep you top-of-mind throughout the year.

3. Online marketing (remarketing/retargeting) 

A great way to make the most of your website traffic is to place cookie codes on the header and footer on the back end of your site that bring people back after they leave the page. There are low cost forms of doing this that allow you to place ads on the Google Display Network as well as the Facebook Ad Network (which also includes Instagram. Doing so allows you to keep your organization in front of prospective donors until they are ready to make a donation.   

4. Email 

Email is an easy and relatively inexpensive way to get a message across quick to a customer. Make sure to again address the person by name, and look for other ways to make the message personal and interesting. This will make the person more likely to read, open, and click through your message.  

5. Social media 

Use your social media platforms to share your story: who you are and who you help. This is a great place to share videos explaining your mission and vision, as well as testimonials and success stories from those that directly benefit from your services and programs.  

Get your donors and sponsors involved by inviting them to “like” or “follow” and interact with your social media channels. When you have events, encourage them to check-in online and post pictures using event-specific hashtags. Write thank you posts for your high end sponsors and tag them directly in the post.  

There are many other tactics you can employ to increase donations and sponsorships – what would you add to this list?   

About the Author 

Allison Jensen is the Marketing Coordinator for Compu-Mail. Allison specializes in helping organizations seamlessly integrate their marketing efforts through high response direct mail & digital retargeting. She works with marketers to uncover the best way to deliver the right message to the right person at the right time. Outside of work, Allison is Co-Director of Programming for YNPN Greater Buffalo. She is a graduate of Niagara University. 

About Compu-Mail, LLC. 

Compu-Mail (www.compu-mail.com) provides end-to-end direct marketing and business printing services to companies across the U.S. and Canada. Headquartered in Grand Island, NY, Compu-Mail services include direct mail, email marketing, data driven marketing with database management, statement rendering, variable imaging, and digital retargeting through Google, Facebook, and Instagram. Compu-Mail’s subsidiary company, Dual Print & Mail, provides complete commercial print solutions. Compu-Mail can be reached at 800.255.0670 or marketing@compu-mail.com.