The more traffic you can drive to your online giving page, the more effectively it supports your fundraising efforts. Therefore, it’s your goal to promote your donation page using every resource in your nonprofit’s marketing toolbox to reach the widest possible audience.
To help you acquire more donors, we’ll share top strategies that not only raise awareness about your online giving form, but also connect you with better leads. Let’s get started.
1. Adopt a multichannel social media strategy.
If you’re like 85% of American adults, you use some form of social media. As a nonprofit marketing professional, you know social media is an effective way to engage your online community and increase support for your mission.
Every social media platform engages a slightly different audience, and you can reach different audience segments with a multichannel strategy.
Before launching your multi-platform marketing push, refresh yourself on each platform’s primary audience. Then, determine the best way to promote your giving page on each network. Let’s take a look at a few popular platforms:
- Facebook’s active audience tends to be slightly older, comprised mostly of Millennials and Gen X. On Facebook, link to your donation page in your posts, your profile bio, and any Facebook groups you have for supporters.
- Instagram attracts a younger crowd than Facebook, with more Millennials and Gen Z users. Share links to your online donation page in your nonprofit’s Instagram bio and Stories. Try working with influencers to promote your giving form to their audiences. Influencers aren’t always social media celebrities with thousands of followers. Often, influencers who work with nonprofits are simply individuals with influence in your local community or a passion for your cause.
- TikTok is already one of the largest social media platforms, with 1.12 billion active monthly users. Sharing TikTok videos about your organization’s mission is a great way to engage younger audience members and introduce them to your cause. You can also link to your donation page in your TikTok bio.
- LinkedIn is often overlooked in nonprofit social media strategies since it’s seen as a professional networking platform. However, LinkedIn is an effective channel for engaging working professionals, recruiting volunteers, and networking with corporate sponsors. Connect with individuals and organizations by directly messaging them invitations to learn more about your organization’s mission.
Social media is a powerful tool for generating conversations around your nonprofit and forging connections with supporters. Leverage the free aspects of social media sites and carefully weigh the potential costs and benefits of paid advertising before taking out ads. When it comes to return on investment, reports indicate that Facebook ($0.48) had over double TikTok’s ($0.17) return on ad spend.
2. Use compelling CTAs.
A call to action (CTA) is a statement, link, or phrase that encourages supporters to take action and get involved. For example, you could urge them to donate, register to volunteer, or subscribe to your newsletter.
Adding donation CTAs throughout your website can efficiently point site visitors to your online donation page. To capture supporters’ attention, your CTAs should be:
- Specific and brief. Use simple, straightforward words such as “Donate,” “Volunteer,” or “Become an Advocate.” Keeping your CTAs concise helps convey the information website visitors need to know quickly.
- Well-designed. Ensure your CTA buttons match your brand colors, and use bold text that stands out against the background.
- Urgent. Add urgency to your CTAs to encourage supporters to click when they see them. For instance, use buttons and links that say “Donate $5 Now” or “Rush Lifesaving Aid Today.”
The best nonprofit websites provide supporters with specific and convenient ways to get involved. For example, Kanopi’s overview of the best nonprofit websites discusses the importance of adding multiple CTAs right on your homepage. For example, Habitat for Humanity’s home page features a CTA in its navigation bar as well as a large text CTA alongside its hero image.
3. Incorporate storytelling into your digital marketing strategy.
If you can connect with supporters emotionally, they’re more likely to consider donating. You must give audience members a compelling reason to give, and one of the most effective ways to do this is through storytelling.
Incorporating storytelling strategies into your donation page can persuade more donors to give by establishing an emotional connection and reminding them why their gift matters. Here are a few tips for using storytelling to promote your online donation page:
- Know your audience. Who are you trying to connect with? For example, maybe you’re conducting a year-end donation drive and hoping to connect with a younger audience of Millennials and Gen Z. To inspire this audience, you might tell stories focused on creating a positive future for everyone.
- Share stories about real people. Telling a story about someone involved in your organization gives a human face to your fundraising campaigns. Tell a real story about a staff member, beneficiary, volunteer, board member, or long-time donor.
- Use data to back up your stories. Share statistics with your nonprofit’s copywriters that they can incorporate into your stories. For example, you might back up an emotional story about one person with a statistic that proves they are just one among many community members your organization helps. This gives your stories more credibility and authenticity.
When you provide a compelling reason to give to your cause, you can earn new long-term supporters rather than just one-time donors. On your donation page, add short stories or testimonials that motivate donors without distracting them from completing their gifts.
4. Start a text fundraising campaign.
According to Double the Donation’s fundraising statistics, mobile donations comprised a third of all donation online transactions last year. That means connecting with supporters on their mobile devices is more critical than ever.
To make mobile giving easy, you can launch a text-to-give campaign. Here’s how the text-to-give process works:
- Supporters will text their chosen donation amount and a keyword to your dedicated phone number.
- They’ll be able to complete their donation right from their messaging app or receive a link to your online donation page where they can complete their transaction.
- Donors will fill out your donation form and receive an automated thank-you message after they’ve submitted their gift.
Ensure your donation page offers donors a streamlined mobile user experience so they can easily and quickly complete mobile transactions. Streamline your page to only ask for necessary information, align buttons for easier access by finger navigation, and use a few carefully selected visual elements.
Additionally, assess text-to-give providers’ payment models. Some services may have low costs and can create a new, permanent revenue stream for your nonprofit. Others might have higher fees and are only worth subscribing to for high-value events, where you can generate many donations in a short period of time.
5. Leverage analytic tools.
The best nonprofit websites know how users engage with their content, allowing them to better connect with their donors. Employ analytics tools that come with your chosen CMS or from a third party, like Google Analytics.
With these tools, you can assess how visitors interact with your website, allowing you to see what spurs users to visit your donation page and what makes them click off your website. Specifically, analytics tools allow you to track:
- Top landing pages. A landing page is the first page a new user arrives—or lands—on when they visit your website. For example, if someone shared a link on Facebook to one of your blog articles and a new user clicked the link, that article would be their landing page. This data allows you to see which pages are earning traffic.
- Visit duration. How long do visitors spend on your website? Analytics tools allow you to drill down into which specific pages visitors are spending their time on, which can help you make inferences about their behavior. For instance, if several visitors spend a long time on your donation page but fail to submit their gifts, that might indicate your donation form is overly long or confusing.
- Bounce rate. When a visitor clicks on your website or a specific page and immediately exits, they “bounce” off your content. Generally, pages with high bounce rates have a poor user experience or are misaligned with user expectations. For instance, if you have a link in your navigation bar labeled “Get Involved” that links straight to your donation page, you might have a high bounce rate due to visitors looking for volunteer opportunities or more information immediately clicking away.
Use the information from your analytics tools to update and maintain your website. This data can direct you to areas of improvement, help uncover hiccups in the user experience, and highlight opportunities like surprise high-traffic pages.
As digital fundraising and marketing continue to grow in importance in the nonprofit sector, your online donation page will become more vital than ever. You must have a dedicated strategy for optimizing this page and driving sufficient and ongoing traffic to it.
The more you can learn about your supporters, the easier it will be to design your marketing campaigns to connect with them on a deeper level.