Insights
We review Salesforce.org’s new Marketing Cloud for Nonprofits and look at what it has to offer charities
It has been a difficult couple of years for the charity sector, as it struggled to keep its head above water during COVID-19. The constant change and pressure to adapt led to a sector that was burnt out by the time restrictions eased, simply from their efforts to stay afloat.
Maintaining fundraising efforts and keeping supporters engaged during this time has been especially difficult. Charities had to focus their efforts on service delivery and prioritise short-term fixes over long-term planning.
Nonprofit marketing found itself torn between limited resources and increased importance. Seven in ten nonprofit organisations reported a decline in their marketing budget since the beginning of the pandemic, even as they tried to keep up with campaigning as usual.
One tool that has emerged in the wake of these difficulties is the Marketing Cloud for Nonprofits, from software firm Salesforce. The platform, which was launched globally during the summer, aims to help charities “deliver the right messages at the right time to the right users throughout a campaign timeline”.
The product has already received a rating of 8.7 out of ten on the software review site TrustRadius. Reviewers have described it as “reliable” and “adaptable”, but also pointed out its complexity, despite being a ready-made “out-of-the-box” solution.
Here we take our own look at its features and see what value they have for charities.
Let’s start with the basics.
Marketing cloud platforms bring together marketing tools such as email, social media, and analytics in one easily accessible place (the cloud). The platforms help organisations keep track of their social media presence, their campaigns, what works and what doesn’t, depending on different audiences.
Marketing cloud platforms can also predict how different audiences interact with correspondence and build a user journey around that, allowing charity supporters to choose their interests and the frequency with which they’d like to be addressed. Charities can adjust their communications to meet their supporters where they want to be met.
Salesforce.org’s Marketing Cloud for Nonprofits helps to anticipate and automate common donor journeys, tailoring emails accordingly to take supporters through the welcome stage to donating, through to a thank you, and hopefully nudging them towards repeating the cycle in the future.
The product is designed to be installed quickly. All users have to do is link it to their CRM – especially easy if organisations already use the Salesforce.org Nonprofit Success Pack – and they’re ready to go.
The discounted Marketing Cloud for Nonprofits license also offers:
PRICE: Pricing starts at £400 per month
There are many benefits to using Marketing Cloud for Nonprofits. It supplies organisations with handy email templates, customisable journey templates, and a one-stop-shop for all your audience data, everything from job titles to how often they like to be contacted.
It displays the customer journey as a flow chart which users can build themselves, adding or removing elements as needed, according to who they’re targeting. For example, if you wanted to add a day between emails for a certain audience, users can just drag and drop the appropriate icon into the flow. It looks (and probably sounds) complex at first look, but in practice, it makes a lot of sense.
Perhaps the most helpful tool in its arsenal is Path Optimiser. This takes your data – your email opening rates, the click-throughs, etc. – and automatically generates a plan for your audience that will perform best according to previous experience.
Marketing Cloud for Nonprofits already allows for comprehensive testing but Path Optimizer can save organisations time by finding the best option for them without the need to sift through data manually.
One thing to consider is where you keep your data and how you collect it. Organisations using Salesforce’s existing software (such as the Nonprofit Success Pack) will find it easier to use Marketing Cloud for Nonprofits, but it will still work with other systems too – just less seamlessly.
Whether your data is on a spreadsheet or housed in a CRM system, Marketing Cloud for Nonprofits can accommodate it, but existing Salesforce users will have an advantage.
The power of personalisation when charities communicate is undisputed. But it is a power that is not yet been fully explored. A recent research study of 630 organisations across the world showed that, while many nonprofits have adopted digital strategies, nearly half (45%) of emails didn’t mention the donor or subscriber by name.
In order to make the most of personalisation, charities first need to be trusted. Though it may seem counter-intuitive, research shows that the majority of donors would feel more comfortable sharing their personal data if there is the potential to opt-out of further communications or to choose how often they’d like to be contacted. This data can help shape and improve how an organisation engages with its supporters in the long term.
Every donor journey is different. Research also shows that how often supporters would like to be contacted differs depending on where they are in the donation cycle.
While 46% of people said they do not want any further contact from charities, this is mostly among potential donors. People who have already donated are more likely to want to be kept up to date with a charity’s news to see where their donation has made an impact.
Currently, the system across the sector has proven a bit hit and miss. According to the Global Online Fundraising Report, seven in ten non-profit organisations do not offer a new email subscriber anything to do after they sign up, such as share on social media or read an article. More than a quarter of organisations did not send at least one email to a new email subscriber within 90 days of them joining, missing a vital opportunity to keep them engaged.
Having a process in place, therefore, that schedules contact with supporters at a time when they are most responsive makes communications much more efficient – charities are not wasting their time on mass emails, or that of their donors.
Click above to find out more about Marketing Cloud for Nonprofits and watch Salesforce’s launch webinar exploring its features
Join us on the 30th of May, where we will explain more about how VR technology works and how it can help charities, hearing from organisations where the technology has already made a difference.