How digital marketing improves digital fundraising

Sprinkling a little digital marketing into your charity’s digital fundraising efforts can make their success skyrocket. At first glance, that may be surprising because marketing and fundraising are two distinct activities that require different skills and techniques.

But it turns out that, in the digital world, marketing and fundraising can often be regarded as two sides of the same coin. So let’s take a closer look at how exactly digital marketing and digital fundraising are connected, and how one can enhance the other.

Real v digital fundraising

Many charities have annual fundraising events, and these often account for a significant part of their revenue streams. Lately these events have been disrupted by the pandemic and in response many charities have transitioned these fundraising initiatives to virtual events – in many cases quite successfully.

Now that the restrictions put in place to combat the pandemic have largely been removed, many charities are going back to real (as opposed to virtual) fundraising events again.

They face a choice between holding the same event each year – which can be successful but which may become less effective over time as participants look for something new – or organising new events each year, which involves far more work on the part of the organisers than repeating a previous event, with no guarantee that the new event will prove successful.

Put in that context, pure digital fundraising is a tempting alternative. That’s because there is far less effort and manpower required than is needed to organise a fundraising event in the real world, and, crucially, because it is “repeatable.” What that means is that many digital fundraising initiatives can be turned into business processes which can reactivated on a regular basis with very little work involved.

But there’s one more benefit to highlight. The types of digital fundraising campaigns that we are talking about need to be built on a digital marketing groundwork. And guess what? Most charities already carry out digital marketing activities, so most of the foundation work has probably been done.

Even if a charity has only just started on a journey or digital transformation, it is likely at the very least to have a website or Facebook presence upon which digital fundraising initiatives can be built successfully.

How does digital marketing help?

Digital marketing is all about “raising the awareness of your charity in the market” using digital techniques and, as mentioned above, this usually involves having a digital presence in the form of a website as a bare minimum.

But digital marketing goes beyond simply raising awareness in your charity’s brand and includes raising awareness of the activities and aims of your charity online. It can also help your charity to establish an online community of people who are interested in your charity’s goals, who may which to become involved as volunteers, who are interested in your charity’s news and other communications, and, crucially, who may decide to make donations.

Foster engagement

Successful digital marketing involves getting your messages to the right people and piquing their interest so that they are tempted to visit your website, Facebook presence, and other digital resources such as YouTube videos to find out more.

The next step is to retain this interest by continuing to provide new content and encouraging the people who are consuming it to become engaged with your charity – perhaps by joining a discussion forum or by volunteering their time and skills.

Get fundraising

Once you have found and nurtured an online community through digital marketing, you have effectively created a prequalified group of people to ask for a donation. That’s when the digital fundraising magic can start.

So how do you get started?

There are many avenues to pursue when it comes to the initial digital marketing, including digital advertising, providing content to other, related, online sites, and the use of social media including Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram to collect followers.

Other methods include running online competitions or surveys which enable to you collect participants email addresses if they agree to let you do so. That enables you to establish a group of people with whom you can retain contact

The next step - fostering engagement with your charity among these people - is a classic digital marketing task. Techniques that have proven to be effective include storytelling using videos and compelling imagery on your charity’s website or Facebook presence, emailed newsletters, building an online community using a discussion forum as its foundation, and showcasing the impact your charities activities are having in podcasts.

Multi-channel fundraising

Once your digital marketing efforts have established a highly engaged group of potential supporters, the digital fundraising task of converting as many of these potential supporters as possible into donors should be relatively easy. This is likely to involve a multi-channelled approach, with requests for donations across social media platforms, your charity’s website, and via direct email campaigns.

Importantly, the approach can be standardised into an organisational process which can be activated as frequently as is appropriate – perhaps using A/B testing to fine tune the frequency of activation for maximum effect.

Digital and conventional fundraising combined

One of the extra benefits of the digital marketing approach to digital fundraising is that conventional fundraising events can be used as a source of contact details and other information that can be put through the digital marketing funnel. The result is even greater potential for digital fundraising initiatives further down the line.