The internet produces an unimaginable amount of data each day, and much of this data is advertising and marketing messages. As you leverage compelling digital marketing strategies for nonprofits, how is your organization working to cut through the hundreds of other ads, posts, videos, and images that your supporters wade through daily?
Though donors likely want to engage with your content and support your cause, it’s often difficult for them to do so when they’re constantly filtering through low-quality ads and irrelevant content. It’s up to you to grab their attention, compel them to engage with your content, and inspire them to take part in lasting social change.
Here are some top tips for catching (and holding) supporters’ attention with your communications.
1. Focus on Headlines
Identify the first thing supporters will see or read when they come across your marketing message. This may be a headline, email subject line, or simply the first sentence of a social media post. Then, optimize it to hook readers and make them eager to know more.
Keep these best practices in mind:
Keep headlines concise, ideally in the 50 to 150-character range. If you’re struggling to trim down titles and headlines, consider using an AI tool for assistance.
Opt for punchy, exciting language over complex words or jargon. Use a headline like “Help End Hunger: Bring fresh, nutritious meals to rural communities today!” over something like “Support sustainable access to nutritious food in rural food deserts by contributing to our campaign.”
Include impact metrics to highlight your past successes, establish credibility, and show potential donors the difference they could make.
Inspire a sense of urgency or fear of missing out by implying that readers will gain exclusive knowledge or learn about a pressing issue by reading the message.
Keep your audience in mind and craft headlines that appeal to their interests and align with their place in the donor journey. For example, Allegiance Group + Pursuant’s guide to donor acquisition recommends educating supporters who have just become aware of your nonprofit about your cause and impact.
Apply similar strategies to your calls to action (CTAs), or the part of your marketing message that asks supporters to take a specific action. Make CTAs stand out visually by using eye-catching graphics, colorful buttons, or bold text, and ensure the text is as concise and compelling as possible.
2. Prioritize Visuals
What your organization has to say is important, and the core message of your campaign should come first. But that doesn’t mean you should neglect visuals or consider them an afterthought.
Instead, use engaging visuals as a tool to capture your audience’s attention—after all, people tend to process images faster than words. Here are some ways to make your visuals more impactful:
Keep branding consistent. Use your logo, brand colors, and fonts in any graphics used in marketing communications. This way, supporters will instantly recognize that the message or image is from your organization, boosting brand awareness and recognition.
Use high-quality images. To convey a sense of professionalism, images shouldn’t be fuzzy or unclear. Images used for print media, like direct mail, need a higher dpi (dots per inch) to show up well on paper, while images used for digital communications should have lower dpi so as to not impact page load speeds.
Make imagery authentic and relevant. The subject matter of these images should also be high-quality. Try to take the images yourself rather than using stock photos, and ensure they are relevant to your mission, have good lighting, and show the personal side of your work. Obtain a photo release from anyone featured in your photos so you’re clear to use their likeness in your marketing materials.
Increase understanding with infographics. Some complex concepts, like data, are easier to convey visually than with words. Use graphics to visualize impact metrics that might otherwise be hard to understand. For example, a pie chart could immediately convey information that would require several sentences to explain in words. Don’t forget to use descriptive alternative texts, captions, and descriptions to make these graphics accessible.
Using high-quality visuals doesn’t necessarily mean you have to spend a lot of money on marketing tools or hiring a professional graphic designer. To maximize your marketing budget, consider testing some of the graphic design tools in NXUnite’s roundup of free and discounted marketing tools, such as Canva or Pexels.
3. Incorporate Storytelling Elements
Storytelling is a powerful, compelling way to convey your impact and need for support. Leverage storytelling elements to convey your impact metrics in a humanizing, engaging format.
Use these elements to effectively tell impact stories for your nonprofit:
Characters: Introduce a person, community, or group that is impacted by your work—these characters can be real or use pseudonyms to protect anonymity. Make sure to secure informed consent from any real people you feature.
Example: Meet Sandra, a single mother of two who struggles to feed her family nutritious meals while living in a rural community.
Setting: Describe where and when your story takes place. This helps audiences understand the context and environment the issue occurs in.
Example: In Sandra’s community in rural Mississippi, 55% of families have limited access to healthy food options. For Sandra, the nearest grocery store is 20 miles away.
Conflict: Present that challenge or issue that your nonprofit is working to overcome. Stress how this impacts your beneficiaries’ daily lives, and incorporate specific numbers and statistics.
Example: As a single mother with two jobs, she struggles to find time to make the drive, let alone afford gas and inflated food costs.
Resolution: Explain what your nonprofit has done to solve the conflict and show how that work has made a difference with specific metrics pulled from your impact assessments.
Example: We partner with local farmers, food pantries, and grocery stores to deliver healthy options to rural communities. From fresh produce to hot, balanced meals, our mobile markets have served more than 50,000 families like Sandra’s. In fact, Sandra is now able to provide her kids with healthy meals daily.
Remember to reinforce a central message and call to action throughout the story. Your supporters should still understand what action you’re asking them to take, even if you use an elaborate story to inspire that action.
4. Add Interactive Elements
Supporters might scroll past your post or ignore your email if you don’t invite them to become active participants. Incorporate interactive elements into your messages to encourage deeper engagement.
Some ways you might do this include creating:
Polls or quizzes where supporters can test their knowledge or offer their opinions
Impact calculators that allow donors to enter a custom donation amount or number of volunteer hours to estimate their impact
Interactive “choose your own adventure” stories or games that let supporters play the role of your nonprofit or see beneficiaries’ experiences firsthand
Gamified challenges that allow supporters to compete with their peers to raise funds, engage with your content, or advocate for your cause
These interactive elements also offer unique insights and opportunities. An impact calculator, for instance, might help you better understand average donation amounts. Or, an advocacy challenge might encourage more donors to share about your cause with friends and family, helping you reach new audiences.
Standing out from the crowd can be challenging, but that’s why impact-focused campaigns are so effective—they tell your unique story. Proactively measure key impact metrics and compile this valuable data so you can easily access it. Then, report your findings to convey the positive, tangible impact your work has on your community.
Comments