Have you ever had a great fundraising idea only for it to fall flat? If so, you’re not alone. The issue isn’t that it’s a bad fundraising idea, but that you have a marketing problem. In a world that is so highly competitive with digital noise, it’s essential to have an intentional fundraising marketing strategy.
Marketing, as we know, is highly competitive, but here’s the thing: you don’t need an enormous budget or marketing team. With a clear fundraising marketing strategy and automation, your organization can ensure that every brilliant, unique fundraising idea you have reaches its fundraising goal.
How to Create a Fundraising Marketing Strategy That Actually Works
Before you send any email or get on social, it’s essential to develop a strategy for fundraising marketing. That strategy serves as your roadmap to success and helps you ensure you’re targeting the right audience with the right message. Moreover, with AI and automation integration, you can ensure you’re reaching your supporters at the right time.
As you start to look at developing a strategy for your marketing and fundraising, begin by answering the following three questions:
- Who’s your audience? Not every fundraising idea is for your entire database.
- What action do you want them to take? Share, join, attend, or donate?
- What channels will you use? Social media, email marketing, word of mouth?
When you have answered those questions for your fundraising marketing plan, it’s time to execute. The following 8 tips and tricks will help you ensure marketing and fundraising success!
8 Essential Fundraising Marketing Tips & Tricks
1. Start Marketing Your Fundraiser Earlier Than You Think
Most organizations start their fundraisers and, once launched, promote. Unfortunately, that’s too late. When you decide you’re going to do a fundraiser, such as a shoe drive fundraiser, that’s when you pre-launch. You want to create anticipation with “coming soon” posts and teaser videos. It’s essential to warm up your target audience before you ask.
2. Build a Clear Fundraising Marketing Plan
Random posts and emails aren’t a plan. So, if you want to ensure that your fundraiser works, it’s essential to create a content calendar that includes dates for specific content and assignments for who’s in charge of what. Even a short, written one-page version will ensure that your team is aligned and hitting targets consistently.
3. Tell Stories Instead of Just Asking for Donations
Remember that people give to people and not abstractions. So, instead of posting things like “Donate to our fundraiser,” get specific. For instance, you could say, “Your donation today will ensure that 30 students will have classroom supplies for the entire year.” Marketing and fundraising are about storytelling to create emotional connections to the cause.
4. Make Sharing Your Fundraiser Easy
Whose is your best marketing team? Yes, of course, everyone on your marketing team is awesome, but your supporters are the best marketers. Your donors and volunteers don’t have to support your cause. So, one of the best things you could do is share videos, images, and stories of your supporters because prospects will see themselves in that content.
5. Use Email Marketing to Stay Top of Mind
Algorithms on social media are unpredictable, but here’s something….email isn’t. Despite claims that email is dead over the years, it’s the one marketing tool that’s pretty straightforward and dependable. So, create an email series of well-timed emails (e.g., launch, mid-campaign update, and final reminder). Close it out with a celebratory email of THANKS!
6. Partner With Local Businesses & Community Groups
Another excellent approach for fundraising marketing is to partner with local businesses and community groups. For example, you can ask a local café to post a flyer with a QR code for your cause. You can also join a local Facebook group and share your posts (look at the group’s rules first). Many groups and businesses are happy to support a good cause.
7. Use Social Media Marketing for Fundraising Consistently
Social media marketing for fundraising requires that you do volume. Create a content calendar with countdown posts for the launch. Another approach that works well is to do behind-the-scenes content, and you should also do donor and volunteer shoutouts (make sure to tag them!). Aim to post daily or near-daily during your fundraiser.
8. Focus on Fundraisers That Are Easy to Market
From a marketing and fundraising perspective, not every fundraiser is equal. If you say something like, “Donate your gently worn shoes to help fund cancer research,” it is much more specific and tangible than vague language. Also, it’s specific because it calls for your community to, specifically, donate shoes for cancer research.
How to Market a Shoe Drive Fundraiser Successfully
Speaking of shoes, let’s get into what a shoe drive fundraiser is and how it can align with your marketing and fundraising efforts. In a shoe drive fundraiser, you simply ask your community to contribute their gently worn, used and new shoes. There’s no need for anyone to open their wallets or to buy merchandise. That means more people can participate in your community!
Funds2Orgs issues you a payment based on the weight of the shoes collected. That means the more shoes you collect, the more fundraising dollars you earn. A shoe drive fundraiser is a sustainable fundraiser. Meaning, your fundraiser redirects shoes from landfills and into the hands of micro-entrepreneurs worldwide for reuse in global communities.
Fundraising Marketing Ideas for Shoe Drives
The following shoe drive fundraising tips will help you ensure a successful fundraiser.
Visual content
Images and videos of the shoes you’ve collected bring home the point of your fundraising.
Drop-off locations
Asking local businesses, schools, or churches to serve as shoe drop-off points helps you collect more shoes from people beyond your current supporters.
Direct mail marketing for fundraising
A postcard or short letter dropped in mailboxes will increase your marketing and fundraising for those who are offline.
Countdown content
“10 days left and we’re 200 pairs away from our goal!” posts create urgency and invite your community to push you over the finish line.
Common Fundraiser Marketing Mistakes to Avoid
As mentioned at the start of this article, any marketing and fundraising campaign can stumble due to avoidable errors. Here’s what you want to avoid.
Starting promotion too late.
It’s worth repeating that pre-promotion is essential. You increase the chances of a fundraising failure if the first time people hear about a campaign is when it launches.
Posting inconsistently.
If you’re inconsistent in your marketing and fundraising, you’ll only go dark. Remember, the algorithms need consistency, as does your community!
Confusing fundraising messaging.
You have less than 5 seconds to catch interest on social media. How can you do it? Be different, funny, or clever, but be consistent in the message about your ask for support.
Skipping the thank-you.
People who support your cause should be thanked. Don’t be one of the organizations that perennially forgets to thank and acknowledge their supporters.
Relying on one marketing channel.
Don’t limit your marketing channels to just one, such as Instagram. Use two or three channels, such as social media, email, and select direct mail, to ensure maximum exposure.
Marketing Your Fundraiser Is Half the Job, So Make It Count
The fundraisers that maximize opportunity aren’t the ones with the largest budgets. They’re the ones who develop a fundraising marketing strategy and then execute it consistently, with clear communication and a call to action. Remember, start early, share compelling stories, and use multiple marketing channels and partnerships.
Don’t forget to be creative with your fundraising and to allow as many people in your community as possible to participate, such as through a Funds2Orgs shoe drive fundraiser. This socially responsible fundraiser is simple, free, and easy to create a marketing and fundraising plan around. Get information today and learn what it’s all about for your fundraising efforts.
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