Your nonprofit works hard to reach its donors and constituents, using a variety of tactics. Make those efforts more effective, by measuring results and making changes when necessary.
If your organization is like most nonprofits, you reach out to donors and other supporters in any way you can — on your website, via email, at events, through year-end appeals and, perhaps, on social media. It all take staff, time, and money to get done. But what’s working? Knowing which tactics are effective can help you allocate your resources so you get the most bang for your marketing buck.
Finding out what works — and tweaking what doesn’t — is easier these days, thanks to the almost instant online feedback. Even a snail-mail newsletter’s effect can be estimated by looking for a boost in web traffic after it goes out.
Have specific goals for your marketing so you know what to measure.
Think about possible measurable goals for each outreach effort. Don’t make it complicated, just meaningful. If you launch a new website, perhaps you’ll want to set goals for online donations. If you send out email newsletters, then you might strive to improve your open and click-through rates with every email.
Social media offer the opportunity to set very specific goals and see the results of your efforts quickly. Post a message using one phrase or image one week and a different phrase the next. Check the metrics to learn which got the most attention and if that attention come from the people you wanted to reach.
You can’t measure everything.
It’s not possible or realistic to measure and use every possible piece of data. Pick a few metrics that will give you insight into what’s working for your organization. Consider your goals — are you trying to generate awareness, build community, increase website traffic, advocate for an issue, raise money? Review the marketing metrics list and select the items that will give you the information you need to measure your success in reaching those goals. Focus on what you can use and what you can afford, although you also might consider what you might want to measure in the future. You can add those metrics as you get more sophisticated about your marketing. This list of metrics constitutes your own marketing dashboard.
Review your dashboard regularly so that you know what’s working.
If you are monitoring your website traffic daily or weekly, you’ll be able to see spikes that may be caused by your other marketing activity, such as when a newsletter went out or a Facebook comment was posted. You may even notice spikes related to the news of the day, which point to other opportunities for outreach. How often you check your dashboard depends on what type of marketing you are doing but the general rule is the more frequently, the better. Social media campaigns will give you constant feedback. If you are sending out email newsletters, then review the open and click-through rates 72 hours after the email is sent. Review your web traffic at least monthly, and take time to review your overall marketing efforts quarterly.
Act on what you’ve learned.
The whole point of tracking is to learn how best to allocate your resources. When something works, build on it. If your website is getting traffic from certain sites, see how you can boost your visibility on those referring sites as well as duplicate that response on other sites. It’s also helpful to compare results before and after specific initiatives — such as launching a Facebook page, fundraising event or advocacy campaign — to see if the messages you used are working. If response is low, try different wording. If that message generates a better response, take note for your next campaign. If a blog post gets a lot of views and comments, look at the subject of the post as well as how it was written to get guidelines for future posts.
Use free monitoring tools when possible.
If you don’t already get web traffic reports, use free Google Analytics reports. All you need to do is open a Google account and add code to your website. With it, you can find the source of traffic to your site, and other key information related to particular campaigns. Another Google tool, Alerts, notifies you when specific words are mentioned on the internet, such as your organization, your competition, or other keywords that you select. It’s a good way to know what people are saying about your organization as well as a way to jump into the conversation on topics about which you want to be known as a thought-leader. Most social media platforms also give you access to free basic metrics that can help you refine your outreach.
Marketing isn’t magic. It’s work, but you must do it. If you set up your marketing dashboard, monitor your results regularly, and make the necessary adjustments in your tactics, you’ll find your organization making progress toward its goals.
