How Your Nonprofit CRM Can Support Marketing Efforts
It’s no mystery that nonprofits must promote their missions to raise awareness for their causes. Technology is increasingly changing the future of nonprofit marketing, which is why your organization must leverage its software to keep up.
And using nonprofit software to help you look at your donor data like a marketer can be your secret fundraising weapon.
In this guide, we’ll explore three ways your organization’s marketing efforts can be supported by its constituent relationship management (CRM) software.
Personalized Communication
Ideally, your marketing efforts will reach vast audiences. Along with the need to grow your audience, you also need to ensure each supporter feels individually connected to your nonprofit.
The best nonprofit CRM solutions will help you segment donors based on shared characteristics, such as:
- Demographics: Age, income level, and other demographic characteristics can indicate a donor’s interests and help you better appeal to your audience. According to Double the Donation’s guide to donor data, this information can give you insight into donors’ backgrounds and motivations.
- Giving history: When you can segment your donors according to their standard gift, you can better understand their willingness and ability to give certain amounts. This can help you make targeted asks in the future.
- Communication preferences: This strikes at the heart of making giving easy. Where are your donors most responsive? Text, email, direct mail? Make your ask in the way they want to be approached.
With personalized information about your donors, you can send out messages that will appeal to different groups across your marketing channels.
You can also create audience personas to help you plan future communications. For example, you might develop a persona for a 30-year-old man named Timothy, who is looking to volunteer on the weekends. Using this information, you can identify people similar to Timothy who might be interested in hearing about volunteer opportunities or fundraising events through your marketing materials.
Automated Email Campaigns
Many nonprofit operations are repeating, making automation a useful tool for tasks like sending out donation receipts.
Your CRM should help you create donor-customized response emails based on their actions. That way, you can send out personalized marketing messages without having to manually type out each one. Automating emails through your CRM solution will also allow you to:
- Create email templates. Design your own email templates complete with your nonprofit’s branding to make your messages recognizable and engaging.
- Test your content. Use your software to determine which designs and messages are most engaging.
- Measure campaign effectiveness. Your CRM should track metrics like email views, clicks, and conversions to help you analyze your campaign’s performance.
When you use fundraising software to quickly craft emails, you’ll streamline the communications process and more quickly see results from your outreach efforts.
Online Donation Forms
Marketing isn’t just about sharing a message. It’s also about getting people to take action. According to CharityEngine’s guide to donor journey maps, your nonprofit will need a well-designed donation form to convert prospective supporters into actual donors.
Your CRM can help you create online donation forms complete with:
- Your nonprofit’s branding: Include your logo, tagline, and other brand elements to connect the donation form directly to your nonprofit’s mission and identity.
- Colors that stand out: Design an eye-catching form that reinforces your brand and engages audiences.
- A customized layout: Make giving easy! Customize your form to ask for just the information you need. Add widgets for matching gift programs or other functionality you want to offer.
You can create a landing page for your form or embed it directly on a website page. And promoting fundraising opportunities on your website can help raise support from larger audiences since people could organically look for your site or land on it accidentally.
Another way to leverage your CRM to drive donations is to use a QR-code generator if your CRM offers one. It’s fun to create easily scannable QR codes that lead people to your donation form.
Nonprofit CRMs offer a variety of features, so you’ll need to learn how to leverage the full potential of your specific solution. Familiarize yourself with your CRM’s features to ensure you’re making the most of the platform.
And remember that a robust CRM will offer myriad ways you can engage your prospects and donors and increase fundraising. If your CRM doesn’t offer the right features, consider switching to one that will support your nonprofit’s marketing efforts. Don’t settle for less than perfect!
