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Three Impactful Marketing Techniques That Can Benefit Your Nonprofit

Forbes Nonprofit Council
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Forbes Nonprofit Council

Consider the nonprofit organizations that get the most buzz, like the Make-A-Wish Foundation, the ALS Association and Girl Scouts of the USA. Their use of smart, targeted marketing techniques have made them household names. When the ice bucket challenge went viral two summers ago, every person who dumped a bucket of ice water on their head and posted it on social media was contributing to the growing recognition of the ALS Association.

Brand recognition like this is key for a nonprofit because increased awareness helps to fulfill its goals of raising funds and spreading its message. The challenge, of course, is identifying effective strategies to help your organization appeal to a wider audience -- not every social campaign will go viral. So how can you spread the word and make more people care about your organization?

From partnerships to social media apps, three nonprofit executives from Forbes Nonprofit Council discuss the most effective marketing techniques that they have applied at their nonprofit organizations.

Mutual Promotion

As the founder and CEO of UniversalGiving, Pamela Hawley raises awareness for important causes every day, but how does she raise awareness for her own nonprofit organization?

She says, "UniversalGiving engages in mutual marketing promotion with our partners by leveraging networks and spreading the word to new audiences."

This collaborative marketing process is beneficial for spreading awareness of both the organization and its partners, so it's a win-win situation for all parties.

Explaining one of their mutual promotion strategies, Hawley says, "We worked with MovingWorlds, an organization that connects volunteers' expertise with social impact organizations. We shared writing on each other's blogs, and even co-wrote an article for The Huffington Post."

Through these marketing opportunities made possible by partnerships, UniversalGiving reaches new and diverse audiences. While the ultimate goal may be to raise brand awareness, Hawley also appreciates that mutual promotion allows different organizations to have fun together and learn more from one another. Her final piece of advice? "Have fun sharing ideas and supporting collaboration."

Snapchat Geofilters

Chip Rogers, the president and CEO of the Asian American Hotel Owners Association (AAHOA), recently turned to a popular social media app to target a younger demographic, drastically raising awareness with this new audience.

Rogers says, "We utilized a custom Snapchat filter at our 2016 convention and were shocked by its success with our young-adult members."

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Snapchat allows users to customize "geofilters," location-based overlays applied to pictures that the users take and send via the app. Nonprofits can purchase and design custom geofilters to promote their brands. And with so many millennials using the app, it can effectively raise awareness with this specific demographic, as AAHOA discovered. Anyone using Snapchat at their 2016 convention could effortlessly discover the filter, thus increasing recognition of the AAHOA brand.

While Snapchat does not yet offer statistics reporting to track the effectiveness of geofilters, it was apparent to Rogers that their Snapchat filter was a hugely successful marketing technique.

"Our social media team was inundated with notifications that convention attendees were using our filter, tagging and following AAHOA, and engaging with other attendees. Unexpected? Yes. Absolutely fantastic? Also yes," says Rogers.

Strategic Partnerships

Jeff Rosset, co-founder and executive director of The Chicago Leadership Alliance (CLA), has learned to partner with organizations that already boast wide public awareness in order to increase their own brand visibility.

"The right partnerships can position your nonprofit in a great way for exposure, donations, awareness and PR," says Rosset.

To continually raise awareness and keep the exposure and donations rolling in, Rosset's marketing technique involves regularly identifying new key partners.

"Every month I conduct an activity with my board where we openly think through who in our respective networks would be a good strategic partner, in addition to what organizations have recently been in the news that we should initiate dialogue with. Results have been great!"

For example, a recent partnership with the renowned DePaul University's Center for Creativity & Innovation is a strategic partnership that will allow The CLA to spread awareness of their brand through the center's faculty and students, while students benefit from internship opportunities and insightful guest lectures.

The CLA has partnered up with many other well-known brands, including grubHub, the Special Olympics and Ronald McDonald House Charities.

So the next time you're looking to bring heightened attention to your nonprofit organization, consider partnering up with another organization to help each other out or turn to social media to target a specific demographic. Strategies like these can help your organization make an impact on a whole new crowd.