Digital Marketing Resources for Nonprofits
The AAF-Orlando team has compiled a list of online marketing tools to help grow your nonprofit organization. The resources outlined below are either free or offered at a reduced rate for qualified nonprofits. We hope this list proves helpful.
Digital Marketing Education:
Learn the basics of digital marketing and how to leverage these online tools with these helpful blogs:
Marketo Blog - http://blog.marketo.com/
Hubspot Inbound Marketing Certification - http://academy.hubspot.com/certification
Moz.com SEO Blog - https://moz.com/blog
Operations Management:
Salesforce
http://www.salesforce.org/nonprofit/
Salesforce in an online software system that can provide your organization a unified view of every interaction with clients, supporters, members, donors, volunteers, and affiliates. There are many online tools listed below that also integrate with Salesforce to help streamline your data entry process.
Paid Advertising:
Google AdWords
https://www.google.com/grants/
Google offers up $10K per month in free ad spend through the AdWords platform. You'll want to learn how to create effective ads and how to research effective keywords for your account. It is also important that your website or landing page for the ads has a strong call to action. You'll want simplify the process for your web visitors so they take the path that YOU want them to go down. Remember… relevance is key!
Email Campaigns and Automation:
Staying in touch with you donors, volunteers and staff are critical to your organization. Both email services listed below offer some great tools to stay in contact, easily create campaigns, and create automated workflows.
It's important to create an automated workflow to send messages and increase engagement. Here's an example:
Initial Email Sign Up – welcome someone who signs up with your newsletter with an email as to how they can get involved and contribute to your organization.
First Time Donor – after an initial donation, thank them and make sure to send them regular emails as to how their donation is benefiting your organization and the community.
Old Donor – Hasn’t donated in over a year – follow up with donors who have not donated in over a year with an automated message as to how a donation can help.
MailChimp: https://mailchimp.com/pricing/entrepreneur/
- 2,000 subscriber and 12,000 email sends per month
- Salesforce Integration
Vertical Response: http://www.verticalresponse.com/pricing/non-profit/application
- 10,000 email sends
- Salesforce Integration
Events:
Eventbrite
https://www.eventbrite.com/l/npo/
Hosting and managing event registration and marketing your event with Eventbrite can help streamline your process. Eventbrite is free for events that have no admission fees and they offer lower costs for nonprofits.
Content Ideas:
Content marketing through a blog can help increase your online presence, awareness, and engagement. Set up relevant Google Alerts to find topics and articles related to your organization. These can inspire and provide valuable information that can assist in helping create new content for your own blog.
Google Alerts: https://www.google.com/alerts
Social Media Marketing
Joining the conversation online is becoming increasingly critical to the success of your organization. The following tools can help you schedule, manage, and promote your organization through social media.
Sprout Social: http://sproutsocial.com/
Email sales@sproutsocial.com to apply for the nonprofit rate of $59/mo. ($99/mo. Plan)
Buffer: https://buffer.com/nonprofits
Free for 1 type of account per social network and 50% off for paid accounts.
Hootsuite: https://hootsuite.com/about/hootgiving
50% off for nonprofits
RecurPost: http://recurpost.com/
Recycles social media posts to increase user engagement.
Meet Edgar: https://meetedgar.com/
Create a library of content and Edgar does the social scheduling.
Search Engine Optimization:
Moz.com
Moz' tools can help you identify issues with your website, find relevant keywords for content, and find link opportunities to boost your ranking on search engine platforms.
Nonprofits can apply for 75% off ($25/mo)
Annual Invoice: https://seomoz.box.com/s/venygbg0yrsfoqvvq0bx
Credit Card: https://seomoz.app.box.com/s/rg9w5pgy4hhpowxh7d85
WordPress - Yoast All-in-One SEO
If your organization uses WordPress to power your website, the Yoast All-in-One SEO tool can help you manage your SEO in a user friendly, step-by-step way.
PR Distribution:
Free Distribution
PR.com
pr.com
Free press release submission. Used by brokers.
Newswire Today
newswiretoday.com
Free press release submission, posted in the order received. No links.
Online PR News
OnlinePRNews.com
This free submission service allows you to give one live link in the contact information area, you can have a search engine friendly title and meta description. These releases will be archived. The paid submissions include social sharing buttons, and you can place 3 anchor text links, and add to your release a suitable image.
Free Press Release
Free-Press-Release.com
You can place banners on the press release that will point to your website. The paid service offered by this website has better ranking and many SEO benefits.
1-888 Press Release
1888PressRelease.com
The site has good pagerank and also gets good traffic. Active links are allowed. If you opt for their paid service, the placement will be better and you will get features like image galleries and permanent archiving.
24/7 Press Release
24-7pressrelease.com
Free press release submission, keyword tags for SEO purposes, email addresses masked to prevent spam. Upgrades available.
Free Press Release Center
Free-Press-Release-Center.info
You can do PR submission and distribution, include one link with the anchor text with their free service. The paid service enables you to give three links, permanent archiving and has many more features.
Paid Distribution
PRNewswire
http://www.prnewswire.com/
Cost: $300+
The biggest name in the PR distribution service industry and also the most expensive and require a 'membership' in order to use their service. A 400 word national press release can cost $680.00 and $185.00 for each additional 100 words.
PR-Web
http://www.prweb.com/
Cost: $99 - $499
Over 30,000 active clients. Distributions are forwarded to journalists, bloggers and interested parties who subscribe and declare preferences for receipts. Distributions are also delivered to websites that subscribe to PRWeb feeds. The basic service starts at $99.00 per press release. There is an additional $200.00 fee for their SEO visibility service and a $100.00 fee for a four to five minute podcast interview option conducted by a PRWeb staff person.
Market Wired
http://www.marketwired.com/
Cost: $300+
Best in Distribution process and network, optimization, analytics and customer support.
Ranked as the best PR distibution platform in January 2015.
Marketwire charges about $460.00 for a 400 word national press release and $150.00 for each additional 100 words. There is a $50.00 fee for an additional photograph, a $75.00 fee for SEO enhancements and a $75.00 fee for each audio/video link."