How to Successfully Market your Nonprofit in Kenya

Nonprofit marketing in Kenya is different from marketing for any other type of business out there.

It requires special care and a strategic plan.

Here is a step-by-step breakdown of how to successfully market your nonprofit in Kenya to attract more:

• volunteers
• funding
• resources

…and to see the needs of your nonprofit met.

5 Nonprofit Marketing Strategies For Your Organization

1. Invest in a solid website
2. SEO or search engine optimization
3. Content marketing
4. Social media marketing
5. PPC marketing

Strategy 1: Invest In A Solid Website

A common thought we’ve heard from some of our nonprofit clients to date is that they often have a tight budget and struggle to justify investing in a website.

But in today’s day and age, your website is your storefront.

It’s often the first impression people gain of your brand, and you should consider it as the face of your nonprofit.

Now, when we say “storefront” here, we’re not referring to an eCommerce store like we would for other businesses.

That’s unless your nonprofit has merch or something to sell!

But more so we’re talking about the online version of your brick-and-mortar location.

When people come to your website, they should be able to gather any and all information that they would if they were to talk to you in person.

Your website should answer questions like these:

• When and where can people sign up to volunteer?
• What’s the closest volunteering opportunity near them?
• Where can they donate online?
• What is your nonprofit all about?
• If they support you, where does their money go?

We can personally testify that failing to have an informative website (or a website at all) will deter potential donors and volunteers.

Now, having a website is only half the battle in nonprofit marketing. As we said, the other half of it is that it needs to be updated, helpful and functional.

People need to be able to find any and all relevant information about your nonprofit on the page.

Strategy 2: SEO or Search Engine Optimization

In the real-life example we just shared of searching in vain for a nonprofit to volunteer with, did you catch where we went to look for information first?

It was Google!

Google is one of the most (if not THE most) powerful search engines worldwide.

Google gets over 3.5 billion searches per day- it’s hard to even process that so here’s another way to look at it.

Google gets over 41,000 searches per second!

When people have…

• a problem they need a resolution to, or
• a question they want to be answered. or
• just more information about literally anything in general

…people go to Google.

And this behavior pattern remains the same when people want more information about a nonprofit.

So given this information, what can you do to leverage all the attention Google receives?

The answer is to make sure your website appears on Google!

When someone searches “nonprofit near me” or “places to volunteer in Atlanta” or insert whichever city you serve there, does your website appear?

The first five results on Google receive 67.6% of all the clicks.

And it makes sense because think back to the last time you Googled something.

Have you ever scrolled to the second page? Probably not!

Most people just automatically trust Google and choose from the top 5 websites Google provides.

So the benefit to ranking in the #1 spot on Google is twofold:

1. It drives relevant, qualified traffic to your site.
2. It simultaneously builds brand trust.

Because if Google trusts your website enough to rank it #1, people don’t question your credibility.

So then the next question is how do you do it? How do you boost your search engine position ranking?

How do you perform SEO marketing for nonprofits?

Well, SEO is a big umbrella term for a number of processes, and it’s an ongoing process at that.

For your nonprofit marketing, you’ll need to make changes to your website, acquire backlinks and create strategic content to rank for relevant keywords.

For Help with doing SEO For your nonprofit, you can contact us.

Keywords are the words or phrases people are searching on Google.

How do you know which keywords to plan your SEO strategy around?

The term “keyword” is synonymous with the terms people are searching for in Google.

So we’re sure you’re already thinking of some keywords that you want your website to appear for!

But we always recommend doing a little research first.

Google Ads has a tool called Keyword Planner that you can use to research relevant keywords or phrases that people type into Google.

For example, let’s look at what the monthly search volume is for the keywords “nonprofit near me” and “nonprofit volunteer opportunities near me.”

One technical note you’ll need to keep in mind when researching keywords is to put the proper symbols around them.

This is because there are 3 different match types on Google including:

1. broad match
2. phrase match
3. exact match

Another thing you’ll need to keep in mind in regards to keyword research for SEO is relevancy vs search volume.

Strategy 3: Content Marketing

“Content marketing is a strategic marketing approach focused on creating and distributing valuable, relevant, and consistent content to attract and retain a clearly defined audience — and, ultimately, to drive profitable customer action.”

The benefit of publishing content on your website is two-fold:

1. It goes hand in hand with your SEO efforts and helps to boost your SEO rankings.
2. It provides the value and information your potential supporters are often looking for to help them decide which nonprofit to work with.

So, what kind of topics can be included in content marketing for nonprofits?

Well, here are some content marketing ideas for nonprofits to get you started:

• Write about your volunteers or staff + how they help.
• Write about the people you’re helping or the problem you’re solving.
• Recap your events or big volunteering opportunities.
• Break down where donations go + how they’re used to help others.
• Highlight any testimonials or positive outcomes that have happened as a result of your efforts.

Once you have some relevant content published on your website, you can link it to your social media to boost your nonprofit digital marketing campaigns.

Strategy 4: Social Media Marketing

Social media is a powerful tool for generating awareness and building trust in your brand.

Now we have tons of posts on social media marketing, social media management, social media updates, and more that go over all the introductory things.

But in this post, we’re specifically going to cover social media for nonprofits.

When it comes to laying out a social media marketing plan for nonprofit organizations, the first thing you want to think about is who your target audience is.

That is because it will help you identify the best social media platforms you need to be on.

For instance, Pinterest is predominantly used by women. So if your target audience is mostly women, that may be a good place to start.

But once you’ve completed your research and know which social media platforms you want to use to market your nonprofit, here’s what to do next.

These are the top 4 things you want to make sure your nonprofit marketing strategy in social media includes:

a. Unified branding across all your platforms

Sometimes we see business owners making the mistake of using their own personal accounts to promote their nonprofit.

This is especially true when the nonprofit is smaller or brand new.

But this can confuse and ultimately deter people who are researching your nonprofit.

Make sure all of your accounts look official and professional and contain the same branding across the board.

b. Regular postings

One of the biggest ways to lose out on followers and engagement on social media is for your account to look like it has virtual cobwebs.

This means when the most recent post is from months or years ago.

Social media is a real-time resource, so if you haven’t posted on there in a while, it could look like you’re not operational anymore.

That fact combined with society’s ever-decreasing attention spans means people will keep scrolling without giving your page a second thought.

So, show potential supporters that your nonprofit is still alive and well with regularly updated social media accounts.

c. Videos

According to Statista, 27% of people (18 years old and above) worldwide watch more than 10 hours of online videos a week.

HubSpot said 72% of customers would rather learn about a product or service through videos.

Videos are a great way to accomplish all of the goals we talked about in content marketing but through videos.

A video is also known as a medium that is likely to retain people’s attention and help them retain the information.

Now, one hesitation we hear a lot when it comes to nonprofits making videos is lack of budget or know-how.

Social Media Advertising

The key thing to know as a nonprofit is that social media advertising platforms like Facebook Ads Manager usually have nonprofit interests you can target.

This means you can pay Facebook to push your content to people who are specifically interested in nonprofits and volunteering.

Strategy 5: PPC Marketing

Remember earlier when we said there’s a faster way to show up at the top of the search results?

It’s through PPC (or pay-per-click) marketing.

PPC is also synonymous with SEM or Search Engine Marketing.

It’s another method to help your nonprofit organization to appear at the top of the search engine results.

So what makes it different from SEO?

PPC puts your website in the search results faster, and at a cost.

Look at the Google results that appeared for us when we typed in social media management company.

These first few results that have the Ad label beneath them are PPC ads.

The first organic result that is not marked as an ad is a result of SEO.

You’ll want to perform all the same keyword research that we talked about for SEO, for PPC.

But this time, you’ll want to also pay attention to the competition, bidding, and average cost per click.

That is because you’re paying Google to show your website instead of performing all of the SEO efforts on your own.

A recent article said 41% of clicks in Google searches go to the top three sponsored ads,.

So it’s definitely worth looking into as a nonprofit marketing method.

Now you may be asking which is better for your nonprofit, SEO or SEM?

But in short, neither is really better than the other – it just depends on your needs, your timeline, and your budget.

But of course, there are so many other digital marketing strategies you can leverage outside of just these 5.

And if you need more help with any of these digital marketing strategies and more, simply contact us today to get started!