Running a nonprofit organization, or planning on starting one?
Whatever the case, you’ll have to know how to get the word out there and how to increase the visibility of the organization, aiming at snatching up donors that are interested in your cause and that are ready to support you.
If you’re just starting out, you’ll also have to learn more about how to successfully establish your nonprofit and how to run it.
One of the things you’ll have to decide on your journey toward establishing your organization and driving it towards success is whether you should run social media ads or not.
Most nonprofits often assume that such ads are not exactly important for them and that there’s no sense in running them. While organic content should not be neglected, we can’t ignore the fact that social media plays a huge role in marketing.
So, ignoring them without even taking the time to think if those platforms could be right for your advertising efforts is not a good idea.
If you happen to decide that running these ads is the right thing for your organization, you’ll also want to know how to do that smartly. Roaming around in the dark and placing random ads is not the best idea.
Doing things like that could easily result in wasting money on ads that won’t work, which will ultimately lead to you being disappointed in your campaigns. So, understanding if nonprofits should run these ads and then checking how to do it smartly is a must, and those are the questions we’ll answer for you below.
Should Nonprofits Run Ads?
Are you doing PR as a nonprofit organization? And, do you understand the importance of it? Much like PR, advertising on social media is just as important for your cause, allowing you to raise awareness of what you’re doing and to send your messages across.
Through these ads, you’ll get the opportunity to welcome new donors, new volunteers, and other types of supporters. So, if you are wondering whether social media ads for nonprofits are actually necessary, the answer is yes.
Neglecting this type of marketing is never a good idea, as it can lead to missing out on quite a lot of great opportunities for connecting with the right people, donors, and any kind of supporters.
Thus, instead of questioning the effectiveness of these strategies, you should start using them and seeing the results for yourself. Of course, you’ll have to be smart when creating and using those campaigns so as to get the best results.
How to Do It Smartly?
Before we get to talking about those important things to do when aiming at running successful ads and thus driving your organization toward success, let me just make one thing clear.
If you were worried that you will have to invest huge amounts of money in these campaigns, no reason to.
As a nonprofit, it’s perfectly normal for you to be concerned about the budget, but the truth is that the campaigns aren’t expensive, and you have full control over how much you want to spend.
Now that this is cleared up, let me give you some tips on how to run the ads the smart way.
Identify Your Audience
There are not many differences between for-profit and nonprofit when it comes to creating advertising strategies. Instead of simply diving in without having any relevant insights, you will first have to identify your audience.
Proper targeting is a must, and without identifying your audience, you could wind up targeting the wrong people and thus simply wasting money on campaigns that won’t work. Age, gender, location, interests…
Those are just some of the factors to consider when identifying your audience.
Select the Right Platforms
Selecting the right platforms will depend on your target audience.
Once you’ve identified the audience, check where they spend most of their time. If, for example, you find that the people you want to reach spend a lot of time on Facebook, for example, you’ll know that it is the platform you want to increase your visibility on.
That is, you’ll know it’s the platform you want to advertise on.
Read more about running a nonprofit in general if you still need some tips.
Try to Post at the Right Time & Be Consistent
Posting now, placing an ad, and then forgetting about your social media accounts altogether is not the right strategy. You have to be consistent with your content. And, you also have to check when the best time to post is across the platforms, so as to get great engagement.
Analyze the Results
After you’ve run a campaign, you’ll need to analyze the results.
Why? Because that will give you insight into the parts that worked, as well as the parts that need improvement. By doing proper analysis, you’ll learn how to create the best campaigns for your nonprofit.