As we know, fundraising plays a vital role for non-profits. However, besides the traditional ways to fundraise, online digital marketing offers new, exciting opportunities to raise money or awareness to support good causes.
Nowadays, in a time when advertising rules the world, there are endless resources available to help non-profit charitable organisations spread their message and make people more aware of their causes. NGOs like MOAS are working day in, day out for good causes worldwide, and they have so many stories to be shared. When people come across our work, they get inspired, and these people often also choose to join or support NGOs’ missions. Digital resources have become even more relevant during the last year, as COVID-19-related restrictions have severely limited live events and opportunities to meet our donors and the people who support us.
DOMINIC SCHWAB, PPC Marketing Manager of the German digital marketing agency Xpose360, outlined the benefits of harnessing digital marketing to NGOs like MOAS in our recent interview with him.
How can digital marketing support NGOs and charities? What are the pros of this approach?
“Digital marketing is an essential tool for spreading an organisation’s message and making its existence and mission known. Through an intelligent strategy, new interested persons can be inspired or existing interested persons can be made aware of important aid projects again. With the help of online marketing, the right messages are delivered to the right audience. This way, interactions with the organisation, such as donations or page visits, can be significantly increased.”
What are the most important digital marketing tools for NGOs?
“To generate as much traffic as possible for your own website and in order to increase the reach of the mission and interaction with the organisation, search engine optimisation (SEO), search engine advertising (SEA), and paid advertisements (PPC) are the main options.
Through Google, non-profit organisations have the opportunity to create free advertisements in the Google search network. To do so, organisations must qualify for a Google Ad Grant account. When a non-profit organisation qualifies, it receives $10,000 per month in free Google Ads advertising media budget.”
What is your advice for setting up a campaign? What is the “secret” of a successful campaign?
“The secret of a successful campaign lies, above all else, in its focus. We always take the customer journey into account to reach exactly those people with our advertising messages who are relevant to us. The customer journey describes the journey through various contact points (also called touchpoints) between a company and its customers. We aim to deliver the right message at the right moment in time (the right point in the customer journey) to the right user. Through this, we want to attract and retain customers.”
Is digital marketing better for fundraising or for advocacy purposes? In what sense?
“It is hard to make a generalising statement on this topic, because targeted marketing can be done for both purposes. Here, the organisation may have to weigh up which goal should focus or even pursue both, depending on how broad their audiences are defined and what falls within their budget.”
How MOAS utilises digital marketing
At MOAS we use several digital marketing tools to keep our audience informed about our initiatives, missions, and to receive support. First of all, on the MOAS website, one can find all about MOAS history, latest missions, and make a donation to support our work to support the most vulnerable communities around the world; the weekly blogs and newsletters feature high quality content including interviews, podcasts, and discussions about the latest trends in the humanitarian sector. On the website, you can also watch our documentary and sign our appeal for #SafeAndLegalRoutes.
Moreover, our social media channels have become an essential tool to tell our story and present our initiatives, engage with our audience and – hopefully – inspire people. We also organise online events and panels to discuss the most recent development in the migration phenomenon, and we feature the latest news from our field staff in Bangladesh, providing technical expertise for the delivery of the #FloodAndWaterSafety training to Rohingya refugees and host community volunteers. Last but not least, our YouTube channel features videos from MOAS’ past and current activities and is a good source to find out how we are committed to providing aid and support worldwide to communities in areas of crisis.
Conclusion
No matter how you choose to show love to your favourite charities and causes, online digital tools offer endless opportunities. MOAS is essentially run on private donations, so we value our donors highly, but we have also thrived with the holistic support of a global community who fundraise, advocate, nominate and engage on our behalf. We would not be the organisation we are if our supporters had not found meaningful, creative and out-of-the-box ways to spread the MOAS message and MOAS brand online.
If you are interested in the work of MOAS and our partners, please follow us on social media, sign up to our newsletter and share our content. You can also reach out to us any time via [email protected]. If you want to support our operations, please give what you can at www.moas.eu/donate/.