You’ve got a great new logo, a brand guideline, and an inviting, informative website, so what’s next? Once you’ve established your brand basics, it’s time to focus on content creation that will help you achieve fast, organic engagement and growth with your audience and supporters. 

Blogging can sound intimidating, but it’s simply another way to expand your outreach by getting out information more casually and improving your SEO. Your blog content puts more searchable words and images out there for people to find when they’re Googling any keywords that apply to your cause or organization. It also helps to get a conversation started on your platform, and keeps it there. Plus, your followers can share your blogs to their own social media networks, effectively getting the word out to a larger demographic. 

Blogs should preferably be 500 to 1,000 words. Your content should be informative or entertaining, but mindful of your reader’s time. Use as many keywords as possible that describe your cause, your services, and your organization, but only where appropriate and when it makes sense.  

Try to post your blogs on a consistent schedule – once a week or twice a month is a great start for most organizations. You can share information, facts, and campaigns. You can share a success story about how your cause helped someone or a story from a volunteer about what their experience has been serving your organization. You can talk about a recent fundraising event and share photos to get your audience excited for the next one. Share some of your own insider tips about what running a nonprofit is like, or what it’s like for new volunteers to get started. As long as your content is appropriately focused on your nonprofit cause, services, and industry, you can be as creative as you’d like with your blog posts. 

Email marketing uses targeted emails to promote products or services to potential customers or clients. If you’ve shopped online, then you’ve been promoted to sign up for a store’s mailing list. The daily or weekly emails you then get from them are all part of their email marketing strategy to get you to come back and shop. They entice you with coupon codes, new products, or news about their business. For nonprofits, it works the same way but is intended to attract donors, volunteers, and other supporters. 

Email marketing uses targeted emails to promote products or services to potential customers or clients. If you’ve shopped online, then you’ve been promoted to sign up for a store’s mailing list. The daily or weekly emails you then get from them are all part of their email marketing strategy to get you to come back and shop. They entice you with coupon codes, new products, or news about their business. For nonprofits, it works the same way but is intended to attract donors, volunteers, and other supporters. 

Email marketing for nonprofits can include newsletters with updates or info on your cause, organization, or staff. You can advertise your new blog content when you post as a way to get traffic back to your website. You can send information about events, where to buy tickets or how to donate, or updates of beneficiaries of your organization. Storytelling is an essential way to get supporters to connect with you and help you by making donations and spreading the word about the work you’re doing. Remember that all of your supporters will want an emotional return to see that you’re good on your word and your organization is doing the impactful work it claims, your marketing emails are a great way to show this.  

Email marketing allows businesses to keep their customers informed and tailor their marketing messages to their audience. However, sending too many emails or annoying, purposeless emails can drive your audience away, so be sure to adhere to the rule that everything sent needs to have a clear intention, a clear call to action (whether it’s to “read the blog,” “donate,” or “sign up,” etc.), and it needs to be relevant to your organization and cause.  

Once your online marketing efforts are underway, invest in more materials that can help to further establish your organization. Marketing collateral such as brochures, fact cards, booklets, annual reports, point of sale materials can contain images, text, and your brand design elements to provide a cohesive look while offering in-depth information about your organization 

These materials will help grow awareness and help you connect with your community through a personal touch. If people constantly see your brand in their online and physical community, they’ll start to recognize your organization and your mission. This will translate to bigger support and more participants.