With the New Year right around the corner, many organizations are planning their marketing strategies for the year ahead. It is the ideal time of year to reflect, set the vision, and develop tactics to achieve objectives. This past year has required many pivots, including a renewed focus of online engagement. We expect this focus will continue into 2022.
With this in mind, we have accumulated trends and tips for you to consider in your upcoming development.
Here are 6 Marketing Strategies For 2022:
1. Consider your marketing channels for online engagement
If the last 18 months have taught us anything, it is that potential donors and supporters truly have their own preferred channels online and we must engage accordingly. While some donors enjoy email communications as their preference, others want to receive updates through text messages or social media channels.
As you prepare your strategy for this coming year, take an audit of your existing online engagement strategy. Consider the following measurement data points:
- What is your engagement rate across each channel? For reference, the average email engagement rate is 20.94%.
- What is your investment per channel, and what is the ROI?
- Which channels are growing, and which channels are decreasing in overall engagement, subscriptions, and impressions?
When you have completed the audit, consider your next steps for channel investment.
2. Increase your presence through online webinars
As we expect online engagement to continue as a key area of focus in 2022, the power of online webinars will grow.
One webinar can drive an average of between 500 to 1,000 leads per session, making it a true powerhouse in potential organizational donor growth. Of course, developing a strong webinar takes time and investment, so be certain to give the session the attention it needs to drive engagement. Don’t forget to promote it on all of your channels as well.
3. Review and optimize your organizational message
While the traditional approach for brands and organizations alike has been a “hard sell” over the last decade, we have seen a significant shift into thought leadership and education instead. Donors are seeking to gain knowledge and generate passion for the organizations they support. This means that you need to curate a space that allows for genuine connection.
Over 2022, hard selling will become less and less effective, whereas organizations that drive true and organic connections will shine.
4. We are entering the era of hyper-personalization
Personalization will increasingly be part of consumer connection over the next five years. But, what does this mean for nonprofit organizations?
Personalization takes a number of forms. In this context, it means creating a personalized connection with donors. Consider personalized email communication, hand-crafted letters to your top donors, direct messages on Instagram to new followers, and more.
Furthermore, advertising has moved into this direction, thanks to the power of technological innovation. With hyper-personalization as part of your strategy, you do not need to invest a great amount of dollars. Instead, consider low or no-cost ways to create personal experiences that deliver an impressive result. An easy solution is personalized emails. Many email sending providers will include personalization tokens. This allows you to write one mass email, and then the system will personalize it for each recipient. The most common personalization token is the insertion of a first name, but you can also use last gift date, last gift amount, and connection to your cause. Personalizing your communications no longer has to be time consuming.
5. Consider how you have been, and will continue to, tell your brand story
As a nonprofit organization, your brand story matters in a big way. Cue mic drop moment…
Donors do not want to hear how great your organization is. They want to hear how your organization solves problems and creates solutions with their hard-earned dollars.
In the era of engagement, hyper-personalization, and the drive to create meaning, your donors are seeking to discover the work that you perform day in and day out. Storytelling has always been an essential piece of any brand strategy, but it can be argued that it is more important than ever as we move into this coming year.
6. Adopt strategic marketing automation
The thought of tracking and measurement, hyper-personalization, and brand storytelling can be overwhelming as key marketing strategies for 2022. However, your tactics can be made easier through marketing automation. Let’s explain…
There are tools, both free and paid, that can automate email nurturing, send “thank-you” messages to new followers on social media, and develop drip campaigns based of donor interactions. Tools like Hubspot can work to automatically bring your leads into a CRM and send emails based on engagement. Other tools like Later can help you plan and schedule your social media posts, so you can focus on your greater strategy beyond day-to-day publishing.
There are plenty of marketing automation tools available. While it can be overwhelming to consider which will work best for your organization, this is an important exercise to complete while developing your marketing strategy.
With a New Year comes new marketing strategies and tactics for your organization. From telling your brand story to hyper-personalization, consider your donors at the core of every decision you make.
Find out more about how Donor Compass™ can help you develop your fundraising strategy here.