Search Engine Optimization with Your Users In Mind

[av_social_share title='Share this entry' style='' buttons='' custom_class='' admin_preview_bg=''] Episode Summary Your online fundraising strategy can always improve and become more innovative. Gaining new knowledge and keeping up with an evolving industry places your organization on the path to growth and this ultimately allows you to accomplish bigger and greater goals. You can do these by employing some of these strategies to help you attract new donors, increase engagement, and make better use of technology. Fundraising starts in-house. Your staff is going to be the start of the fundraising movement. They are going to begin the search for lucrative prospects and may even turn them into donors. Why not reward your staff for successfully bringing in these donors? An incentive program not only motivates your staff but it also ensures that they are going to be working with high standards to earn these incentives. This strategy is commonly used among organizations whether they are for-profit or non-profit. Before you begin this process though, you should decide if the organization has the ambition. You need to have have a strong mission that’s enough to motivate your employees to want to make change. You need to determine if yearly incentives for every employee is enough to motivate them to perform their tasks properly and with dedication. You also need to determine if your investment in the employee incentive program would lead to a reasonable return of investment and if this incentive program is enough to attract and retain talent in the future. These are all factors that you should be discussing with your board of directors. You can also think about surveying your employees to get their thoughts and opinions on the matter. Understand WHY donors give Use a donor management system to track activity and preferences for your donors. Not only to track the amount of money each donor contributes, but to also track steps in outreach, participation, and relationship building. You may wish to segment donors who have similar reasons for giving. Then, you can provide means for your donors to further build on and fulfill these reasons. Giving is a personal decision. Consider how you’ll recognize each person. This can be based on the amount of the contribution, how many times a year they contribute, or just an overall thank you to everyone who donates. Afterall, feedback is one form of motivation in itself. Incentives can be developed for moving up through contribution levels. This can be exclusive events, gifting suites, or even a huge raffle. Go Mobile! In the modern scenario, almost every adult has a smartphone. You have to take this into consideration as people tend to use their mobile devices over their computers. In accordance with this principle, you have to analyze how much of your web traffic is coming from mobile devices. This is going to tell you if going mobile is a great choice for your nonprofit (though having the option is always nice). From here, you can discover how many people are utilizing the donation form from a mobile device. Watch the trends change in your analytics and see how it worked and how it can be improved. Simplify Giving Capabilities on Your Website When people want to donate, they want it to be simple and easy (same goes for people who don’t yet know they want to donate). Add the donation button to the top of your website. Include video footage sharing what you do and why a person should contribute. Keep your forms manageable and not overwhelming. The flow of your form should be logical and is should sense. Make your call-to-action as clear as can be. This will make receiving donations easy and simple. Use Your Resources Wisely Not utilizing technology for your business is like not putting gas in your vehicle. Without using technology and resources wisely, marketing campaigns and community engagement projects would be quite challenging. Furthermore, collecting data from your community members regarding what they like and don’t like would be a hassle. Customer service depends on your effective use of technology. By making good use of your resources, you’ll be able to answer questions from your community members right away. All of this has led to a new generation where technology matters. Technology is the epicenter of the business world along with the way that we are able to increase the amount of customer satisfaction, reach, and overall happiness through its effective use. Nonprofits are able to improve the ways in which they share a message significantly. The tone, voice, and emotion tied to their message can be conveyed in such an honest and captivating manner. People are able to actually see the reason why a nonprofit is fighting for certain people and doing anything they can to spread the word and show people the magnitude in which others are struggling. In this regard, we can refer to a chapter in our book, “Brick by Brick”...