Just like any business may have done in the past, charities have been utilising the World Wide Web to spread the word of their appeals. For charities, a donation is a conversion – technically, the process is much the same as any other e-commerce website.
Think where you see adverts, not just on the web, but in general. In magazines, on the tube, on the television and billboards amongst other places. No doubt you will have seen adverts for charities in and amongst other well-known brands. The internet opens the door for charities to reach out directly to potential sponsors whilst easily being able to keep a track of what campaigns are working and where.
Google Ads Grant
Google Ads, or AdWords as it was previously known, is one of the most popular forms of digital marketing for online brands. For years brands have been utilising this capability to send potential customers to converting pages, as well as aiming to get in on some of their competitors’ audience.
Charities have also been using Google Ads along with businesses, but they are given an additional boost by those at Google. A charity can apply for a Google Ads grant of up to $10,000 per month that they can use on PPC marketing.
For any charity looking for online donations, this is a must as, when done right, Google Ads can yield a high ROI anyway.
Influencer Marketing
Influencer marketing over the last five or so years has really become the digital marketer’s quintessential method of brand exposure. With the right personality who has an engaged audience, it’s a sure fire way of introducing your brand or product to a wide audience. So what does that mean for charities looking for sponsors?
For someone to sponsor a charity they need to buy into the cause and, in order to do that, they need a reason. When an influencer posts on a cause and mentions a charity and what they are doing to combat that issue, this then will help to persuade their audience to donate to the campaign.
An example of this would be if a celebrity posted on their social media accounts about Muslim Aid’s East Africa appeal, highlighting what the charity is doing to help those in need, the exposure of this would be expected to see an increase in donations. Of course, as such a sensitive subject, influencer marketing does have to be approached with caution in order to be delivered correctly and effectively.
SEO
We cannot write a post without at least mentioning SEO because, let’s be honest, SEO is king of online advertising. The golden rule of marketing is to put yourself where the audience is and that is exactly what SEO is all about – ranking for keywords that your audience are searching for.
The search volume of keywords will fluctuate over time but, by and large, will always yield results depending on the topic. For example, you can expect more searches for Ramadan times in and around the Islamic month than at any other point in the year, although you will still see some search volume.
For charities to maximise their use of SEO, they not only have to consider what keywords the user is searching, but also the standard of competition. It can sound weird to think of charities as potential competitors to one another, however, when it comes to donations they certainly are. Because of this, charities have to be careful as to what keywords they optimise for as one or two large organisations may have that much of a stranglehold on it that it simply isn’t realistic or viable to rank.
While Google Ads and influencer marketing have the potential to yield quick results, SEO is the more stable in the long term. Depending on the nature of the charity and the cause (is it time sensitive or not), a mixture of all three is likely to be the best option to make full use of the World Wide Web and the possibilities it presents.
