Marketing Automation for Nonprofits: Tools & Techniques

Managing the marketing aspect of a nonprofit organization requires time, money, and a dedicated team. But for a nonprofit, the main priority is usually to benefit the public and to further the objectives & goals of the organization.

So, the last thing they would want is to hire a big team for their marketing department, which would cost a pile of money.

Unsurprisingly, many solutions are available in the market through which a nonprofit can automate its marketing activities.

These tools aim to minimize time, expenses, and overall, any other precious resource; the latter can then be used for a more worthy or noble cause!

The term used for such solutions or techniques is called marketing automation.

But what exactly is marketing automation for nonprofits? And what are some of the popular techniques and tools for this practice?

Today, we will look at all of that, along with the benefits a nonprofit can gain from this process!

Let’s first answer the question: what is marketing automation for nonprofits?

Marketing automation is the process of using various tools to automate any type of marketing work that would otherwise require monotonous work from a human being. For instance, marketing a nonprofit organization would require posting on social media, email marketing, advertising, targeting and retargeting… etc. Using a set of tools and pieces of software to automate these practices is then termed Marketing Automation for Nonprofits.

Automating repetitive practices helps a nonprofit save resources. But that’s not the only benefit of this process, though!

It also allows an organization to provide personalized experiences for its supporters!

If we talk about the marketing automation benefits specifically for nonprofits, it can lead to more content engagement, more donations, increased action on surveys/petitions, and retention of the donor base!

So, with no further ado, let us discover the best marketing automation that would help your nonprofit organization!

4 best marketing automation tools for nonprofits

There is no doubt that the use of automation technology for marketing tasks carries a host of benefits for nonprofits.

However, it can become a rather challenging task to find the right type of marketing automation tool. The reason for this is very simple: Not every nonprofit works in the same industry or faces the same set of challenges.

In plain English, what works for one nonprofit may not be that much of a help to another & vice versa.

To solve this, I decided to look at nonprofit organizations’ common marketing problems from a marketer perspective…

Spotting issues like tailoring content to a very niche-centered audience, competing in the A-league, and establishing brand awareness simultaneously… made me think of a few tools that I’ve used in the past, or have been recommended by other professional marketers in my network!

So without wasting time, let’s look at the 4 best marketing automation tools that will be suitable for virtually every nonprofit:

Hubspot

The first marketing automation tool on our list is the versatile Hubspot! This one-of-a-kind tool helps with marketing, customer service, and sales all in one place!

If you really have to choose only one, then the best nonprofit marketing tool is most definitely Hubspot!

The highlight of Hubspot is its CRM, which can help connect the data from different users under one roof.

This can then be used to run the best nonprofit campaigns or to customize the existing ones.

If we look at the marketing tools offered by Hubspot, it also includes many tools to convert visitors into supporters/donors.

Some of the supported marketing tools include social media marketing, blogging, email marketing, targeted ads, landing pages, etc.

Hubspot also offers comprehensive reports to help you keep track of every customer’s interaction. The availability of such comprehensive data can help a nonprofit run effective campaigns or create new automation tasks.

So, it doesn’t matter whether you need a robust CRM, email marketing solution, or help with advertising for nonprofits; Hubspot has all the right tools!

The pricing for marketing tools offered by Hubspot starts from $45/month all the way up to $3600/month. In addition, Hubspot also offers a lot of free tools as well.;

Hubspot also dedicates a library for nonprofits where you can spot resources & tools for free!

ActiveCampaign

Founded in 2003, ActiveCampaign is one of the best email marketing software for nonprofits. But that’s not the only upside of ActiveCampaign…

It also offers other features, such as managing donor lists, custom forms with triggers, donor segmentation, CRM, and so on. Almost all of the marketing automation tools offered by ActiveCampaign come with a simple dashboard.

These straightforward dashboards make it easier to employ different features in decision-making and marketing campaigns.

In fact, ActiveCampaign has a feature called “automated campaigns”! This feature can assist in engaging new supporters of your cause and turns them into loyal donors.

In addition, you can also improve the forms and get more subscribers through its intelligent suggestions!

And last but not least, ActiveCampaign offers integration with 870+ apps such as Stripe, Donate2, WordPress, etc.

The pricing of ActiveCampaign depends on how many contacts you have in your list. For up to 1000 contacts, the prices start from $29/month and go all the way up to $149/month.

DotDigital

DotDigital is also a popular marketing automation solution among nonprofits looking to enhance their communication.

The Dotdigital platform comes with drag-and-drop functionality to make creating forms and email templates easy.

This function assists in communicating with supporters/donors of your organization.

Moreover, it offers the capability to engage users with multiple channels, which results in improved efficiency & potentially conversions too.

And with the built-in analytics, users can send messages to the right channel at the right time and place.

Some of the main benefits a nonprofit can gain from DotDigital’s marketing tools include better volunteer engagement, more donations, and better fundraising efforts.

Here’s a quick rundown of all the primary marketing tools offered by DotDigital:

• SMS campaigns
• Set up automation with triggers.
• Email campaigns with full customization.
• Retargeted advertising campaigns.
• Multi-channel communication.

DotDigital works on a flexible pricing model; you will have to send an inquiry to get a quote.

Keap

Keap is a combination of CRM and an all-purpose marketing automation platform that makes it very easy for nonprofits to manage their marketing tasks.

Keap’s CRM offers extensive user data, which can be used to improve campaign automation or for generating insightful reports. It also provides data on how the audience interacts with the campaigns!

As a result, it becomes easy to make thoughtful changes to the campaigns to increase their efficiency.

With Keap’s CRM and marketing automation, nonprofits can significantly lower their administrative overhead.

At the same time, it also helps organizations to improve their donation payments, and campaigns, and to automate a ton of other things!

Some of the best automation tools offered by Keap for nonprofits include:

• Volunteer reminders
• Audience segmentation
• event announcements
• Relationship management
• Personalized messages

Now, let us look at more things in light of this very topic!

Marketing automation for nonprofits: Top techniques

Let’s look at some of the best techniques which can be achieved with the help of marketing automation:

Technique #1: Pledge your birthday

A lot of nonprofits have implemented this technique to raise funds from their supporters. As the name implies, this technique involves sending email reminders to supporters on their birthdays! The email encourages the supporters to donate or support the cause of nonprofits on their birthdays.

It could be a rather complicated task to keep a tab of all the birthdays, especially if you have thousands of emails on the list. But with a marketing automation tool, this can be easily achieved!

To implement this technique, you will need to do the following:

1. Create a landing page where supporters can enter their name, email, and date of birth.
2. Upon submission of the form, an email is sent to the supporter, which thanks them for pledging their birthday.
3. When the birthday is a few days away, send 2/3 email reminders about their pledge and how they can support the organization!

Steps 2-3 can be easily automated with a marketing automation tool. As for step 1 (creating a landing page), we can help you create a landing page that drives engagement and conversion rate!

Technique #2: Reminder to update Debit/Credit card info

Let’s face it, debit/credit cards eventually expire, or the end user gets a new card for one reason or another. But if that said user is a recurring donor of the organization, it can hurt the financial situation of the nonprofits!

However, marketing automation can help you solve this by sending a reminder via email. The process will involve sending a series of emails to the supporter so that they update their debit/credit card information. & maybe drop a donation on the go!

Technique #3: Welcome email series

You can send emails through marketing automation tools (like Hubspot) when a new supporter joins your email list. The end goal of this technique is to turn the new supporter into a donor of the organization.

Once a new user enters their contact information, it will set a trigger to send a list of emails for the next few days. It can involve information about the organization and how donations can make a difference!

Benefits of marketing automation for nonprofits

So far, we have learned about the best marketing automation tools as well as the best techniques. These can help your nonprofit to step up its marketing tasks and increase efficiency.

But did you know that there are also a lot more benefits associated with it? Let’s take a look at some of them:

Better email campaigns!

It can be a hassle to manage an email list or to send email campaigns. It can easily take a lot of time, money, and manpower just to handle them!

But with marketing automation, a nonprofit can automate a significant portion of the email marketing process.

From donor segmenting to sending personalized messages, there’s much that can be changed with marketing automation.

Get more donations

Marketing automation tools also include CRM, which can help you to get an in-depth look at the activities of every donor. This includes activity on the website, email interaction, content consumption, and so on.

As a result, you can better understand your donors and thus design fundraising campaigns that will help you collect more money!

Message personalization

If we look at a nonprofit’s donors, volunteers, and fundraisers, it becomes clear that they belong to different segments of society.

But with marketing automation, a nonprofit can decipher the data and identify common themes among the donors, volunteers, and supporters.

This can eventually help to segment the audience and send personalized messages!

Conclusion

Technology has led to improved efficiency and productivity in a lot of industries, and nonprofits are one of them.

So, if your organization is still relying on the manual way of doing repetitive marketing tasks, then it is high time for a change. Relying on marketing automation tools can quickly help an organization free up its resources and enjoy various benefits!

But your website must also be optimized to truly reap the benefits of marketing efforts (automated or manual). And that’s where Canadian Digital Consultancy can help you… We offer various services such as website design, website development, graphic designing, and so on.

So, don’t forget to check our services if you need help!