Promoting Non-profit Fundraising Pages
After publishing your page, you need to consider how to promote it to your supporters.
The best marketing campaigns use multiple channels featuring similar messages to remind everyone what you're trying to achieve. We recommend promoting your campaign in various places to reach a wide audience, eg. website, social media, email, leaflets, posters, and newsletters.
Tip: Before you start promoting your page... Have you thought about adding some offline donations to the page so it's not empty for your first visitors?
Your website
Create a landing page on your website with information about your appeal. Why are you asking for donations and what difference will they make at your organisation?
Your supporters will want to know how they can help, so your page should include a hyperlink or Donate button, which navigates them to your Visufund page. You could even embed a live preview of your page onto your site, allowing your supporters to watch the page come to life without leaving your website!
Learn more about embedding pages on your website.
Social media
Using social media, such as Facebook and Twitter, is one of the easiest and most effective ways to promote your page. Your social media posts should contain intriguing content and a link to your fundraising page so your supporters can easily click through and donate.
In just a few words, you want to convince someone to click through to your page and donate. Try not to make your post too long, as this causes social platforms to limit the display of your text. Don't forget to ask people to share or retweet your post to their friends and followers. You can also set an image to be displayed when a link to your page is shared on social media - this is in Page Settings: Social.
When sharing a link to your page, we recommend always including the full web address (URL) in your post - you can set this to something memorable before publishing your page. Although many organisations like to use shortened URLs to collect analytical data, we do not advise using them for the following reasons:
- They do not tell people where they are being navigated to
- All URLs used on Twitter are automatically altered to 23 characters anyway
- They have a reputation of being used for spam and linking to malicious sites
- Plenty of people do not trust them and don't click on them
- Using the full URL promotes honesty, transparency and good digital hygiene.
Tip: If you are interested in viewing analytics and tracking data... Did you know you can add UTM codes to your Visufund web address and view the results in Info & Stats?
Think about when to post and how often you want to share your page. If you can schedule your social posts to go out when your supporters are likely to be online, your engagement rates are likely to be better. Test a few posts throughout the day and see what works best for your audience.
It's important to schedule several promotional posts throughout the duration of your fundraising campaign - a lot of your supporters will miss it if you only send out the link once! There are various tools available to help you schedule and automatically post content on your social channels.
Most social media platforms offer products to help you reach out to more people, such as creating adverts or boosting a post that's performing well. You'll need to decide how much to spend on advertising to ensure the best return on your investment. Make sure you keep an eye on how your advert is performing so you don't end up spending more than necessary.
Send an email including a link to your page to help you to reach your fundraising target. Tell your supporters why you are raising money and how it will help, and ask them for their support. Whether they choose to make a donation or simply forward on your email to someone else who can help, this will help you to get closer to your goal.
Important: Make sure you have consent from a supporter before emailing them.
Offline marketing
You don't have to keep your marketing online just because you are promoting an online fundraising page. There are lots of offline marketing options available to you that will help to reach a wider audience. For example, you could hand out leaflets at an event containing your web address or write a story to include in a newsletter. If your fundraising appeal might interest the general public, local newspapers may also be able to provide space for a short promotional article.
If you have produced a leaflet or poster, you might like to add a QR Code linking to your Visufund page. This will allow your supporters to scan it with their smartphones and easily navigate to your page, without needing to type a full web address. You can generate and download a QR code from the Link Generator in Info & Stats of any page.
Try something different
The best marketing campaigns really capture the attention of the audience, so don't afraid to be creative and try something new if you think it might resonate with your supporters. You could think about running competitions to ask your supporters to come up with the best tagline for your fundraising appeal or ask a celebrity supporter to endorse and share your campaign.
Finally... always say "Thank You!"
Always thank your supporters who have shared your page, as they are helping you to reach an even wider audience. If someone has shared their donation online to a public audience, make sure you join the conversation and thank them publicly too, so they know how much you appreciate their support. This may also encourage others to support your page.