Ever think of the perfect recipient of your nonprofit’s message, but you didn’t have any way to reach out to them?
The internet is a pretty strange place. Everyone’s on it, but how do you get to the places where you can meet your people? The short answer: Affinity Targeting campaigns.
If you’re on the right platform (e.g. Feathr!), then you have access to pre-built audiences of the exact people you’re looking for. Maybe you want to target people who work in the communications sector or you want to reach single dads.
Affinity Targeting is a strategic way to increase new donor acquisition by getting your message in front of your ideal audience, beginning today!
Affinity Targeting is one of the simplest types of campaigns out there. Say you want to reach people who have a masters degree in architecture. Now you can simply punch in the audience that you want to reach out to, and then start serving them ads.
The question comes up often with this type of campaign: “Are you selling people’s personal data?” And the answer is a resounding no.
Companies and organizations often collect personal data about the people that choose to share that data with them. Think about all the people who have shared their emails with you.
But the type of data that’s used in Affinity Targeting campaigns is anonymized. So the ad platform that you’re using to reach these people almost never has personal data on the individual people. But if they’re like us, even in the cases where they do, they aren’t sharing that data. They’re only sharing the ability to reach them with ads.
Here are only a few great ideas for nonprofits looking to expand their audience:
Almost nobody in the world has access to all the people that they want to talk to — unless you’re a reclusive writer. The power of Affinity Targeting is it gets you access to a lot of the people that you know you’re looking for. And if you’re using the right advertising platform, it doesn’t cost you anything extra.
Instead of simply serving ads to every single person online (probably the closest equivalent to a physical billboard), you’re serving ads to people you know have been a good fit at your nonprofit in the past.
And by adding filters like location or even stacking up other Affinity lists (for example: only serving ads to single dads who work in the communications sector), you can make sure that you’re only reaching the most relevant audiences.
In the past, traditional advertising helped you reach out to tons of people. But a lot of those people weren’t exactly a perfect fit at your nonprofit. Today, by using the newest marketing technologies, you can pinpoint who you want to serve your messaging to. And this is going to save your nonprofit money, but it’s also going to result in a higher conversion rate.
And the fun really only begins after that first Affinity Targeting campaign launches.
If this is someone’s first time engaging with your organization, it’s unlikely they’ll make the leap on day one. Using retargeting campaigns to follow up with website visitors or email drip campaigns to continue the conversation with subscribers allows your organization to engage with your future supporters in the way that they want.
And this is going to lead to a whole lot more support in the long run!
We think Affinity Targeting campaigns are a good fit for so many nonprofits that we wanted to offer even more ideas in case you’re still wondering where your cause fits into the mix:
Key dates: If your nonprofit picks up a lot of donations around year-end or on GivingTuesday, you can increase exposure to your message around that time to audiences you know have been supportive in the past.
Volunteer opportunities: Every nonprofit needs a little help from their friends. So if there’s an upcoming need for volunteers, build out an Affinity Targeting campaign that serves ads to people that look like your current roster of volunteers, and make sure that the ads and messaging match that audience.
Big events: We worked with a nonprofit that uses an annual beer festival to spread the word about their work assisting those living with HIV and AIDS by providing a full spectrum of compassionate care and supportive services. Someone may have shown up for the beer, but they left as a partner in the cause!
In marketing and advertising, it doesn’t really count if you don’t know it happened. This is again a huge advantage of digital ads for nonprofits. Today, instead of guessing at results, with the right setup on your website, you can know exactly how your campaigns are performing.
We believe that marketing is both an art and a science. There may not be a right turn of phrase, but there are likely better or worse ways to say something. And the only way to truly know is to test and then find out by listening to the numbers.
If your current marketing platform doesn’t offer you clear insights into campaign results (like new traffic to your website, donations, or registrations), maybe this is step one even before you start finding new audiences with Affinity Targeting for nonprofits.
And although we’d never suggest this literally (we feel a strong attachment to all our flying feathren), why not kill two birds with one stone? Get better data around who’s visiting your website while getting access to new audiences online!
You can do all of that in Feathr. Reach out today for a demo and see if we can partner with you as your nonprofit reaches new heights!