Nonprofit organizations are experiencing infinite transitions on daily basis both in their internal and external environments. Even though it cannot be simply referred to as ‘Competition’ since their aims are mostly to help and not to gain, these organizations are beginning to adopt more effective and competitive methods of conveying their agenda, to either solicit more volunteers, donor funding or to reach more beneficiaries. In this quest for effectiveness, efficiency, and success, therefore, nonprofit organizations are beginning to use effective marketing strategies; a trend in marketing.
An in-depth analysis of various ways to implement effective marketing strategies will be presented by this report. Apart from identifying the inefficiencies and ineffectiveness of some ways the nonprofit organizations operate, the report presents a relevant and detailed analysis of data with regards to the trend in marketing strategies.
Introduction
For businesses to maintain relevance to their target markets, they ought to pay attention to market trends, to put competitors at bay. Similarly, nonprofit organizations maintain their relevance to not only the donors and volunteers but to their beneficiaries too (McLeish, 2011). Trends such as adopting effective marketing strategies portray what the audience like, hate or how they like it to be done.
Since nonprofit organizations majorly aim at solving problems, it is significant for them to showcase their impact. This way, not only do they have a chance to solicit more donor funding and attract more volunteers but also, they have a chance to reach more their targeted beneficiaries (McLeish, 2011). To maintain a commendable relationship with their supporters, these organizations ought to possess an ability to measure and articulate impact as illustrated in figure 2.1. This can be achieved by adapting methods of operations that are trending at the time. For nonprofit organizations, such methods include the implementation of an effective marketing strategy as will be discussed in the report.
Figure 2.1
Previous Approaches
Our nonprofit organization is using archaic methods of marketing. Not only are these methods ineffective but also, they commonly time-consuming and costly. A lot of finances which could have otherwise been saved were spent on purchasing of equipment and software used in communication. Such equipment includes telephones, fax machines and writing material. In extreme cases, messages are being sent by word of mouth, costing a lot of money in terms of service payments. This is despite technological improvements currently.
General messages are being sent to the target audience. Besides the fact that resources are wasted when messages are sent to unintended people, the target audience is most likely to get bored when it receives repetitive unwelcomed attention seeks. This dives away those who would have become future volunteers, donors or beneficiaries of the organization. Sending messages at the wrong time or using the wrong medium is also a waste of resources. Since enough research concerning the messages to be conveyed is not done, scanty pieces of information are sent making the marketing strategy ineffective.
Our nonprofit organizations just as others are, lack creativity in terms of designing flyers and other forms of advertisement media. The use of only different fonts and pastel colors that is being practiced is a method that has been overtaken by time. Since the modern population is interested in captivating media the approach is viewed as boring. Therefore, there is a greater probability of the target audience ignoring what would have otherwise been an attention seeker. The organization has also failed to involve the design community in the development of its marketing strategies. The design community plays a significant role in the design of marketing media.
The web has not been fully utilized too in terms of sharing marketing information. Even though website developers have developed web pages to promote the organization, little has been done in terms of accessibility and user-friendliness of the web pages. Many people who would have otherwise been the target audience lose interest in accessing these websites since most of them are not visual-appealing and interesting. Accessing these sites is also a great deal. A lot of time is spent before one accesses the information due to their slow nature. This discourages the target audience.
Even though the nonprofit organization embraces Facebook and other social media platforms like Twitter and Google+, it does not fully reap their benefits. The use of these social media platforms is not being taken seriously. Their use is not frequent despite the fact that most people are currently signing up for them, translating to a larger audience. The organization's social media accounts to have less connects since they are not used frequently and therefore shared information is received by a few people.
Customer support is in a sorry state too. Apart from the organization having only one customer care personnel who is tasked with dealing with all the inquiries regarding our services and helping in resolving any complaints from members of the public, its beneficiaries or its promoters, he is available on a part-time basis only. Moreover, instances of lack of etiquette have been reported. This has a negative impact on its effectiveness in terms of communication, leading to mistrust by people who are externally involved with it, be it donors, volunteers or beneficiaries.
Just as some other nonprofit organizations operate, our organization does not pay attention to the relevance of the information it sends across in its quest for creating awareness. It is evident that the organization considers the number of emails it collects as more important than the actual number of people who receive the information. It concentrates more on creating more leads than passing across the intended message to its audience. This is another way through which finance, time and other resources are wasted.
Some time ago, website and app partnership marketing had been embraced. However, the marketing approach diminished ad has since gone into oblivion. This was encouraged by the assumption that the method cost the organization a lot of money yet direct perquisites were not being observed. This led to a mass thinking that the marketing strategy was more of a liability than an investment. However, the opposite is true since it has emerged that this is the second most effective marketing strategy, the first one being the direct use of social media platforms.
Findings
With statistics reported by Econsultany in 2016 indicating that conversion rate satisfaction with respect to marketing in business is at only 22% ("2018 Marketing Statistics, Trends " Data - The Ultimate List of Digital Marketing Stats", 2018). There is a possibility that a similar or even smaller percentage of nonprofit organizations are satisfied with their satisfaction. Since both the profit-aligned and nonprofit organization both have targets, they ought to adapt various effective marketing strategies. For a nonprofit organization, the marketing strategies mostly aim at showcasing their impact to attract more volunteers, donors, and beneficiaries. Moreover, they do so to maintain those who are already related to it. To achieve this, it is prudent for the organization's management to implement an effective marketing strategy.
Sending personalized messages is one of the effective marketing strategies. Sending the right message by use of the appropriate medium at the right time not only saves financial resources due to minimal wastages but also ensures that on the targeted audience receives the message. Use of custom messages and personalized video content also creates a positive impression of closeness to the audience. This makes them feel that they are appreciated. Therefore, there is a higher probability of an audience that received a personalized message getting convinced than that received a general message.
A significant increase in the involvement of the design community by organizations is also being observed. Visual design managers are being incorporated into marketing, given the fact that previous visual enhancements such as font styles and colors are being ditched for modern ones. Since people currently tend to ignore messages that have not been conveyed in a visually appealing manner, these professionals are tasked with the design of a plethora of marketing materials ranging from brochures to flyers and magazines. This validates the fact that as of 2017, 260,000 individuals had been employed as graphic designers ("13 Graphic Design Industry Statistics and Trends - BrandonGaille.com", 2017).
Web developers are also being involved in the quest for effectual and competent marketing strategies. They are tasked with webpage optimization. Statistics show that 80% of individuals leave a webpage because of an auto-playing video advertisement or because of a pop-up with 72% openly admitting that they are likely to have a lower opinion of a brand that subjects them to pop-up advertisements (Lister, 2018). To reduce this loss of potential important external or internal members of the organization, web developers are developing user-friendly web pages (Goel, 2014). The responsive, visual-appealing and simple web pages help to attract and maintain the audience's attention.
A significant upsurge in the use of social media platforms such as Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, Google+ and Pinterest in marketing has been recorded too. This is owed to the increase in the number of sign-ups to these sites all over the world. The use of Facebook, for example, give a chance to the organization to reach its 2.1 billion users (Kulp, 2017). Events can be organized through these platforms. Some of them possess analytical tools that can be used to calculate their return. This is of significant importance to the organization in terms of tracking achievements or downfalls.
Figure 3.1 (Lister, 2018)
Customer support services are also being given priority. This department of an organization is tasked with ensuring that the various people it has relation with have confidence in it and its operations. Organizations are currently recruiting professional departmental customer care personnel. Moreover, they are being trained about etiquette and good customer relations. This ensures that members of the organization always get satisfied with their services, which in turn create a positive impact on its image (Kulbyte', 2018). A positive customer experience has such importance as; retaining already existing ‘customers'. Improving ‘customer satisfaction' and increasing the cross-selling and up-selling.
Figure 3.2 (Kulbyte', 2018).
Organizations are currently taking advantage of the ubiquity nature of mobile phones. Statista estimates that by 2018, 2.48 billion people are expected to be having mobile phones. It is, therefore, valid to conclude that mobile phones offer an effective marketing platform since. Home phones and landlines usage are diminishing due to improvement in technology. Organizations are collecting and recording multiple phone numbers owned by each family. Though it could be boring to some individuals but not as boring as scheduled calling like before, these numbers are being contacted frequently. This leads to an access to a big number of individuals which positively impacting fundraising efforts eventually.
Website and app partnerships are being employed as marketing and awareness strategies. Digital marketing is a crucial trend. Therefore, organizations have opted to incur costs in terms of payment to websites and application developers to convey their messages. The trend not only offers a comprehensive digital solution but also encourage interdependence and positive relations among companies, besides the main aim of marketing. Due to the increased number of website and app developers being involved with this marketing strategy, the amount of fees paid to them is becoming more affordable than before such that a small organization can meet the costs.
To wrap up, relevancy in terms of information being conveyed is being paid attention to. Organizations are beginning to understand that it is not about collecting a lot of e-mails but it is about sending the correct message to a specific target audience at the right time using the right platform. Generally, the aim of this is effectivity. They are beginning to identify methods of maintaining relevance to its audience such as honesty and being omnipresent. This leads to a positive relationship between the organizations and the people it relates with. It is an effective marketing strategy that instills competitiveness in the organization.
Conclusion
Change is inevitable, nonprofit organizations just as business organizations are bound to experience both internal and external effects of transition in marketing strategies. Since marketing plays a significant role in the relevance of an organization in its niche, organizational management possesses a significant role in decision making and strategy implementations.
The technological improvement as one of the factors that greatly determine the trends in marketing and creation of awareness. It is constantly changing and it will never stop. Therefore organizations have no otherwise than to bear with this and realize the fact that trends are bound to change with time.
The findings discussed in the report are not all but among the effective marketing strategies currently, put into practice by organizations. There are various other trends coming up with time due to the difference in individual preferences in how services are offered in the case of nonprofit organizations.
References
13 Graphic Design Industry Statistics and Trends - BrandonGaille.com. (2017). Retrieved from https://brandongaille.com/11-graphic-design-industry-statistics-and-trends/
2018 Marketing Statistics, Trends " Data - The Ultimate List of Digital Marketing Stats. (2018). Retrieved from https://www.hubspot.com/marketing-statistics
Goel, R. (2014). Top 10 characteristics and qualities of a Good Website | WebInfoZone.com. Retrieved from http://www.webinfozone.com/articles/top-10-characteristics-and-qualities-of-a-good-website-articleListing-1004
Kulbyte', T. (2018). Why Improve Customer Experience [Image]. Retrieved from https://www.superoffice.com/blog/customer-experience-statistics/
Kulp, P. (2017). Facebook admits to nearly as many fake or clone accounts as the U.S. population. Retrieved from https://mashable.com/2017/11/02/facebook-phony-accounts-admission/#2nRCy9skPPqy
Lister, M. (2018). Three Quarter of Facebook Users and Half of Instagram Users Use Each Site Daily [Image]. Retrieved from https://www.wordstream.com/blog/ws/2017/01/05/social-media-marketing-statistics
McLeish, B. (2011). Successful marketing strategies for nonprofit organizations: winning in the age of the elusive donor [Ebook]. Hoboken, N.J. : Wiley, c2011. Retrieved from http://search.nlb.gov.sg/#
