5 Nonprofit Marketing Projects and Processes to Revisit Now

Have a little extra time on your hands? Whether it’s because you’re heading into your slow summer season or because coronavirus has put components of your strategy on halt, there are marketing projects you can keep busy with now to prepare for when things pick back up in the coming months.

It’s easy to fall into the business-as-usual mentality in nonprofit marketing projects — especially if you’re also wearing other hats, like fundraiser, event planner or catch-all creative. Taking a step back to review processes and content that you have and use on a regular basis can refresh your marketing as we head into this new world that’s unfolding.

Marketing Projects to Revisit

Maybe you can’t put these strategies in place just yet, but it never hurts to be prepared for improvements once you can.

Audit your online donation process

This one should be a priority now, both for marketers and fundraisers. Giving processes are trending digitally, especially in an age where we’re limiting contact. If you’re still depending on checks in the mail as a main source of funding, it’s time to take another look at this process.

• What is preventing supporters from giving online?
• What can we do to make the process easier/more secure for them?
• What will it take to make that happen?

As you evaluate your process to pinpoint potential improvements, keep your donors top of mind. Work toward a trustworthy and simple process that puts their wants and needs first. Integrations and other features that make your job easier are icing on the cake.

Revisit your annual marketing strategy

Things are shifting in your 2020 marketing plan, but that doesn’t mean you throw the whole strategy out the window. Take this time to review and revise the strategy in light of your nonprofit’s current situation.

• Have you had to move, cancel or bring events online?
• Do you have a fundraising campaign on hold?
• Are you shifting programs and services to care for a new or different need?
• Are you identifying holes in your crisis communication plan?

Whatever you have paused or shifting should be adjusted accordingly in your annual marketing plan. It’s much easier to see the big picture when you’ve mapped out what other marketing projects would be best to work through now or later in the year.

Complete an analytics review

I bet you knew this one was coming. While measurement and analytics reviews probably aren’t your favorite way to spend an afternoon, they’re absolutely necessary to determine the most effective marketing strategy for your organization.

Whether it’s a website analytics review before recommending improvements to your site or a marketing campaign review before running the same campaign as last year, taking stock of what went well and what did not is always time well spent.

Hot tip: In my personal experience, holing up in my home office and blocking out distractions to dig through a measurement review makes the process go surprisingly quickly. A real win when you’re working from home!

Revamp boilerplate content and messaging

When was the last time you revisited the boilerplate content and messaging about your organization that you (I’m guessing) copy and paste into various marketing materials on a daily basis? Now is the time to make a few updates — especially in light of the world’s current situation with COVID-19 and this new world we’ll be heading into once everything is said and done.

In terms of your website content, reviewing and revamping content on the following pages is as good a place as any to start:

• Your homepage
• About page
• Mission and Vision page
• Impact page
• Press page
• Get Involved page
• Donate page

For tips on what to include on each of these pages (and others, still), bookmark our Essential Web Page Content for Nonprofits guide for safekeeping.

Clean up your content calendar

I’m guessing that this thing is a mess by this point. In fact, we’ve been grappling with the same issue on our blog, pushing back some of our content and writing new content to help people through this time. You may not be able to post the content that you had prepared for fear of seeming tone-deaf or insensitive to your audience’s current situation. That process might include:

• Taking stock of your recent work
• Evaluating upcoming topics and goals for your content — Does this make sense to publish now? Do we need to make adjustments in light of the pandemic?
• Identifying new content and brainstorming content for both the near future and further off future

Check out more tips on refocusing your nonprofit’s communications and grab our blog editorial calendar template.

Keep Things Moving

Now that you’ve identified a project or two that would be worth taking on, how are you going to make sure it actually gets completed and utilized in the future? Outline a plan of attack and get any stakeholders on board. A concrete deliverable like a report, recommendation, plan or review is a great incentive to throw in!

And if you need more advice on managing nonprofit marketing projects, we have you covered. You’ll find helpful tips on getting started and keeping your review project on track as other tasks pop up in your day-to-day.

Have you worked through any marketing review projects since you’ve been working from home? Any other projects you’d recommend as you reassess your organization’s marketing strategy and priorities? Let’s talk in the comments.