Britt Vogel Driving people to your website is great. Driving the right people to your website is even better. How can your nonprofit do this? Inbound marketing.
Inbound marketing positions you to meet the needs of your target audience, through content you’ve created with them top of mind. The power is in the hands of the people. They decide what to consume and what to skip. It’s your job to draw the right people in with rocking content they’ll find useful.
It takes a lot of time, effort and creative thought to effectively implement inbound marketing. It also takes patience. It’s not something you’ll see gains from overnight.
The benefits of inbound marketing warrant a post of their own. Luckily we wrote one. Check out Inbound Marketing for Nonprofits. You’ll want to know all it can do for your nonprofit before implementing these inbound marketing tips.
Get Serious About Blogging
If your nonprofit has a blog, I’m sure you’ve heard this argument before. If you don’t, I hope this makes you think about starting one.
Your blog is an awesome place to establish your credibility and assert yourself as an authority on your cause.
It’s also the perfect opportunity to draw new visitors to your site. You can cover topics your audience is interested in, but don’t necessarily warrant a page on your site.
Reading your blog is a choice. People in your target audience are only going to visit your blog if you’re providing content of value to them—and doing it consistently. It’s a great place to earn their trust, engage them through comments or social sharing, and encourage them to visit other pages on your website.
But, what if you’re creating awesome content on your blog and readership is low?
Is your content optimized for search? People have to be able to find your content to have the opportunity to choose you…which brings me to my next point.
Optimize Everything for Search
You need to optimize the content you’re creating. Optimizing your content for search will drastically improve your chances of being found by the right people.
Say you wanted to donate some old clothes, but weren’t sure where to go. If you type “donate clothes” into Google, the Donate Stuff page for Goodwill is the very first result. That’s good search engine optimization (SEO), and that’s inbound marketing at work. Goodwill is presenting itself as the answer to your question—not reaching out to you, asking if you have anything to donate. They’re making their content available to you, as you need it.
SEO typically plays a huge role in inbound marketing. It’s a complicated topic and takes a lot to implement, but its benefits to your nonprofit make it worth your time and effort.
Take Advantage of Your Email List
When done right, email definitely falls under the umbrella of inbound marketing. It’s an opportunity to keep the conversation going after someone takes action on your site.
You’re communicating with people who have chosen to engage. They made the decision to share their email address with you. They’ve already opted-in. You know exactly who you’re targeting.
Email is an awesome opportunity to keep visitors engaged long after they’ve left your site. Build relationships with these people. Turn them from passive visitors to active supporters with content they’ll be interested in reading.
Be Active on Social Media
A strong social media presence is central to successful inbound marketing. Social sharing can generate buzz and be a major traffic driver. It’s a great opportunity to increase your content’s reach.
Share blog content on social media. Encourage people who are reading your blog to do the same! You’ve already earned the attention of your blog readers and social media followers. Take advantage! Get people on your site. Entice them to take a look around, and bring them one step closer to taking action.
There’s a lot that goes into inbound marketing, but your blog, SEO, email and social media definitely play a huge role in its ultimate success. What’s been your experience with inbound marketing? What tools does your nonprofit use? Any you would add to our list? If you haven’t used it yet, do you think you might want to give it a try?
your post on inbound marketing is very insightful,educative and quite helpful.i am very happy to have signed up for your newsletter the whole thing is helping and giving me quality information that is helpful.
That’s great to hear! We’re glad you’re finding our blog so helpful.