Public Sector Organisations and Charities Marketing Guide
Those working in the third sector, including for public sector organisations, charities and community organisations often face challenges when it comes to their marketing due limited resources. However, marketing is essential function for all organisations, whether or not they are motivated by profit and shareholders. Those in the third sector have audiences and clients to serve which need to be engaged effectively, fundraising and donation support is likely to be needed, and staff and volunteers communicated with - all of which marketing helps to achieve.
So, where to begin? This guide covers the key marketing steps and actions to make the most of limited resources:
Objectives
What are you trying to achieve with your marketing activity? It is to increase awareness with your target audiences? It is to increase donations, volunteers or update of a funding programme?
Have clear and defined objectives to help align your marketing strategies to the organisations aims and objectives. The mistake many organisations make when setting these objectives is to be to generic, wide-reaching and have too many aims. Focus on 3 key objectives for the year that are SMART: Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Realistic and Timely.
An example of a SMART objective could be:
Increase awareness among parents from low-income and minority backgrounds about our charity's educational programs, with the goal of reaching 2,000 new parents through targeted marketing efforts within the next six months.
Once you determine the objectives, you can then look the marketing strategies and tactics to use to best fulfil them in the most effective way.
Partnerships
Partnerships are highly useful for charities to enable them to connect with new networks of their partners. Leveraging their networks and communication channels can help raise awareness and amplify your messaging. It can lead to a collective impact on larger issues if successful through raising funds and using large organisation expertise. When a business and charity work collaboratively they can create a real social impact through things like volunteering, product donation, asset sharing, and corporate and employee donations.
For example, M&S worked with breast cancer and raised £34million to fund cancer research. However, working with smaller local business can be really effective.
CSR (Corporate social responsibility) is a growing strategic aim for many businesses. Make a list of potential businesses and approach them to arrange a meeting to be their charity partner.
Social Media
Social media for any organisation, and particular those is the third sector, is key for engaging with target audiences. However, it’s important to be consistent and efficient with it, and focus on the platforms that are most connected to your target audience. Spreading yourself too thinly trying to present on all platforms can weaken your messaging and effort. Although the majority of platforms are free to establish a presence, the ‘cost’ is in maintaining them, and creating the content needed to engage your audiences.
To make the most of limited resources in terms of time, staff or budget three things can help:
Planning content – create a schedule and pre-plan content that fits into key themed pillars. More details on what content pillars are is available in this blog. Storytelling, utilising video, graphics and photography can make a real impact with engaging audiences, and user-generated content, can also be particularly effective and doesn’t require big budgets or specialist equipment.
Tools to use – Using a design tool such as Canva can help save time/budget, especially if create a branded toolkit and set of branded templates. There are lots of free tutorials and templates you can adapt to suit your brand.
Join Facebook groups to share ideas with fellow marketeers in the sector – These are free to join and a great support and space to get ideas. There are also specific groups aligned to your target audiences which can be a fab space for research and engagement.
It’s important to remember that social media is meant to be social – engagement is key. Too much focus is spent on creating and posting content, when actually engaging with your target audience on their posts, in groups and on pages can be really beneficial in raising awareness of your aims, values and purpose as a brand.
Tools
Using tools within your marketing strategies will help identify gaps to fill within your efforts. For example, you can create a survey on www.typeform.com for free to add onto the end of donations for donors to fill out to give feedback on how they found your charity and see where is most useful to market to. You can also use the insights built into the various social media platforms such as Facebook insights to help understand your performance and gain intel on your audiences and how well content is performing. Google my Business is also a free tool which lets you collate reviews, post updates, photos, and can help with your search listings.
It’s also worth checking with any third-party software if they offer a charity/third sector discount as many do provide special rates which can save money.
PR
PR is often overlooked by those in the Third sector, yet it can help build and maintain trust with stakeholders, including donors, volunteers, and the general public which is essential for a third-sector organisation's credibility and long-term success.
PR allows third-sector organisations to advocate for their causes effectively. By working with the media and influencers, they can raise awareness about social issues, mobilise support, and influence public opinion and policy. It can be much more cost effective than paid advertising and it is seen as more authentic and credible than paid for self-promotion.
Look at the media outlets your target audiences will read/listen to. When you have a relevant news story, or an engaging human interest tale to share, write a press release and send it those targeted outlets. You don’t need to be someone in PR to do this, anyone can contact a journalist with a story.
Website and SEO
Paid digital campaigns may be out of reach, but optimising your website it will improve your organisation's visibility and attract individuals searching for causes aligned with your mission. Conduct keyword research related to your cause and incorporate relevant terms into your website, blog posts, and social media content.
A user-friendly and informative website is essential for any third-sector organization. Ensure that your website is mobile-friendly, easy to navigate, and optimized for search engines.
Nonprofits, charities, and NGOs play a vital role in addressing social issues and creating positive change. Engaging effective marketing strategies within the available resources will amplify your impact. Getting creative and focused will enable you to maximise the return on any investment into marketing.
If you’re looking for additional help and guidance, Bevic also offers focused marketing power hours and more details workshops to help develop your marketing objectives, ideas and activities. Get in touch for more information vicky@bevic.co.uk