Nonprofit Marketing Strategies and the Role of Social Media (Research Paper Sample)

Nonprofit Marketing Strategies and the Role of Social Media
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Introduction
The growth of nonprofit sector around the world has always been on the rise. Every year there are thousands of these organizations created. Nonprofit organizations are usually agencies focused on managing resources and implementing projects with the aim of addressing social problems (Sargeant, 1999). The organizations are usually non-governmental. The organizations get the necessary funding from various public budgets; local, national or regional. All these funds are solely used to achieve the objectives of the set statutes. The nonprofit organizations are allowed to conduct businesses (Sargeant, 1999). However, in such a case, their incomes are used in financing the business, and not to be shared among individuals working in the organization. There are many nonprofit organizations in existence today. These organizations scramble for the available funding sources. In the past, the managers of these organizations were starting to be interested in financial management, planning, accounting systems and personnel administration (Stride, & Lee, 2007). However, the rising number of the nonprofit organization has led to an increase in competition. Today, these organizations are focusing on marketing as a strategy of remaining competitive (Stride, & Lee, 2007). There are several strategies used by nonprofit organizations for marketing. Some of these marketing strategies are discussed in this paper. The role of social media is also well addressed in the paper.
Marketing Strategies
Events: These are functions organized by nonprofit organizations so as to conduct funds drive as well as to popularize the organizations. There are so many events that have been sponsored by these nonprofit organization, either individually or in a group. Some of these events are held on specific dates (Sargeant, 1999). For instance, nonprofit organizations that deal with HIV usually holds events during the World HIV Day. Since these events are flocked by people who are interested in the topic, the organizations can get funds from these people. Also by holding these events, they show that, indeed, they are focused on addressing these problems. These events are usually not only social events but in other cases may be corporate events (Sargeant, 1999). Through workshops, they nonprofit organizations can bring together corporate entities who would provide the much-needed support. The most common forms of events are usually athletics events, like Marathon. In these events, the interested individuals are usually asked to pay a certain amount of money when signing up. The money goes directly into addressing the course (Sargeant, 1999). Through these events, the nonprofit organizations can announce their dominance (Parker et al., 2016).
Brochures and posters. These are traditional forms of marketing through print media. These are printed pieces of marketing collateral, which usually a booklet format for the case of brochure or piece of paper for the case of posters. The nonprofit organizations usually make appealing posters with an accurate message on it. The messages usually appeal to people to contribute towards a certain course. Billboards and banners have also been used by nonprofit organizations to pass their information to the public. Unlike posters, brochures are usually distributed to people instead of being mounted. Also, these brochures usually contain a lot of information compared to posters. The brochures may contain the background of the organization, its goals as well as its services. Both these techniques have been used by nonprofit organizations to market themselves in the market. 65
Radio and television. Despite being in existence since time in memorial, these two mediums are still used to market, either by a for-profit organization or non-profit organizations. They are still applied in marketing because they are still in use. So many people watch television and listen to radio. Through these media, the nonprofit organization can sponsor commercials in which they appeal to people to donate funds to support a course. Some non-profit organizations usually develop documentaries which can be aired on television. In these documentaries, they usually show their previous work and what they aim to achieve in future. They may not necessarily ask for funds in these cases, at least not directly. What these organizations may do is to document a problem showing how certain individuals are suffering, for instance. By doing this, the public would automatically realize the need for addressing the issue, and in most cases would donate funds to support the course.
The internet. The internet is a modern technique of marketing used by nonprofit organizations to market themselves. Through the internet, these organizations can reach so many people around the world (Corson-Finnerty, 2000). There are different ways of marketing on the internet. First is the use of websites. Many nonprofit organizations, if not all, have developed websites. In these websites, these organizations show their missions and visions. The websites can show the background information of the organization such as its year of formation, the founders, the number of countries it has a presence in, the course it addresses, as well as its aims (Corson-Finnerty, 2000). Through the websites, the organizations can show projects they have worked on before, as a way of appealing to people to join its course. In most of these websites, there are videos that may be posted as well as photos to provide more insights on the topic. The websites usually have a support which answers questions that may be asked by users who are logged into these websites (Corson-Finnerty, 2000). Another way of using the internet is through the use of emails, e.g. viral emails. In this emails, the recipients may be asked to visit the pages of these nonprofit organizations so as to join the course after learning more. The third most important application of the Internet in marketing by nonprofit organizations is the social media (Corson-Finnerty, 2000). The social media has several platforms through which the organizations can reach potential clients. There are different types of social media platforms e.g. Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, and Instagram among others. Almost all types of organization, for-profit or nonprofit, have social media handles. As earlier shown, there are so many nonprofit organizations all competing for funding from well-wishers. Just like in commercial business, public relation is a key strategy in handling competition (Corson-Finnerty, 2000). The social media has been used by these nonprofit organizations so as to appeal to the public. A single Facebook update or Tweet can reach millions of people, showing the potential of this strategy.
The use of Hashtags is another technique that offers marketing opportunities. The tool first developed in Twitter and now is nowadays used on other platforms. Hashtag denotes to a specific form of expression of a topic (Huang, Lin, & Saxton, 2016). The tool makes it easier to search content related to the topic. In 2012, for instance, studies show that hashtags were used in thirty percent of posts. The application of this technique is on the rise. There are so many hashtags that are generated daily, especially those that relate to a specific viral news. Studies on the tweets of nonprofit organizations show that these organizations have a high adoption rate (Huang, Lin, & Saxton, 2016). These hashtags are also used on Facebook. The use of hashtags has not been available for a long time, as such its use has not been fully exploited, particularly on Facebook (Huang, Lin, & Saxton, 2016). The application of hashtags reveals aggregate information about a topic, social movement, event or a meme. The nonprofit organizations can sponsor these hashtags so as to get people talking about an issue it seeks to address. Once these hashtags are sponsored and promoted, they can trend and reach millions of people. Such hashtags can be used to in cases of emergency where urgent contributions from people are needed (Huang, Lin, & Saxton, 2016). A good example is an Arab spring where hashtag #egypt was used to influence debate on Twitter and increase the impact of the movement. Hashtag #Ebola and #Liberia were used to push people to lend a helping hand in the fight against Ebola (Huang, Lin, & Saxton, 2016).
Another concept in social media is the mission relevance and focus. The tool helps the nonprofit organizations to be specific in their postings (Huang, Lin, & Saxton, 2016). There are many posts on social media platforms every second. Most users today, just go through the social media pages without giving attention to most posts. Some of these users will like the posts on social media without even knowing what they entail. However, most of those who can comment must have read the post. It is important for nonprofit organizations to attract social media users to their posts (Huang, Lin, & Saxton, 2016). Some of the ways that are commonly used are by putting a pictorial cover of a story that is attractive. Other people also explore very appealing topics. Whichever the strategy used, the aim is to capture the attention of the users so that they can comment on the posts. There is a need, therefore, for mission and relevance focus in postings on social media (Huang, Lin, & Saxton, 2016). Despite being social media, the nonprofit organizations are not entirely restricted to posting purely social messages.
Marketing can be done effectively when there is the ability to obtain feedback (Kotler, 1979). The social media platforms guarantee immediate feedback (Sojung & Nam-Hyun, 2016). The main benefit of social media marketing over traditional marketing strategies is the substantially reduced cost. The no...