4 Steps to Build Your Nonprofit's Annual Digital Marketing Plan - Part 1, Goal Setting
If your nonprofit’s fiscal year starts in the middle of the calendar year, then you’re either about to start your annual planning process, or you’re in the middle of it. I've written in the past about the "Why?" of digital marketing goals, but today I want to give you the "How?" This is the approach we’ve used to build Annual Digital Marketing Plans for organizations big and small. This will be a multi-part series, and today we’ll be talking about the first step, which is goal setting.
Your digital marketing plan shouldn’t live in a vacuum. It should flow out of and contribute to your overall organizational goals, and specifically connect to your fundraising goals.
So here are 4 steps to get started on your Digital Marketing Plan:
Understand your overall organizational goals - Your organizational goals are like your guiding north star. If you don’t have goals as an organization, then the rest of your teams are going to be moving in different directions, rather than being in sync with each other. You may or may not be involved in that goal setting process, but those goals should inform your digital marketing goals.
Understand how your digital marketing can contribute to your organizational goals - For example, if one of your org’s goals is to grow 10% YoY, then you need to figure out how digital marketing contributes to that goal. Some ways to do that are: Work with your Development/Fundraising team/staff to understand how you can nurture and build relationships with your current donors through your digital channels. Understand how you can reach prospective new donors through your digital channels.
Set digital marketing goals to contribute to the success of your org’s overall goals - Your digital marketing goals should be SMART. Specific Measurable Attainable Relevant Time-based An example of a digital marketing goal to support an organizational goal of growing 10% YoY would be, “Increase digital donor touchpoints by 50% (specific, measurable, attainable, relevant) through automated email marketing by the end of the fiscal year (time-based).”
Set digital marketing strategies to accomplish your goals - Your goals shouldn’t be super tactical. The tactics come in when you set the strategies and tactics to accomplish the goal. For example, a strategy to accomplish the goal above could be: “Create 2 email campaigns that include 5 emails each that nurture donors to engage further with our organization.”
This is just the first step to building your Annual Digital Marketing Plan for your nonprofit. Next comes the translation of this plan into your digital marketing calendar for the year. We’ll talk about that soon.
What questions come to mind in this process for you?
What would you add to this plan?
