Inbound Marketing. This is a concept that we have surely heard many times. But do we know what it really implies? In this article we will see what exactly Inbound Marketing is, why it is the most used methodology in digital marketing and fundraising, and the steps to follow to deploy an inbound marketing strategy in our non-profit organization.
A few first concepts
Inbound marketing is a methodology based on using non-intrusive marketing and advertising techniques. This means putting aside all those actions that interrupt the life of our collaborator or potential beneficiary, and being available to him when he is interested in our cause or wants to know more about the subject. Through Inbound Marketing we will focus on generating interesting content for our audience. For this, it is essential to understand what our public values and what their needs are.
The objective of this methodology is to attract our potential audience and accompany them throughout the process, from the search for what interests them to the final conversion (registration, downloading content, donation…).
A paradigm shift
What inbound marketing tells us is that our organization should not knock on someone’s door or explain anything to them when they are doing other things. On the contrary, we must focus all our efforts on generating material that attracts our public, that makes them come to us at the right time, without interrupting or disturbing them. In this sense, this new paradigm of the digital environment is totally opposite to that of channels such as face to face or telemarketing.
Why should you deploy such a strategy?
First of all, because it puts the focus on the potential user / collaborator. It makes us focus on what you are looking for and how we can respond to that demand from our organization.
Because it generates assets that have value in themselves. When we write an article, advise or simply report on an issue, we are generating content that adds value to our website, and that will be maintained over time. This, in addition to increasing the content offer for our visitors, will help to improve the positioning of our website in Google and will bring us more visits from the target audience.
In addition, it is a long-term investment. It is likely that we will not see the effects of such a strategy immediately, so we must be constant. Through inbound marketing we will be able to strengthen our organization in the medium term, ensuring a dynamic of sustained growth.
Because the work of generating content, events, services, etc. of high quality and optimized for the target audience of my organization will allow you to:
- Increase the number of interactions and the scope of your cause.
- Increase the number of leads using events and content as a source of attracting the target audience.
- Grow, optimize and keep your organization’s database updated. Having a community of supporters will be the basis for the success of future campaigns and actions. Maintaining a faithful audience interested in our cause and in what our entity contributes, will become the most important asset of the organization.
- Position your organization. All the content that we generate will help us to show what type of organization we are, what are our values, objectives, etc. and to convince our potential collaborators that it is worth supporting us.
- Branding and storytelling. Building a strong brand on which to work digital marketing strategies will allow us to significantly increase conversion and engagement rates. All thanks to building an authentic relationship with our audience and strengthening brand recognition.
How to apply inbound marketing in your digital fundraising strategy?
Through the inbound marketing methodology, we establish three phases (objectives) through which we prioritize and structure all our efforts in the digital channel.
Phase 1. Attract
As we have commented previously, we must identify those topics that interest our potential audience and in which we can add value. Use our blog, search engine positioning, social media and digital advertising, to distribute these contents in such a way that they reach our target at the right time and we can attract them to our website, where the second phase will take place, the conversion.
It is vitally important to work on the positioning of our organization in Google in order to reach our audience, as well as distribute content and become a benchmark on social networks to gain notoriety and generate traffic to our website.
Phase 2. Convert
If we are successful with the first phase and we are generating quality web visits from our target audience, the next challenge is to get the largest number of these visits to become leads (that they give us their contact information so that we can communicate with them at the future). For this we will use tools such as web forms, calls-to-action (calls to action by the user), landing pages (entrance pages to our website specially designed to convert traffic from a specific campaign or action) or online communities to which we can access prior registration. In general, content, events and services for which the visitor is willing to give us their data. Our website must induce the visitor to take a step further and establish a relationship with our organization. In this step, the importance of certain tools such as those for record management or CRM, among others, is undeniable.
Phase 3. Fall in love
Once the first two objectives have been met, we will have a good number of people who have connected in some way with our organization and who expect us to communicate with them. We will be generating a database of people who will have different types of relationships with us (and, in many cases, more than one at a time): volunteers, supporters, beneficiaries, donors, members of the online community, subscribers to the newsletter…
In the loyalty phase we must deploy strategies to improve engagement and increase the degree of engagement of our audience. For this, it will be key to use tools such as CRM software, emailing, marketing automation or dynamic content, which allow us to communicate with our audience segmented, with the maximum degree of automation and personalization possible: from an automatic congratulation process. on the birthday day until conversion workflows from certain actions carried out by our users on the web.
