How is this relevant to me?
That’s the question people ask themselves subconsciously every time they visit a website or flip through a social feed. In today’s online world, users have developed the ability to quickly scan through content, push aside the irrelevant, and hone in on only what is relevant to them. This all happens in a matter of seconds.
What that means for your nonprofit is, when it comes to advertising on social media sites like Facebook, in order to even be seen you need to be relevant. Your message needs to connect with the individual so that it grabs their attention during that quick scan and speaks to them directly. There needs to be a personal connection.
Facebook Advertising Tactics to More Effectively Reach Donors
Here are three smart ways your charity can make your social advertising more relevant:
- Targeting Your Donors
By uploading your lists to Facebook, you can connect with your existing donors who are active on the social site. You can then create ads that reinforce the content they are receiving from you through other channels. For example: Donors who are part of a multichannel campaign could receive a mail piece, then an email, and then see a Facebook ad driving home the same message. This is a great strategy to drive brand recognition and stand out in an increasingly noisy world.
You can also take it few steps further to increase the personalization and relevancy of the ad content even more. You can do this by segmenting your audience into different groups (for example: donors, activists, and advocates; or based on recency of donation), creating a custom Facebook audience for each group, and creating ad copy that speaks directly to each audience and their personal relationship with your nonprofit. The more relevant the ad, the better the results.
- Retargeting Donors
Retargeting is a great way to stay in front of donors and provide them with personal, relevant, and timely content based on what you know about them. Did they visit a donation page, but not make a gift? With retargeting, you can show them ads on Facebook, Google, or other sites encouraging them to take that action. Every time someone sees your retargeting ad, you’re building brand equity and cause awareness while presenting another opportunity to get them involved.
There are many ways you can choose to retarget people. You can retarget someone who visited your donation page but didn’t make a donation as mentioned above. Or someone who completed a transaction but hasn’t been back to the website in 90 days. You could also retarget someone who visits a specific page. For example: If someone went to the ACS website and only went to the breast cancer page, you can serve up ads that drive them to donation forms, advocacy events, etc., related to breast cancer research efforts.
- Targeting Lookalike Donors
Using what you know about your existing donors, you can use Facebook to find other people who share things in common with them and who may be interested in supporting your cause too. This is called targeting “lookalike” donors. How it works is, you take a Facebook custom audience you’ve already created and Facebook can then find people with similar demographic traits or interests (who in terms of certain data points “look like” your donors).
You can then create Facebook ads specifically targeting this lookalike audience, using the insights you already know about your similar, existing donors (what they care most about, what inspires them to act, etc.). Because these individuals share traits in common with your most passionate, active or involved donors, it increases the likelihood they will be responsive to your message and your mission. This is a smart way to find and reach new donors.
*One important final note: Given recent events, many organizations have concerns about the privacy of donor data collected and used on Facebook. While these concerns are certainly valid, we still recommend Facebook as a way to connect and engage with donors because so many constituents are still active on the social network.
Find out how you can engage and activate more digital donors by downloading our content paper The Digital Donation Revolution now.