Switchfast Blog: The Future of IT
Non-Profits Should Look to Search Engines for Affordable Donor Generation
Wednesday, August 19, 2009 by Michael Holley
With disposable income at a staggering low worldwide, it comes
as no surprise that non-profit organizations (NFPs) have been
scrambling for funding as their donations dry up. Unfortunately, this puts the
average NFP between a rock and a hard place: you need to find ways
to drive donations, but decreased revenue makes it difficult to
afford the expensive advertising and marketing you need to promote
your cause.
Unlike some for-profit businesses, NFPs cannot afford to simply
sit on their hands and weather the economic storm. The answer isn't
to stop spending, but instead to spend smarter. Different types of
marketing serve different purposes, so in order to maximize
revenue, you must build your marketing plan with the current
economic conditions in mind. For example, advertising on television
is excellent for building brand awareness and presenting your NFP
as a reputable organization. Television advertising, however, is
very expensive as you're paying for your message to be seen by many
viewers, most of which will never be interested in giving you
money. In times of tight budgets, wouldn't it be nice to be able to
target only those people who are interested in donating?
As more and more internet users turn to search engines for the
most relevant, up-to-date information, the opportunity to
effectively target very specific groups of people is upon us. Your
most active donors are the ones that will be proactively searching
for opportunities. They're trying to find you, but you must make
yourself visible! The most lucrative and cost-effective way to do
this in today's market is through search engine optimization (SEO).
Studies show that people have very little patience with search
results, and that only the top entries get the lion's share of
traffic. If you can manage to get a top spot for a high volume
search phrase, you may find an immediate and significant increase
in traffic, which can lead to revenue.
The only catch is that not every search phrase gets high levels
traffic. Fortunately, SEO specialists can do research to determine
monthly and yearly averages in number of searches for specific
phrases. If your NFP would benefit by targeting high volume
phrases, SEO could be your ticket to success. Additionally, a
single television or magazine ad can cost as much as an entire year
of SEO work. The ROI on an SEO campaign can quickly become
exponentially higher than traditional marketing investments,
especially in the current economic climate.
The name of marketing in the "new economy" is hyper-targeting.
We simply cannot afford to be anything less than totally efficient.
For this reason, SEO is a trend that simply must be considered.
Traditional events and advertising have their times and places, but
for right now, the potential cost/benefit ratio of SEO is
impossible to ignore. So, do yourself and your NFP a favor and look
into it!
Best,
Michael Holley
Switchfast Technologies
Chicago IT Consulting
& Support
Rochester
IT Consulting & Support
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