Connecting with your audience is fundamental to successful nonprofit fundraising and marketing. And yet, many nonprofit organizations still send one singular message out to all donors, partners and volunteers.
When it’s time for your team to start sending out newsletters, social media posts, email campaigns, or direct appeals, it can be tempting to simply jump right into telling stories and offering data points about your organization, then sending it out far and wide to as many people as possible.
I remember chatting with one of my recent clients while we were still onboarding and discussing their marketing goals. They were so eager to get right to the “execution” phase of our work together because they had some upcoming goals that they were ready to get a jump on. They shared that they already had some language, content, stories, and data points lying around that they planned to use and that they were ready to go.
While this is good news—they already have lots of resources to include in their upcoming marketing efforts—there was one problem.
They hadn’t yet done the work to understand their target audience.
They hadn’t gotten clear on who they were talking to, including what their stakeholders were interested in, how they felt connected to the mission, and what drives and influences them.
They had simply gathered what seemed compelling to them.
Getting to know your audience is an essential step of effective marketing because it allows you to have a better understanding of what it is that your stakeholders care about, which means you can speak directly to them in a way that connects deeply and builds authentic relationships.
Understanding your stakeholders’ aspirations and struggles, and then tailoring your communication strategies to them, is the secret to creating marketing that resonates.
How do you learn more about what your stakeholders care about?
It’s simple. You ask them.
Getting to Know your Stakeholders
One of the first steps I take when working with new clients is conducting stakeholder interviews. I meet with donors, board members, strategic partners, community partners and others who are making decisions about the organization.
These conversations are important because the best marketing combines empathy and utility. You can have all of the right strategies and tools in place, but if you haven’t taken the time to put yourselves in your audience’s shoes, you run the risk of missing the mark when trying to connect with them. The best way to know what interests them, is to ask!
Here are some questions nonprofits can ask stakeholders to unearth their beliefs, values and motivations. Knowing the answers to these questions will give you insight into how they make decisions and will improve your overall marketing messages and storytelling.
DISCOVERY: How did you find our organization?
EXPERIENCE: Tell me about your experience with our organization.
VALUES: Which of your personal core values aligns most with our mission? What inspires you to support our work?
ALIGNMENT: Can you describe a time when you felt particularly proud to be associated with our organization?
IMPACT: How do you perceive the effectiveness of our work? What do we do really well? In what ways do you think we could make a more significant impact?
EXPECTATIONS: What change do you hope to see in the world through your support for our organization?
EMOTIONS: If you were going to tell someone else about our organization who hadn’t heard of us before, what would you want them to know?
FUTURE: What would make you increase your level of support or involvement with us? What might cause you to decrease support?
RECOGNITION: How do you like to be recognized for your contributions?
Taking the time to talk to your stakeholders will give you key insights into what it is that draws them to you in the first place. This audience research makes all other marketing, branding and PR decisions easier and produce better ROI. It informs what kind of content is created, what campaigns to run, key messaging around the brand, and how to engage stakeholders, collaborators and partners in a way that incentivizes action.
It’s important to remember here, though, that there’s no one-size-fits-all method of communication.
Understanding your stakeholders will help you delineate the different stages people are at in connection with your organization. Now you’re ready to tailor your messaging for each type of audience.
Using Audience Segmentation for Maximum Impact
Audience segmentation is about categorizing your audience into subgroups based on shared characteristics so that you can connect with them more intentionally based on their particular interests, desires, dreams, and concerns.
The Nonprofit Leadership Alliance shares that good donor segmentation drives stronger ROI because it increases efficiency and accuracy in your messaging. As you target specific appeals to audience interests and characteristics, you’re far more likely to build engagement.
Similarly, the Forbes Nonprofit Council shares advice about how nonprofit leaders can get to know their target audiences better. This includes using data that you already have access to, developing deep empathy with your donors, conducting research to identify donor priorities, and audience segmentation, among other strategies.
Audience Segmentation that Actually Works
At Wayward Kind, we believe that effective marketing is built on human connection. While many voices out there recommend segmenting donors based on their demographics, it’s far more effective to segment your audience based on their beliefs, attitudes, and what problems they are trying to solve.
Starting with the questions from the stakeholder interviews to understand more about who exactly your audience is made up of—what they’re passionate about, moved by, concerned about—will help you map out tools and strategies particularly effective for each specific segment of your audience and create a more meaningful engagement experience for them.
Following stakeholder interviews, you’ll notice themes emerge that allow you to categorize your audience based on their attitudes and interests. Whether it’s their level of engagement with the issues you care about, their level of interest in doing more, or simply their personal ideas and motivations, you’re left with a treasure trove of information that can help you craft meaningful messaging and guide your marketing strategy.
At the end of the day, audience segmentation based on what your stakeholders believe and care about can help you prioritize specific forms of communication and personalize your campaign marketing strategies in a human-centered way. This allows you to forge deeper connections that ensure your stakeholders feel seen and understood – the key to successful marketing.
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Not sure where to start in your stakeholder research, audience segmentation, or overall marketing strategy, but feeling motivated to get into the minds of your supporters and up your results?
Contact us at Wayward Kind to find out how we might be able to work together.
At Wayward Kind, we bring greater visibility to the work of purpose-driven organizations that are designing a more just future. We would love to hear from you.
