Category Archives: Nonprofit Marketing Tips

Nonprofit Marketing Tips

Google’s One-Stop Shop for Nonprofits: What is Local Marketing?

Local marketing uses methods of promotion to bring customers to your brick and mortar location. In the case of nonprofits, successful local marketing can bring in supporters and volunteers for your organization.

Google Places is a free method for businesses and nonprofits to connect with local customers, donors and volunteers. 97% of consumers search for local business online, so Google Places is a helpful platform to ensure you’ll be there when customers are searching for you. You can add photos and videos, highlight special offers and respond to reviews from your Places for business account. Google Places allows businesses to proactively reach customers and build a close relationship with them.

Another popular local marketing solution is Yelp.com, a free service for local businesses to post information, pictures and website links. Customers can write reviews to share with the public. With over 66 million users and 25 million local reviews, Yelp boasts a very large and loyal following – the perfect place for nonprofits to spread their message to the community.

Foursquare uses location-based tracking to allow users to check-in to places they frequent. The social media platform has proven to be a very successful clientele retention tool, especially in urban areas.

Facebook Places is similar in that it allows users to check in at local businesses. Its advantage is that it completely integrates with the social network to drive traffic to the organization’s business page.

Google Places, Yelp, Foursquare and Facebook Places are all pieces of a complete local internet marketing strategy. Blue Interactive Agency can help you develop social media marketing strategies to benefit your nonprofit organization. Offering a wide range of services including Facebook marketing, email marketing and SEO strategy, we help our clients reach their online marketing goals. For any questions, call us at 954-779-2801.


Google’s One-Stop Shop for Nonprofits: What is the YouTube Nonprofit Program?

The YouTube Nonprofit Program allows organizations to apply for designated nonprofit channels to help deliver the message to the world’s largest online video community. Share your organization’s story through videos on YouTube to connect with supporters, volunteers and donors. With over 800 million people on YouTube, it is a powerful place to communicate with your audience in a meaningful way.

Exclusive listing on YouTube’s nonprofits video page will lend more eyes to your organization. YouTube offers nonprofits the advantage of premium branding capabilities and the option of driving funding through a Google Checkout “Donate” button. Nonprofits also have the option to place a Call to Action overlay on videos to raise money or to find volunteers. On World Water Day, nonprofit organization charity:water was able to secure $10,000 in donations from a video posted on YouTube using the Call to Action.

Through YouTube, nonprofits can activate an inexpensive outreach program to build awareness and mobilize supporters. Organizations that hold a current 501(c)(3) status qualify to apply for the YouTube Nonprofit Program. Apply at Google for Nonprofits today. Once you begin production, remember to deliver genuine, compelling content and to supply fresh videos regularly to keep your audience engaged. Here are some good examples of nonprofit video campaigns that have achieved substantial viewership.

If you need help creating or disseminating videos, Blue Interactive Agency can help. We offer in-house video production and animation services to deliver original, dynamic, high-end content to your audience. We provide YouTube marketing to optimize your videos with metatags, and cross promote on blogs and other social media platforms like Facebook, Twitter and Google+ to increase your visibility online. Contact us to see how we can help.


Google’s One-Stop Shop for Nonprofits: What is Google+ ?

One of the ways nonprofit organizations can promote their cause through interactive media is by joining the Google+ community. Here you can talk to other nonprofits, share best practices for social media marketing and find new donors and volunteers. Follow these steps to create a thriving Google+ Page for your nonprofit organization.

  1. First you will need a Google account and a personal Google+ profile, so open an account and log in. On your Google+ profile, select “Create a page” and fill out the details about your nonprofit including an introduction, contact information and website.
  2. Now you’re ready to post updates for your nonprofit. Be sure to post frequently and to keep your profile fresh so that more people are likely to engage with your organization.
  3. Create different circles for different audience members of your organization. For example, you can grow circles of volunteers, board members and donors. Encourage people to add your nonprofit to their circles so you can in turn add them to your circles.
  4. Start a Hangout on Google+ where people can gather live to discuss topics your organization cares about. Let your followers know when you’ll be hanging out and what topic you will be discussing over video chat.
  5. As with any social media platform, it’s necessary to monitor conversations for reputation management. Your followers will appreciate timely responses to their comments. Even if some of their comments are negative, they can always be steered towards a deeper conversation.
  6. When you’re ready to share your Google+ page with more people, select “Spread the word.” This will allow you to share your page in a post with people from your personal Google+ profile.
  7. Tell everyone including your donors, volunteers and clients about your Google+ page in your newsletters and on your website. Add a Google+ page to your website by grabbing HTML code here.

If you have any questions about setting up or managing your Google+ page, contact us at Blue Interactive Agency. We offer internet marketing solutions including social media marketing services, SEO strategy and link building for companies to increase their online visibility. Call us at 965-779-2801 to see how we can help.


Google’s One-Stop Shop for Nonprofits: What is Google Analytics?

In this blog series, we’ve gone over the Google for Nonprofits suite of free or discounted apps and websites available. Now we’ll discuss what Google Analytics can do to help your nonprofit organization reach its goals.

Google Analytics is a free service that offers measurements tools for your website. It presents a dashboard of tools that allow for creation of real time, customizable and sharable reports. Content analytics will tell you how often people visit each page of your website, how long they stay, and how often they convert. The Google Analytics conversion suite goes beyond page views and visitor counts to track sales, downloads and video plays to help you truly understand visitor behavior. Learn which social media sources refer visitors and whether you gain the most traffic from Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn or Google +.  If your nonprofit organization has a mobile-friendly website, mobile analytics is available to monitor the performance of apps and tell you where mobile traffic comes from.

Understanding this valuable data will help you to improve your website and increase marketing ROI. You’ll be better able to manage your online advertising dollars as you make smarter bidding and keyword choices on Google Adwords. Google Analytics has proven to be a powerful tool for many companies, such as PBS, which unlocked data and insights to see a 30% increase in visitor traffic. Switching to Google Analytics helped the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art gain new efficiency in performance measurement and realize a 15% gain in traffic accuracy. Using Google Analytics, nonprofits can learn which online marketing initiatives are cost effective and see how visitors actually interact with their sites.

If you have any questions about setting up Google Analytics, Blue Interactive Agency can help. We are a Florida web design company specializing in search engine marketing and search engine optimization to help companies increase their online visibility. We take a holistic approach when helping companies develop a ROI conversion strategy. Contact us today.


Google’s One-Stop Shop for Nonprofits: What is Google Checkout?

Google Checkout for Nonprofits is a fast, convenient donation process that helps nonprofit organizations attract more donors and increase online giving. Normally Google charges a small transaction fee for their checkout service; however, the company provides a special incentive for nonprofits. Organizations that qualify for the Google for Nonprofits program can process transactions with no fee. More than $5 million in donations towards the relief efforts in Japan have been collected through Google Checkout for the Japanese Red Cross Society, International Medical Corps, UNICEF and Save the Children. Google Checkout waived all processing fees associated with these transactions so the organizations received 100% of the donations.

All nonprofits must meet the following criteria to collect donations through Google Checkout:

  • Are based in the United States
  • Represent a valid 501(c)(3) or 501(c)(6) tax-exempt organization.
  • Clearly display your organization’s tax-exempt status on your website
  • Complete the verification process.

Fill out the all-in-one form at Google for Nonprofits to apply for this free service. Once accepted into the program, you will be able to open a Google Checkout merchant account and set up donation buttons on your website to accept payment from visitors. Google also gives step-by-step directions on how to set up a pre-integrated shopping cart in minutes. Or, you can integrate your own shopping cart with Google Checkout via their Nonprofit API.

If you have any questions or need help setting up your donation website, Blue Interactive Agency can help. We are an interactive marketing company specializing in custom website design, graphic design and software development to increase your company’s web presence. We can help your nonprofit organization develop an effective website marketing strategy that promotes your cause. Call us at 954-779-2801.


Google’s One-Stop Shop for Nonprofits: What are Google Sites?

As part of the Google for Nonprofits program, the company offers a suite of Apps including Google Sites which allow nonprofit organizations to easily create and share group websites to promote their cause. Nonprofits can create dynamic websites without coding or HTML knowledge, which saves on billing costs. Google Sites are a useful tool for centralizing documents, spreadsheets, presentations, videos and slideshows to keep teams organized.

Google Sites offer dozens of pre-built website templates – all customizable – and easy, single click page creation. New templates for company intranets and project workspaces help nonprofits to build collaborative sites.

A great advantage of Google Sites is that it is securely powered by the web, so users can access pages anywhere from the office or on the road via mobile or tablet technology. “Google Sites has revolutionized the way we communicate with our clients and with our team members. We currently have 15 Active Google Sites. Each of our clients has a dedicated site containing important project related information. As an example, we use lists to capture information about the meetings we setup. Several people can update information on each meeting in real time…we now use Google Sites as our core vehicle for communication. We have sites for HR, Training, Sales, Systems and Project Management,” says Steve Lightstone, president of Corner Office Leads.

The full suite of Google Apps includes:

  • Google Sites
  • Gmail
  • Google Calendar
  • Google Docs

Nonprofits can get started with Google Apps for free by applying at Google for Nonprofits.  If you have any questions regarding setting up Google Apps or Google Sites, Blue Interactive Agency can help. We provide interactive marketing tools such as search engine optimization and social media marketing strategies to help companies increase their online visibility. Contact us at 954-779-2801.


Google’s One-Stop Shop for Nonprofits: What are Google Apps?

In our last blog post we shared with you some free or discounted services Google is offering nonprofits, such as grants for online advertising. In this blog we’ll go over how nonprofit organizations can save time, money and resources through Google Apps. Google Apps offer a suite of communication, collaboration and publishing tools so nonprofits can decrease their cost of ownership and operate efficiently even without a designated IT staff.

U.S. nonprofit organizations of over 3,000 people qualify for Google Apps for Business at a discounted price of $30 per user per year. U.S. nonprofits smaller than 3,000 users can apply for free Google Apps through the Google for Nonprofits site. Here are some of the free tools included in the suite:

Gmail for Business- Each user receives 25GB of email and IM storage, which is 50 times the industry average. With less spam and a 99.9% uptime reliability guarantee, Gmail gives nonprofit employees more time to be productive. Nonprofits can customize the look of Gmail for Business to reflect their logo and colors, and email can be synced with Android, iPhone and Blackberry.

Google Calendar- Google Calendar is integrated into Gmail, and can be shared company-wide or with select individuals. The calendar syncs with mobile devices so users can receive notifications via text messages.

Google Docs- Powered by the web, files stored on Google Docs are always accessible and backed-up online. Nonprofits are able to share spreadsheets, drawings, presentations and documents that can be edited online so users always have the latest version.

Google Groups- This communication tool allows employees to share docs, calendars, folders, videos, etc. with a group instead of an individual. Control membership and archive groups for easy organization of messages.

These, and many more Google Apps, require no hardware or software administration, translating to more time and cost savings for nonprofit organizations. Remember, these tools are free to nonprofits of fewer than 3,000 people, so apply on the Google for Nonprofits website today. If have any questions or concerns regarding set-up of Google Apps, Blue Interactive Agency can help. We are a Florida website design company offering search engine optimization consulting, email marketing services, and internet marketing solutions to companies of all sizes. Contact us to see how we can help your organization reach its goals.