Friendly Web Tools Blog

Bev Freeman over at the Boston chapter of the American Marketing Association has been working on a great series about nonprofit marketing. Check out her posts on:

Nonprofit Marketing….Really?
Using marketing to enroll people in a significant program or initiative, increase awareness about an agency’s mission, its services, or the response to a crisis in your community, and/or raise the visibility of an organization as a basis for successful fundraising or “buy-in” (acceptance) by your constituencies.

Nonprofit Marketing – Using a Plan, Considering Social Media
Outlines the benefits of a plan, encourages you to engage in planning and helps you understand where social media may fit in.

Nonprofits—Begin to learn about the social media
Set aside time every week to learn more about the social media. Nonprofit communicators have a unique opportunity to employ any of an array of social media tools – these are low-cost (often downloadable for free) and very often effective.

Innovation is one of the first things on the chopping block during tough financial times. Understandable, especially if organizations are being asked to fund something that’s risky. But innovation has a partner up there with its neck also extended, which is marketing, I’m very sorry to note.

What many people don’t realize is that marketing is necessary for keeping your organization afloat, no matter what your organization is. John Jantsch of Duct Tape Marketing fame says, “Every business is a marketing business.” That goes the same for nonprofits, because you’re constantly trying to stay in front of the people who believe in your cause.

And what is a website if not one of the cheapest forms of marketing out there?

“The Internet is the cheapest and most successful form of marketing around,” says Micah Sachs, Director of Web Strategy at InterfaithFamily.com, who I interviewed for an article that will appear in an issue of The Forward next month. He’s been using bargain basement web marketing to great effect. Namely, he’s instituted a few changes in SEO (search engine optimization) and Google Adwords.

After InterfaithFamily gave itself a modest marketing makeover about a year ago, its traffic immediately increased 63 percent. It’s seen a steady increase, and Sachs said that up through June 2008, he never saw less than a 40 percent increase.

Here are a few of the easy steps he followed to boost his traffic:

1. Give each page a unique title
2. Create URLs that match the article titles
3. Add article keywords on web pages

At first, it required a significant time investment, and he company brought in an intern who spent about 40 hours per week for 10 weeks writing in descriptions, adding keywords and generally optimizing the site’s old articles.

“But now it’s part of our culture,” he says. “Any time we create anything new on the site, we don’t even think of something as additional work. We create keywords, create title tags. It’s just a part of what we do.”

Once your organization has figured out a system for creating these three main changes, an increase in web visibility should come naturally and simply.

“This is all stuff that’s simple and straightforward,” he says. “It’s amazing how many sites of major orgs aren’t search-engine optimized. It will cost them no money; they just have to ask their webmaster to make some changes.”

A client called the other day wondering why more people weren’t using their brand spanking new synagogue website. It was a nice site, all the bells and whistles, and there wasn’t a very good reason I could see that no one was using it. But it didn’t take long to figure out what the problem was.”Well, do the people in your congregation know about the site?”

“We sent an e-mail when it launched.”

“Do you mention it in your monthly bulletin?”

“No.”

“Do you have the URL on your business cards?”

“No.”

“Do you tell people during services that they can find more information on the site?”

“No.”

“Do you have a message on your voice mail about the website?”

“No.”

And that’s the problem with many websites - synagogue or otherwise. Just building it isn’t enough. Just mentioning it once isn’t enough. The marketing begins with other channels - and you undoubtedly have many available. Think about all the ways you touch your community, and make sure you use them to mention your website and its benefits.

Eventually they’ll come, and if you do it right, they’ll keep coming back.

Targeting and addressing your website audience isn’t a problem for synagogues alone. Web ventures across the secular and religious world grapple with the same problem. But it’s important to know who you want to attract to your site, because it will affect not only how you build it, but who might be attending services and programs.

Generally speaking, synagogues can target existing members or new members. That’s just scraping the surface, though. You should know:

• How old are those people? If it’s an aging congregation, they might not know or care much about technology, but that’s not the same for younger generations. All synagogues should be addressing a younger membership, otherwise your existing membership will eventually fizzle out.
• Do they have kids? If so, put information front and center about Sunday school or Hebrew classes.
• Where do they live? If it’s a snowy climate, put cancellations on the homepage. And always include directions.
• What’s their economic situation? Would your congregants be interested in auctions? Registering for a 5K? Can you tap them for heavy fund development?
• What gender are they? Men and women will each have different questions about your programs.
• Can you guess what kind of technical equipment they have? Are they accessing your site through a PDA? Are they logging on antiquated equipment at school?
• Why are they visiting your site? Guests might want to know about membership information or how to find your building. Members might be interested in volunteer opportunities.

Synagogue sites should be inclusive for everyone, but by finding and knowing your target audience, you can prioritize information for them.

Here are some useful articles on how to learn more about your target audience:

Defining Your Target Audience from the American Marketing Association tells you how to conduct this research.

Evolt.org’s Making websites: what’s your target audience? speaks from a more technical perspective.