Measurement is an often ignored and crucial piece to any nonprofit’s marketing strategy. Think of measuring your nonprofit’s digital marketing as a form of reflection on your marketing efforts. Measuring allows you to take stock of what is working and what isn’t in your marketing content. You may not like the results, but they can help guide you in making better marketing decisions. Let’s look at 3 actions involved with measurement.
1. Test your digital marketing
One way to measure your digital marketing is by performing the following steps:
- Compare two different pieces of marketing content via an A/B test or a split test.
You can also use Adobe Marketo Engage, Google Analytics (you can try this for free), or some other piece of metric-tracking software to see how your marketing content is performing and to obtain information about your audience.
- Make any changes to your marketing content.
For instance, if you find a blog post on one topic is getting significantly less views than a blog post on another topic, you can assess each post and pinpoint significant differences.
- Repeat this cycle until your marketing content achieves your desired results.
Have a goal to increase certain numbers by a particular percentage point. For instance, you may have a goal of attracting 5% more visitors week after week for a period of three months. Since metric-tracking software typically allows you to see real-time reports, you can have an accurate view of your content’s performance at all times.
2. Get feedback
Obtaining feedback for measurement purposes is another way you can determine the effectiveness of your digital marketing content. This does not necessarily mean bringing a focus group into a room, showing them two pieces of marketing content, and asking them to choose the one they like best (though you can certainly do that).
You could do something as simple as setting up a survey on SurveyMonkey and sending that to those on your nonprofit’s email list or to a few key supporters. For example, you could ask users to select their favorite from a list of headlines, such as those you might be planning to use for email messages or blog posts. The point of this is to hear from your audience by offering them an opportunity to communicate their opinions. And you can use these opinions to make more informed decisions.
3. Find your focus
After you’ve conducted your tests, gotten metrics, and/or obtained feedback from your audience, you’ll want to determine the areas on which you should focus your efforts. For instance, is there a social media platform that is yielding little-to-no traffic or interactions? If so, you may want to delete your account.
You don’t want to be a “jack of all trades, master of none.” If you spread your focus too then, you will likely find none of your efforts are successful. So measure your marketing to determine what resources you should devote to what content.