What? We have to market our web site?
by Donna Barker, Adisen Communications
April 22, 2002
There is a common belief in the for-profit world that 20% of a web site budget
should be spent on building the site and 80% on marketing it. Now, imagine
you had $10,000 to build a site - a reasonable amount for a nonprofit to spend
on a web site. If you applied the 20%-80% rule you would need to either reduce
your web development costs to $2,000 (almost impossible), or increase your
budget to $50,000, to include $40,000 for marketing and promotion expenses
(really impossible!).
Given the size of nonprofit organizations' budgets, I don't think that we
should strive to achieve these ratios. However, after working in communication
positions with nonprofits for the last ten years, I do believe that organizations
that do not have a strategic and active marketing plan are wasting both money
and opportunity. The one place where this waste is most apparent is with our
sector's web sites. According to a recent study of 900 nonprofit organizations
by Gilbert Research, 80% of respondents
had a web site. Unfortunately, after getting their web sites built, most organizations
do precious little to get people to visit them.
The old adage, "if you build it, they will come," could not be further from
the truth in the world of the Internet. Your web site is among tens of millions
of other sites and billions of web pages that are trying to attract visitors.
No matter how much money you spend having your site designed, or how much
great information you make available, if you don't actively and constantly
market your web site, people simply won't visit it. They won't even look for
it because they won't know it's there.
Moving in the right direction...slowly
I'm going to make an assumption here (and we all know the risks involved in that!): the 20% -80% rule for how smart businesses spend their web site budgets is irrelevant to you, right? You already have a web site and you don't have a budget to promote it. Well, this is the place where necessity breeds innovation. Here are my top five ways to cheat the 20% - 80% rule and still promote your web site well!
First, let me clarify that there are dozens of strategies you could use to promote your web site. From using smart meta-tags and listing your site with search engines, to purchasing opt-in e-mail lists and running print ad campaigns, if you have a good-sized budget and staff dedicated to promoting your site, the sky is the limit! The top five tips I provide below will cost next to nothing (if anything at all) and require only a small commitment of time. What these five strategies do require is a change in thinking about why you have a web site and how important Internet technology will become to your relationship-building efforts.
- Add new content to your web site at least once a month.
Your web site is NOT an online brochure. Brochures are typically written to stand the test of time without needing to be changed. Your web site, on the other hand, is a living document. New content gives people a reason to come back.
Once you have a visitor, you should do all that you can to ensure that she comes back. If your site is 'old' she won't waste the time to check in again. However, if you have valuable content that is regularly updated, she will feel more compelled to visit again.
Plus, if your content is valuable, your visitor may pass on your web address to her friends.
- Promote your web site in your e-mail signature.
Since your e-mail recipient is already online, there is no better time to encourage him to visit your site. Take a look at each of your staff's e-mail signatures. Are they consistent? Do they all contain appropriate and strategic information? If not, I suggest one person in your organization adds a consistent signature into everyone's e-mail set-up. This is a common format for e-mail signatures:
- Sender's full name, title
- Organization's name
- Organization's address
- Organization's phone and fax numbers
- Sender's e-mail address
- [A space to break up the block of text]
- Organization's URL (web site address)
- One line that tells readers what makes your organization special, or a reason why your e-mail recipients should check out your web site; the call to action.
- Promote your web site on all of your printed materials.
It may sound obvious, but including your web site URL on every piece of
printed matter you produce will encourage more people to visit your web
site. Don't forget to include it on business cards, letterhead, a prominent
page of your newsletter, direct mail appeals, all your brochures, and event
posters.
Try to think of reasons why people who are reading your print materials may be motivated to visit your web site. For instance, you may want to encourage your regular print newsletter readers to find extra information about an article at your site. (But be prepared to mail a few copies of the article to readers who don't have access to the Internet.)
- Collect e-mail addresses whenever you collect other contact information.
The reality is that the best marketing strategy for your web site is going to be based on e-mail communications. We know that not every one of your constituents is online, but the ones who have an e-mail address are. Whenever you have an opportunity to ask someone for their phone number and address, ask them for their e-mail address too. Make sure all staff ask for the e-mail address of all people who call your office. Add space to write an e-mail address on your donation tear-offs. Ask for e-mail on raffle ticket stubs and by all means, give people a reason to leave their e-mail address with you at the web site itself.
- Create an e-newsletter to stay in regular touch with people who care about your issue.
This strategy to get people to visit your web site actually serves a much more important goal as well: a regular e-newsletter will allow you to create a dialogue between your organization and the people who support you. This dialogue will deepen the relationship between you and your supporters. And, as every good fundraiser understands, strong relationships lead to more frequent and larger donations, as well as other types of support.
Once you've invested in a web site, it's important to continue to invest time and a little bit of money into keeping the site relevant and getting people to visit. Over the next few months I'll be sharing tips, tools and techniques for building online relationships with your constituents. Next month's article will focus on the top ten reasons your organization should consider developing an e-newsletter program. Reason #1, just to get you excited about what's coming, is that e-mail is recognized as the easiest and cheapest way to market your organization, your programs, and your issues. It's also becoming a very important tool in fundraising.
Like the old-time circus barker who stood on his soap box, drawing people into the tent to see the show, Donna Barker Communications has been helping not-for-profit organizations draw people to support their causes since 1992. You can reach Donna at donna@donnabarker.com.
