Marketing for not-for-profit (NFP) organisations has always been challenging due to limited budgets and resources, alongside difficulties in measuring non-financial impacts or return of interest. The commercial sector drives the development of new marketing technologies, leaving NFPs to catch up while competing for audience attention. In 2024, digital ad spending was expected to reach $667.6 billion, with government organisations and charities contributing only a tiny fraction of this investment (4%). This disparity means that major advertising platforms like Google, Meta, and TikTok prioritise commerce when introducing new tools, forcing NFPs to adapt to a landscape not designed for them.
The marketing landscape is undergoing a revolution with the rapid advent of AI and the growth of e-commerce and retail marketing. If unprepared, charities risk losing their audience, impact, and funding. This article examines these changes and suggests new avenues for NFPs to reach their target audience and achieve their goals.
The Impact of AI on Marketing
AI is revolutionising marketing by affecting content production, data analysis, targeting, and automation. Generative AI, which produces anything from text to audio and video, might impact charities by reducing website visits. As AI-generated summaries become more common, the effectiveness of traditional SEO practices could diminish. Additionally, the growth of in-app stores on platforms like TikTok and Meta could prioritise commercial advertisers over NFPs.
The removal of third-party cookies from major browsers poses a significant challenge for advertisers in delivering personalised ads and tracking user behaviour. While large retail companies can rely on first-party data from billions of customers and transactions, small charities may struggle to expand their reach. To make things worse, AI allows retail companies to shift their focus from customer interests to behaviour and intentions. This trend towards personalised content means charities must adapt to stay relevant and engage potential donors and beneficiaries.
Challenges and Opportunities for NFPs
Despite these challenges, there are opportunities for NFPs to leverage AI and data collection to improve their marketing efforts. For example, Prostate Cancer UK used its donation database to optimise its Christmas campaign, resulting in a significant increase in ROI. Sue Ryder used their database of donations and purchases to develop tailored content to enhance engagement, inspire action and extend lifetime value.
Other, perhaps smaller charities, can expand their databases by partnering with commercial entities or other organisations with extensive data. Merging with other NFPs in the same field can also create more comprehensive databases and reduce marketing costs. For instance, a charity focused on environmental conservation might partner with a company that produces eco-friendly products. Together, they could create a campaign highlighting the importance of sustainability, benefiting both the charity and the company by increasing its reach and creating long-lasting leads.
Most companies invested in 2024 in creating a more potent data capture strategy, and a quarter of CMOs say they now offer customers incentives in return for their data. NFPs should also invest in robust data management systems to collect, store, and analyse data. These systems can help identify trends and patterns that inform marketing strategies in a cookie-less environment.
Adapting to New Technologies
The marketing revolution is ongoing; staying informed about new developments is essential. However, embracing new technologies is challenging, especially for NFPs with limited resources: not every technological advancement will be relevant or long-lasting, and different audiences will adapt at different rates. Hiring professional agencies to manage marketing technologies can help NFPs stay updated with technological developments while focusing on internal implementation. Still, marketing professionals must clearly define the organisation’s desired results and KPIs to ensure external agencies achieve the desired outcomes.
The best advice to be effective in today’s marketing landscape is “do less, but do it better”: find what’s working for you and your desired audience regarding content, channels and goals, and make sure they deliver the best results possible. Don’t invest in something that isn’t working because you ‘should’: a discovery process involving the entire organisation can help focus efforts (and budgets), determine goals, and improve how you measure your impact. It is a process that encourages rethinking the definition of success and aligning marketing strategies with organisational objectives.
It is vital to draw in the discovery process from every available data source.
The best advice in today’s marketing landscape is “do less, but do it better”: find what’s working for you regarding content, channels and goals, and make sure they deliver the best results possible.
By analysing your website traffic and SEO, social media engagement, email open rates, donations made, previous campaigns and customer surveys, charities can gain insights into what works and what doesn’t. We need to rethink the meaning of ‘success’, and data can help us shed assumptions that are no longer relevant.
Get proactive with your stories
Using the right tracking tools, NFPs can gather data on their supporters and use it to better connect with them. Not least important, it will help you attract like-minded individuals. Investing in proactive marketing strategies, from social media influencers to events, is crucial for reaching audiences in a landscape where traditional SEO may be less effective. Still, it is vital to focus on your real audience: every charity likes to boast about its work in front of everybody; however, if your real goal is to reach a specific group of policymakers or donors, and they are not on social media, then perhaps you should invest in exclusive conferences and meetings instead.
Storytelling remains a powerful tool in marketing. For NFPs, sharing compelling stories about their impact can inspire donors and volunteers. Compelling storytelling involves more than just sharing facts and figures. It requires creating an emotional connection with the audience. It should highlight the real-world effects of the charity’s work, showcasing the difference they make in people’s lives by focusing on individual stories and personal experiences, thus making your cause more relatable and urgent.
A critical trend in storytelling is the increasing use of video content. Videos are highly engaging and can convey complex messages quickly and effectively. NFPs should consider incorporating more video content into their marketing strategies through social media, websites or email campaigns. Another trend is the growing importance of mobile marketing: we need to ensure our channels are mobile-friendly and create content with mobile users in mind.
Email marketing remains a powerful tool for NFPs. By building a strong email list and sending regular updates, charities can keep their supporters informed and engaged. Still, we must remember that this tool is also constantly changing, with personalised emails and optimised distribution now available. Sooner or later, the public will get used to these new developments – and so should we.
The bottom line is that NFPs must be ready to invest more in proactive ways to reach their audience. In a recent survey, over 40% of B2B marketing professionals said they intend to invest more in social media content (46%) and video (41%). This isn’t a coincidence: Promoting content on social media becomes even more critical if Google isn’t driving the same number of visitors to your website via SEO performance. In time, and using the right tracking tools, these visitors will provide the data needed to attract others.
Staying Informed and Adapting
Without full knowledge of how these new technologies will develop (only that it’ll happen fast) and their full impact on marketing (and society at large), many professional articles recommend that commercial marketers make sure their brand is favourable across all platforms (which might be impossible to achieve) and develop “cookieless” marketing strategies (which is vague, at best).
Embracing these technologies and trends is easier said than done: Most of these technologies are developed with e-commerce in mind and are constantly evolving. In a recent survey, companies’ CMOs said their biggest challenge is to hire and manage marketing technologies. It’s even more challenging for NFPs with a small communications team to find a savant marketing manager who can juggle campaigns across Google Ads, social media apps and email marketing while staying current with all the recent developments on each marketing platform. Integrating marketing tools across an organisation is hard enough to achieve in a profitable business; it’s even harder to accomplish in not-for-profits and charities.
Using professional agencies is one way to stay on top of the discovery process and stay informed of recent developments. Adopting AI-powered software to gather data and optimise campaigns, rethinking strategies and impact, and investing in proactive marketing and storytelling – will together help you focus your efforts and funds on the effects you need to make, the audience that needs to know about it and the stories and platforms that would reach them. Focusing their efforts will also help charities measure their impact more accurately.
The future of marketing for not-for-profit organisations is filled with evolving challenges that we have no choice but to turn into opportunities. With the right approach, NFPs can effectively reach their target audiences, drive engagement, and achieve their goals. Collaboration, storytelling, focusing and adapting to future trends will be crucial to our success.
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