5 Tips for a Successful #GivingTuesday Campaign
#GivingTuesday is a global giving event that takes place the Tuesday after Thanksgiving (its December 1, 2020 this year) and has boosted the end of year fundraising efforts of nonprofits since 2012. If you haven’t started planning your #GivingTuesday campaign yet, don’t worry, it’s not too late—keep reading for my top 5 tips for a successful giving day campaign.
Figure Out Your Goal—Now
I know that you probably have other priorities right now, or maybe you think you can create your digital campaign in your sleep. But this isn’t the time to wing it, this is an incredible opportunity to help you get a head start in making impactful change in your community in 2021.
Successful nonprofits know that there’s no such thing as too early when it comes to planning their giving day campaign and they always start with a goal, but how do you get started on yours?
How to set a #GivingTuesday Goal
Create your goal based on the SMART goal philosophy.
Analyze your previous fundraising campaigns. What donation amount feels like a realistic stretch based on what you’ve been able to raise in the past?
Determine your target audience. Instead of creating a generic campaign, create messaging to attract people who are most likely to donate to your nonprofit. Need help figuring out your ideal donor? Take a look at Google Analytics’ audience reports to understand the characteristics of your top donors including interests, locations, and behaviors.
Imagine what success looks like. Visualization is a great exercise when goal planning. Does it look like a new program you can offer or maybe it looks like the new equipment you’ve been needing to expand your mission? Whatever it is, imagine it as a reality and start crafting stories around your goal to inspire donors.
Consider making your goal public. Progress meters are a great way to increase donations as it rallies your supporters around getting to your goal in time.
Create a Winning Digital Marketing Strategy
Once you have your goals set, its time to work on your digital marketing strategy.
Use an analytics tool like Google Analytics to assess the best channels to focus on and the ideal time of day to send posts. If you haven’t had much engagement on Twitter during past campaigns, you’ll probably want to prioritize other channels to ensure you’re reaching the right audience.
Create a content calendar that outlines the emails, social media posts, blog posts and any other content you are sending during the campaign. This will keep your team organized and on track during the busy weeks leading up to the big day.
Determine what metrics you’ll need to analyze your campaign’s performance. If you’re just starting out, I recommend using Google Analytics to track things like total donations, number of donors, landing page visits that resulted in a donation by traffic source, etc.
Update your website and social media pages with a #GivingTuesday graphic and information about what you’re raising money for this year to get your audience ready for the campaign.
Get Social
While originally called Giving Tuesday, the organization recognized the power of social media and decided to rebrand to #GivingTuesday. With this in mind, its crucial to the success of your campaign to live on social media on #GivingTuesday with targeted and inspirational messaging. With this in mind, make sure you:
Add inspirational images to each post. Social media posts with images outperform posts with just text.
Add a donate button on your Facebook page to send visitors to your donation landing page.
Add UTM parameters to every link to track what channels are bringing traffic to your website and donation page (Read my guide on how to use UTM parameters and download my UTM template)
Create a Converting Donation Landing Page
While local Giving Days like North Texas Giving Day use a centralized website for donations, you’ll need to set up your own landing page for #GivingTuesday. Here are a few things to keep in mind when creating your landing page:
If you decide to use a third-party donation system, choose one that is affordable, sleek and easy to manage like Give Lively.
Ask donors to increase their donation by a small amount to cover the credit card processing fees.
Your post-donation thank you page offers another marketing opportunity for your nonprofit, so consider adding a newsletter sign up form to keep donors in your funnel and your nonprofit top of mind.
Take Advantage of Google for Nonprofits
If you’re already registered for Google for Nonprofits, take advantage of all of the benefits including telling your story across their platform. Showcase your most inspiring stories on YouTube and create a Google Ads campaign to reach their nearly 2 billion users online with your Google Ad Grant.You can also receive donations through Google’s partnership with Network for Good.
To register for Google for Nonprofits, you’ll need to be a US nonprofit with a valid 501(c)(3) status.
Start Planning Your #GivingTuesday Campaign with Taylored Data
You still have time to plan an inspiring #GivingTuesday campaign, so don’t delay! Taylored Data can help you make the most of #GvingTuesday from strategy, advertising, and reporting. Book a free discovery call to get started.
