Digital Marketing Strategies for Charity Organizations

The assignment explores the various tools and techniques of digital marketing that can be applied to charity organizations, including email marketing, website analytics, customer service, social media management, programmatic social media, video hosting, search engine optimization, display retargeting, paid social media, and content curation. It also discusses the importance of using these strategies to manage risks, conflicts of interest, complex processes, fraud, auto-enrollment, gift aid, and VAT. The assignment provides a comprehensive overview of digital marketing for charity organizations and highlights the need for accurate financial information in annual reports.

Digital Marketing

TABLE OF CONTENTS
INTRODUCTION...........................................................................................................................1
Best practice in the children's charity sector....................................................................................2
Strategic approach............................................................................................................................4
Strategies to improve donor acquisition and retention cost effectively .....................................4
CONCLUSION .............................................................................................................................10
REFERENCES..............................................................................................................................12

INTRODUCTION
Charity sector is an organisation setup that provide help and money for people who are
in need.It is basically a practice of sharing, giving help, support voluntarily to poor people.
More than money charity means kindness,liberality,consideration,etc. Recently, economic
environment is fluctuating very much (Zettelmeyer and Merkley, 2017) It allowed the sector
to frequently make changes in their strategies.It has raised different challenges such as poverty,
global health crisis, rise of new power, etc. It affected the overall health sector. Also it has
affected the well-being of people to a great extent.
Charity sector is facing lots of challenges due to economic conditions of the
environment.Technology has changed a lot and its greater need in charity sector making people
loose trust in hand charity.They just support charities that are done online.It gives a loss to
small charities.Some ideas used by the charity organisation will no longer be acceptable by
general public. There are many practices that are followed in children charity sector. It ensures
that children are given effective care (Critchlow, Moodie and Hastings, 2016) Also it helps in
providing high quality care to them. Many bigger enterprises support many charity
organisations but now a days it has decreased as many fake charities are also there who take
money from bigger organisation and use it for their own benefits not for the children so people
are losing faith in helping,donation,etc.
Digital marketing refers to delivering ideas through channels such as social media,
email, and mobile apps. So it made a huge change in charity sector. In today's
world,everything is advanced so charity sector adopted this technology for marketing. Charities
whether small or large can increase their ideas of raising awareness through digital
marketing.Digital marketing can enable charity to communicate to huge of people at once.It is
a very broad range of networking. It can deliver a message to thousands of people around at
once .So for the organisation “Save the Children”, digital marketing is very useful. Charity's
website can be created so that its idea of awareness can reach to people nationally or
internationally (De Pelsmacker and Holthof, 2018 ) It encourages people to donate for small or
large charity organisations. Charities can also grow in socail media sector and make use of
social sites like facebook,twitter,Etc. It can develop more followers and build great
relationships.There are many mobile apps for charity.They can be extended further by adding
more features to it. Mobile app play a great role in marketing for charity. The message charity
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want to give to people can be directly sent to every human perdonally.Charities have
progressed a lot using technologies.Charities promote campaigns through social media. This
has reduced their expenses in advertisement. People intersted in donating directly communicate
to organisation which gives direct benefit to charity organisation.
The report says about the Charity organisation “Save the Children” and the practice done in the
children's charity sector. Also it gives the strategic options available for improving donor
acquisition and retention cost effectively.
Sector Review
Best practice in the children's charity sector
The main purpose of charity is to promote good health. Charity organisation usually
works in health and social care. They make sure that people who are not able to get basic care
facilities are provided with better quality services. Also the charities expanded their operations
world wide. It is because of digital marketing.Ie played a very crucial role in creating
awareness among people about charity.There are many children all around the world who are
homeless and dont get to eat for many days (De Pelsmacker, van Tilburg and Holthof, 2018)
They eirher survive begging their whole life or they die due to malnutrition. So charity is a
good source providing children the the basic needs. The organisation “Save the Children”
provides best service and care to poor children. The organisation provides
Health and nuritional care to the people coming from lower communities. Also they provide
quality education to children especially street children and girls for their better future.
Moreover,the organisation gives them total care so that they can lead a healthy ana happy
life.This all can be done only if donors donate money and support charity. The organisation
also help the children at the time of some crisis and help them get out of the trauma to rebuild
their lives. Te main aim is to prepare the children and their family in emergency situations. For
this many plans and scheme are developed by government and trusts that help people.There are
many practices involved in child's care (Bosomworth, 2015) Many of the precautions that are
needed to be taken care of when the organisation have children .There should not be any
illegal activities.
Some of the practices that are followed by children's charity sector are:
Providing services:
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The organisation provide services to the children who are poor, homeless, etc.This is
the most common practice involved.It gives service and care to the children as per their
requirement.The organisation gives home to children, gives them clothing, educate them, gives
them food and water to survive, gives them all necessities that are needed for living a healthy
life. The organisation does a great job for poor children but they too depend on donors for
money.So they need to convinvce donors about the geneuineness of the organisation.
Setting the objectives
It means the organisation need to set some objectives for the task to be fullfilled.The
task is to provide special care to children so this can be done successfully by setting some
goals. If charity recruits employees ,they must be trained and well skilled (Zettelmeyer and
Merkley, 2017)The regulations must be same for all employees. The organisation must not
come in fame for some complex issues. All the documents of the organisation must be accurate
so that when the donor checks they easile gets convinced that the organisation is genuine and
donor can donate without any second thought.
Making indiviual child care plan(ccp)
It is a type of practice that describes how a child is supposed to be taken care of from
the time the child comes there and till the time child go from there. It involves how the child is
cares for and the record of day to day care of child is kept, Also the physcological and
emotional support arrangements are provided.Specially nourishing observations for the child. It
also icludes health rights for the child. They have health screening in which a full body medical
examination is conducted on child. Their medical history is recorded and they are given
treatment according to the report. Special health policy for children is also provided ehich
cover basic medical treatments for the child, the children sleep under mosquito nets,a
paesiatrician (child specialist) is always available on call, etc. (Critchlow, Moodie and
Hastings, 2016) They are also given knowledge on awareness of hygeine,sanitation, The child
is taught to drink safe water and hand wash before and after eating. They are taught to use
toilets and keep ot clean after use. All facilities are provided by charity organisation to develop
poor children. They are taught about their rights- rights to quality education,adequate food and
nutrition,leisure activities, etc. They are provided with the play grounds in the organisation
where the child explores the social well-being in them and interact with other children. The
child develop interest in playing indoor outdoor games provided.
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Providing these services in the organisation,charity sector has improved a lot and they
can gain lot of help from donors as it is for a good cause. Helping and supporting poor children
is always a good cause and the charity organisations are a medium through which this help can
be done.
Strategic approach
Strategies to improve donor acquisition and retention cost effectively
Charities make a vital contribution to the economic, social and political sectors of a
nation. Moreover, the role of organisations and their volunteers is no less important than the
roles of public or private sector. Charity's work is also a supporting pillar for the country's
security (De Pelsmacker and Holthof, 2018) They work in a systematic way according to rhe
requirements. Generally, charities in health sector is set to attract people who want to donate
for good cause. It sets a platform through which people can easily donate money or other
things. Charity use these donations for helping poor people. They ensure that money is used for
good cause. The government also want to partner with charities to accomplish common
economic and social goals regarding unemployment, security, poverty, drugs, and other
important issues. The organisation can conduct campaigns to create awareness among people.
Usually the main reason behind these strategy is to stop illegal donation,wasting money,
making donor analyse the fraud and real company and to get their trust back.
Donor acquisition
It is basically efforts to acquire donors to donate money for a good cause.Charity make
various efforts to bring new donors. It can be done through marketing their ideas and goals to
the people.Apart from this charity can connect to people in various ways. Once a donor gets
attracted ,their trust is gained back to donate (Bosomworth, 2015) A single donation by
everyone will be a great help in child's health care.
Strategies for improving donor acquisition:
Campaigning:
It is the best source to acquire new donors. Campaigning must be done every year to
create awareness among people about donation and its value. If this is followed it can increase
donor and if not it can either be a loss of new donor,existing donor. Providing gifts in exchange
to donations is also a part of strategy.
Social media:
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Social media is found to be more effective way in acquiring donors.The charities can
create some page on social sites and write description about it on site and follow people to
make them believe that it a good cause and genuine organisation. The main benefit on social
media is it multify the followers and supporters that creates awareness in every part of the
world.
Surveying the donors:
It requires the details of the donors who are donating. The details include the
locality,place where the donor lives,the current status of work of donor, other records of donor
and the amount donor is donating (De Pelsmacker and Holthof, 2018) This will be a help in
knowing which segment of people are interested in donating.
Peer to peer fundraising campaigning:
It is the best source for attracting new donor from the old ones.The way is to utilise the
power of old donors to influence new people to donate and that helps a lot .As people get more
affected by common people rather than organisational volunteer. It requires very low cost
investment.
Donor retention
It is the method of fundraising that expects gifts from existing donors
regularly,monthly,annually.They are called retained donors as they give multiple amount of
gifts to charity organisation over long long period of time. It is the method to measure hoe
manu donor continue to donate in the organisation.Charities that have high retained donors
have long term followers who help them every year. The donor retention process can be
improved by making the donor's first experience the best so that one can feel satisfied. Also
donors can be encouraged to speak and express their views,Moreover a donor membership
programme can be organised (Bosomworth, 2015) In addition, the organisation can also share
result with the donor as the donor will also be excited knowing their contribution made a big
difference in the organisation.Donor retention allows non profit organisation to have reliable
revenue from year to year, so they can have reasonable fundraising budgets. Donor retention is
important because the organisation has to build relationship with donors, receive bigger
donation for the welfare of children, acquire knowledge that increase fundraisers, promote the
cause. Retention takes less time and money than acquisition.
Strategies for improving donor retention:
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Promptness
This is the gratitude towards the donors who donated or are donating. Giving good
gestures to donors is the basic need in maintaining good performance of the organisation. It is
just a way of expressing thanks to donor by giving some gift or anything. So it must be the first
thing to keep in mind as it can make charity loose a donor for the next time.
Opportunities
Not always people are asked to donate money.This is the way to involve people in
some sort of things they would like to do or which make them feel good. Loke coming on a
trip,joining a group, attending an event, etc. (Critchlow, Moodie and Hastings, 2016)
Gifts
It can be the best gratitude the organisation can give to donors.It is not the expensive
materialistic things but it is in the form of snapshots of the people they helped,recognitions in
public, follows on social sites like instagram, facebook, twitter, thank you videos uploaded,etc.
Also some handwritten letters can be sent to them. That is best way to show courtesy.
Varied communication methods
It is must to check that in which form of communication the donor is comfortable
getting contacted.If a donor prefer emails, then send emails to them but also keep a check on
phone calls and invite them through various mediums and invite them to prgrammes,events
organised to form more personal relation. When good relations are maintained with donors,it
can become a valued relationship.
Multiple volunteers
There must be a way where multiple number of members from organisation can go to
donors to communicate with them. Everyone in the organisation must help to make the
donation experoence best for donors.(Critchlow, Moodie and Hastings, 2016)
No annoying donors
Emails are the easiest medium to comtact to a donor. But sending continuous and
boring emails to donors can lead to blocking. So avoid sending annoying mails to donors.They
know about the organisation.There are more ways to send emails when necessary.
Donor information
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A list for the details of the donors must be made and updated from time to time. This
contains all the details of the donor including their localoty, working status, and how much
retained donors they are (monthly,annually). This list must have all the records of the donors.
Digital fundraising
It is simply raising funds using digital technology which means raising fund online.
Most of the people are using smartphones to access the internet. This means the fundraisers
need to think how, when and where the people are donating. There are various types of online
fundraising.This include one-off donation which means a one time donation can be tax
deductible.Also regular donations,sponsorships are types of online fundraisings. Supporterd
who wants to help can also donate via these mediums (Bosomworth, 2015) It is to eshtablish a
strong online presence while utilizing different forms of new media and digital communication.
Marketing and Advertising
For raising funds via network for charity is a good way of creating awareness in people
about donation . Being updated online is necessary ,so to become more popular among donors
and common people, the charity needs to advertise,talk to the media,interact with socail
media,etc Also the charity can mobilise the fundraisers as it is seen that more mobiles are used
instead of computers for internet access.So it can give more audience.
Campaign name and story
If any camapign is organised ,it will be more improved if the name is given to
campaign and a story with it showing about the what it is and why it is done. Some pictures
can be added,a good memorable name, a thank you note for the one who donates and cares.
Partnerships can also be formed in campaigning (Bosomworth, 2015)
Update and refresh the website
It is very important to maintain and update websites regularly,so it makes people
visiting. Also it is important to engage readers and donors take interest in website by updating
website visuals/images, user-friendly content, attractive well designed website, etc.
Social media
It is one of the ways to stay updated by being on social media site where the
organisation can be seen and heard easily and faster. Always follow social media while being
updates on social trends the in . They are spreading more awareness about the cause, peer to
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peer campaigns,making strong connections with other similar organisation,creating
groups,using social media to give directions to people to the website, advertising.
Fundraising softwares
They are the softwares that allow people track the money collected from donors.It helps
to recuit, engage and retain donors. Interactions with the donor can be tracked.It reduces the
no. of errors that occur.
Improves Donor retention
Social media, email, and websites are great ways to spread story and cause and
keep potential donors engaged and increase donations and supporters whether it is online or
offline. It includes updating the website regilarly,providing real stories and a thank you note to
donors. This weill help in donor retention.
Email
It the most effective way of raising funds as it is affordable and cost effective way to
create people's involvement and updated. It is the best way to spread the story of the
campaigning and request for the donations required through various digital platform. There are
ways to maintain this way of fundraising. It includes Only single time request for
donation ,keeping the mail simple, straight and easy to follow, monitoring the results i.e. to get
people read the mail and click the donate button is the main puopose.
There are different types of strategies which can be used by charity organisation in
effective donor acquisition and retention cost effectively by using digital technologies. Such
as :
 Go mobile
 attract people
 branded products
 using compelling pictures
 simplification
 reducing system
 improve giving levels
 motivate people
 intercommunication
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 social activities
 consider security first
 be transparent
 take benefits of the opportunities
 consider new donors
 the first strategy to improve donor acquisition is to take most of the advantages of
social media. This is the best strategy to improve donor acquisition and cost
effectiveness as well. Company should keep it eyes on internet movement. Without
this, company will lose its potential donors due top lack of appeal on webpage(Baird,
2017). For this, company should engage with best practices of digital marketing such as
pay per click adds and other featured post. Companies web page should be attractive
and pleasant. It should use graphics and colours which suits to eyes. If website pages
will not effectively design than it will lose its potential donors whether they impressed
to your agency's mission. Second strategy which is useful in increasing cost
effectiveness and improve donor acquisition is to show them that where the money
used. Attach the donor's name with the fund. It will be easy in immediate update to
donors in to get know that where the money goes(Slattery, 2015). Company send the
exact description to its donors with proof. It will also help in acquire donors by
motivating and encouraging them. Because if they should know about the financial
activity of a company then they will secure about that their donation is going in right
direction. Apart from this, there are more strategies to improve cost efficiency such as :
 prospectus screening
 planned giving
 crate major donor society
 hire a gift team
 leverage the connections
 share the results
 show return on investment
 study of metrics
By sharing the pictures of your activities on social websites and incorporate examples of
activities, company can share its result to donors. Always consider high quality donors because
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one time donors are not valuable for continual donor. Donors who gave bigger gifts are
valuable to the company. To encourage donors, company can give gifts to them. All people
love free stuff. Many charities organisations are giving gifts for a certain level of charity such
as people must give $100 in charity to receive the gifts such as bag or jacket. Save the children
charity organisation is giving different types of gifts depending upon the amount of charity.
Rather than these strategies, a simple method to increase donor acquisition is to say thanks to
the donors. If company do not thank to its donors than all the hard work of company will
destroy. Keep in touch with the past donors to improve the donor acquisition. There are several
other strategies which help in to grow the market potential and donor acquisition. These all
strategies also helps in reduce the cost and improve efficiency of performance.
CONCLUSION
From the above report it can be concluded that there are different types of strategies
which can be used to improve donor acquisition which is discussed above. Charity organisation
has to face many problems regarding to the environmental factors such as economical and
political. These both factors affect the charity organisation in a strong way. Digital marketing
is a best technique which can be used by charity organisation to overcome the negative impact
of environmental factors (Baird, 2017).Digital marketing has changed the charity structure.
Save the children organisation is using different marketing support from huge brands through
digital marketing. Digital marketing is increasing the awareness. Digital marketing affect the
charity organisation in which organisation should analyse the micro and macro environmental
factors. These factors can be analysed by pestle analysis. There are different strategies such as
go mobile, grab people attention, use compelling pictures and so on. Most websites pages are
very complex and difficult to understand because many options are available on the pages such
as top navigation, search boxes, promotional events and advertisements. try to reduce the long
form filling process. Because people do not like to spent lot of time on the filling long forms.
There are different methods of encouraging donors such as giving gifts and encourage them,
joint their name to funds on website pages. Giving a one time gift is enough to make long term
relationship with donors. Always connected with the donors and give them informations of
where the money goes. Save the children organisation is international non government
organisation which promotes the rights and authorities of children's. It also conduct every one
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campaign. The aim of this campaign is to reduce the child mortality rate. These programmes
stating :
 prioritize equally.
 Tackle malnutrition
 mobilize add resources
 consider new born babies
 develop more health care workers
 implement new plans and strategies
digital marketing is influence the strategies of charity organisation. It is one of the best change
in charity organisation. The uses of technological advancement is continuously
increasing(Baird, 2017). There are different types of issues related to the environment which is
a major challenge for charity organisation such as : new practices of statement of
recommended, managing risk, conflicts of interest, complex process, fraud, auto enrolment,
gift aid and vat. Furthermore, there are different tools and techniques of digital marketing to
grow the business such as : email marketing, website analytics, customer service, organisation
social media, programmatic social media, video hosting, search engine optimization, display
retargeting, paid social media, search engine optimization and content curation. These all are
the tools and methods of digital marketing which can grow the marketing potential of children
charity organisation. There are different best practices which is using in save the children
organisation. The best practices such as provide accurate financial information in the annual
report if its organisation and so on.
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Slattery, S., 2015. Social media charity campaigns: a study on the motivation to participate.
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