One thing no nonprofit organization can afford to ignore is community engagement. If you fail to keep the local community engaged, it will be tricky to establish your organization as a relevant brand. You can lose donors, and volunteers will lose their interest in helping your nonprofit attain its goals. But then, simply having a community engagement strategy is never enough. There is a myriad of factors you need to consider before you can measure success.
It is easy to fall victim to numerous community engagement remote triggers. The key is to consider the interests of your audience and work on improving your relationship with them. For starters, be sure not to the same mistakes as the following.
Assuming You Know What Your Target Audience Wants
Even if you’ve been catering to the same audiences for many years now, it is not safe to simply assume that you already know what they like. Your first step should be determining what they really want, need, and expect from your nonprofit. The only way to do this is by getting their details right and collecting data about your audience persona.
You can start by asking basic questions such as the following.
- What are your basic demographics?
- What does your everyday life look like?
- What is your occupation?
- Where do you go in search of information?
- What kinds of organizations do you support?
- What are your objections when supporting a nonprofit?
- How do you want to be identified?
It helps to conduct a survey and ask relevant questions to get to know your audiences better. You can use polling tools available on different social media sites or conduct surveys through emails. You also have the option to conduct a face-to-face interview with your target audience’s consent.
Showing Appreciation the Wrong Way
Businesses often resort to gift-giving to show appreciation to their customers. The problem is, not everyone will appreciate your acts of kindness. If done the wrong way, your customers will think you simply chose them randomly and gave whatever excess inventory you have just to get rid of your old stocks.
If you want to make the most out of your gift-giving, be sure to consider what your audiences want. There is no reason to give away products to select customers if the offers you send are different from their regular purchases. Unless you want them to try your other products, be sure to consider their purchase and search history before sending any product.
It also makes sense that you give away personalized gifts for your target audiences. If you have no intention of doing this yourself, you can always work with a local personalized gift box shop. This way, you can still provide them with the products they like and ensure they will share a grand unboxing experience.
Skipping Website Optimization
You have been running your nonprofit for quite some time now. But the question is, why are your site visitors still having a hard time navigating your website? Why is it so hard for them to find the information they need whenever they want?
These days, website optimization is a must-have. This can help you keep your audiences engaged by providing them with professionals and an easy-to-navigate website. Invest in website optimization, and you can boost your community engagement in no time.
Here are a few things you will want to focus on when improving site optimization:
- Faster website speed
- Social media share buttons
- Secure donation payment system
- Mobile-friendly website
- Up-to-date contact details
- Well-positioned calls to action buttons
Not Having a Solid Social Media Strategy
It is not enough that your nonprofit already managed to create a solid following on social media. You must develop a solid social media strategy to support your customer engagement plan. Thanks to the number of active social media users worldwide, you can boost your engagement and reach by leveraging social media.
You don’t necessarily need to manage your nonprofit’s social media pages on your own. Some professionals are very much willing to manage the social media accounts of nonprofits. Just make sure you already know the basics such as the following:
- Your ideal audience
- Clear social media goals you wish to achieve
- Social media platforms where your target audiences are
- The number of posts you want to appear on your social media pages consistently
Create interactive content for your target audiences. Keep in touch by answering DMs and comments. Make use of hashtags relevant to your organization and leverage visuals to generate more traffic.
Don’t forget to make it easier for donors to place their donations. Create a call-to-action button that enables them to donate easily. This enables them to easily send monetary donations without leaving their preferred social media site.
Nonprofits should make use of customer engagement to boost their brand’s success. But doing this the wrong way will only put your organization in a more difficult position. Keep this list in mind so that you can confidently grow your nonprofit without making the same mistakes made by other nonprofits.
