When it comes to strategic marketing, nonprofit organizations often contend with small teams and limited resources. That’s why setting well-defined, measurable goals can make the difference between stagnating and scaling your organization’s reach to new heights. 

By establishing specific goals and targets at the beginning of a new year, you can create a roadmap that will inform marketing decisions, motivate your team and ultimately impact your organization’s bottom line. 

Keep reading to learn how you can establish effective nonprofit marketing goals this year. 

Got goals? Your Business Marketer is here to help. Learn more about our marketing services or contact us today to get started. 

Marketing Goals For Nonprofits

While marketing teams often have their own sets of goals and metrics — like click-through rates (CTR) and web traffic targets — it’s crucial to tie these marketing-specific goals into overall organizational goals.  

Determining how a marketing strategy can ultimately help a nonprofit achieve its founding mission will keep teams on task and illuminate the areas where they can make the greatest impact. For most nonprofits, their organizational goals depend entirely on the types of products or services provided, how the organization is structured and how it’s funded. 

Common nonprofit goals might include the following:

> Raise awareness about a cause or service

> Raise funds to support organizational endeavors

> Create and/or increase resources for community members

> Increase number of volunteers

> Increase membership 

> Create more opportunities for community engagement

> Get more constituents to sign up for services

> Branding and leadership goals

Marketing teams will want to understand and prioritize those organizational goals that align most closely with achieving a nonprofit’s ultimate mission. 

When it comes to deciding how to best support these goals through marketing efforts, it’s vital to consider current marketing tools, how they can be utilized to achieve priority goals and how potential future marketing strategies can provide essential or missing support.

Nonprofit Marketing: How to Set SMART Goals

Effective goal setting centers around removing any ambiguity. Clear, well-defined, and measurable goals will help ensure that your entire organization is on the same page. Implementing specific targets and milestones can also help motivate team members and create opportunities to celebrate wins. 

A great framework for setting effective nonprofit marketing goals is the SMART method.  

SMART goals have the following traits:

> Specific — Specific goals define an exact purpose, how and when the goal will be achieved, and how participants will know that the task has been completed.  

> Measurable — SMART goals can always be measured. That means instead of setting a vague goal, such as “increase donor contributions,” it’s essential to include specific numbers. A measurable goal might look like this: Raise $25,000 for shelter animals through donor contributions in Q1 of 2022. 

> Attainable — It’s important to take stock of organizational resources and set realistic, attainable goals. Achieving a modest goal can do far more for an organization’s morale and reputation than failing at an unrealistic goal.  

> Relevant — SMART goals are always directly related to helping an organization achieve its founding mission. 

> Timely — Putting a clock on when a goal should be achieved makes it possible to implement timely strategies and measure progress, course correcting if necessary.

Nonprofit Marketing Strategies

Ideally, marketing teams will have various avenues and marketing tools at their disposal. When it comes to crafting the best marketing strategies to achieve or support specific organizational goals, it’s important to understand target audiences and those market segments unique to the nonprofit sector. 

As an example, a single nonprofit may need to tailor not only their messaging, but entire marketing campaigns to separate audiences, including donors, volunteers, and customers/constituents. 

Potential nonprofit marketing strategies and their benefits include the following:

> Email Campaigns — Email messaging can be tailored to specific lists (donors, volunteers, staff) and offers a highly deliverable way to communicate updates, calls-to-action (CTAs), and reports. 

> Social Media — Social media accounts and social ad campaigns encourage users to help promote your cause, remain engaged with your work, and share your messaging to help reach a broader audience.

> Website & Landing Pages — Building effective web landing pages to send potential donors, volunteers, or constituents to with a call-to-action is essential. 

> Video Marketing — As a highly effective visual medium, video marketing can help your organization raise awareness, gain empathy, and promote brand recall. 

> Events and Public Speaking Engagements — Advocating for your cause at events and through public speaking engagements can help position your nonprofit as a thought leader and trustworthy resource. 

> Partnerships with Celebrities & Social Influencers — Reach new, diverse audiences and foster trust by creating meaningful partnerships with highly visible community members. 

> Organizational Partnerships — By involving local business and partnering with fellow organizations, you can model good organizational citizenship, pool resources, and tap into new audiences.  

> Community Engagement Programs — Consider creating a community engagement program to help garner sustainable, ongoing support, and create a sense of community ownership and loyalty pertaining to your cause. 

Nonprofit Goals: Measuring Success

Once specific, attainable nonprofit marketing goals have been set, it’s important to monitor progress and measure success. Marketing team leaders will want to consider past metrics, along with any changes in organizational capacity. 

For each marketing goal or strategy set in motion, determine, and clearly define which key performance indicators (KPIs) will be most effective for measuring organizational success. 

Nonprofit Marketing Goals For the Win

Effective marketing goals can help your organization crush it this year. Start out strong with a solid understanding of what matters most and build effective, actionable, and measurable marketing strategies from there. 

Need a hand? We’re here to help. Your Business Marketer provides killer paid ad services, paid social media marketing, reputation management, SEO services and more. Seriously, we do it all. 

If you’d like to learn more about how Your Business Marketer can help your nonprofit thrive in 2022, contact our team here.

Need more expert marketing advice? Don’t forget to check out our blog or tune in to our podcast Marketing Overdrive today. You can thank us later.