Fundraising is not what it used to be few decades ago. While years ago fundraising campaigns were dependant on how many people you personally contacted, now it’s a matter of how well your online marketing campaigns perform. We live in a social media era where most people spend their time engaged in online activities. Socializing, playing, entertaining, and educating are a few of the many activities that quickly became easier with the internet.

Nowadays, if you want to organize a fundraising campaign, your first thought should be what resources to use to reach, educate and motivate as many donors as possible to support your cause. There are thousands of services and software applications that everyone can utilize to run a successful online fundraising campaign.

Facebook, for example, is one of the most useful platforms out there. Everyone is spending time on Facebook, and you can take advantage of this network’s usability. In today’s article, we’ll talk about five steps to use Facebook ads for your fundraising campaigns. Let’s begin.

Why Facebook?

You should know by now that Facebook is the giant fish in the sea. It’s THE predominant social network that everybody is using to fulfill their needs. Facebook can be a good way to relax, socialize, educate, and organize events. On the other side of the glass, this powerful social network also provides excellent tools to allow businesses and nonprofit organizations reach a wide audience.

The whole beauty of Facebook advertising is the fact that no matter what cause you are fundraising for, you will find thousands of potential contributors. It’s really simple. You need a small capital investment and the right promotional strategy. That’s how fundraising through Facebook is performed.

How Do Facebook Ads Work?

The process is pretty straightforward. Facebook allows you to create an advertisement and then “push” it towards a specific target audience of your choice. Every time a user sees an ad on his news feed and then clicks on it, the sponsor pays a pre-established price per click.

The targeting process is highly sophisticated and allows you to specify exactly who you want to reach. You can address your audience by targeting their location, age, sex, hobbies, activities, events, and many other options. It’s insane how easy it is to target qualified individuals once you learn.

Step 1 – Create a Facebook Page

The first thing you have to do is create a Facebook business page. The name of the page should be very specific. It should articulate your cause in just a few words. Then, take all the necessary actions to present your profile, description, contact information, and so on.

Second, choose a good profile picture, and also a good cover photo. Believe it or not, these photos will influence your success rate. When people land on your page, it should look really neat and professional.

Step 2 – Set an Objective

Here’s where the fun begins. The next step of the advertising process is choosing an objective for your Facebook ad. The social network offers a variety of choices. When it comes to fundraising, your two best choices are “Boost your posts” and “Send people to your website.”

The first option will send traffic to a post that has been previously published on your Facebook page. The second option will direct people towards your own website. As far as my experience allows me to advice, I would say that the latter option might generate better results. That is because your landing page (first page of the website) tells the visitor more about your nonprofit compared to a simple Facebook post. Of course, it all depends on your main objective. Do you want more likes and shares or would you rather skip this part and get straight to business?

Step 3 – Audience Selection & Budget

Once your goal is set, it is time to start taking action. With the use of Facebook’s tools, you can focus on whatever characteristics you wish. For example, you can target people who have “liked” your page. Moreover, you can target your readership by selecting location, age, gender, interests and many other variables. Based on your targeting, the ad will show up only for those users who match your criteria.

The second step here is scheduling a budget. Facebook lets you decide how much money you want to spend on an ad, and for how long your ad will run. You can choose to pay per day, per click, per thousand clicks, and so on. Your budget will make a difference here, and the more budget you possess, the more possibilities you have to test different promotional methods.

John Denver, a successful HR manager of Australian Writings suggests sticking to a relatively low budget for starters. Depending on your priorities and possibilities, he suggests testing more marketing strategies before investing larger sums.

Step 4 – Impress Your Target Audience

When you design an advertisement, think smart. You must choose the proper images that will bring your cause to life. It’s all about empathy. When people see your ad on their news feed, you must create empathy, compassion, and love. A touchy ad will perform extremely well compared to a simple one.

You can also impress your audience by making a video ad. For this, you need a compelling idea, a good script, and a professional video maker. During your video ad, show the most important aspects of your fundraising project. Let the video convey why viewers need to take action and donate to such a cause.

Step 5 – Sit Back and Analyze Your Ad Performance

Once everything is set, your ads will run day and night. Your next job is to monitor the performance and make adjustments. It’s always going to be a trial and error process. Some ads may bomb, while some can generate a lot of funds.

Go to Facebook’s Ad Manager. This is where you’ll find a lot of data and information regarding your campaign. Each ad will produce different stats. After some comparisons, you should be able to determine which ones perform the best. Next thing you should do is remove the weaker ads and promote the successful ones.

Conclusion

Not taking advantage of this awesome social network would be a very unwise decision. Fundraising is now extremely accessible because we’re able to connect with a huge amount of like-minded people. Aside from that, we can reach them just by sitting in front of our computers after planning and implementing our advertising campaigns.

To be honest, I don’t think that there’s a better way of raising funds rather than using social media. Think about it. Where do most people spend their time? Easy answer: Facebook. That’s where you have to be! Out there, trying to reach them!

 

Jessica Freeman is a professional journalist and a freelance writer from Sydney, Australia. She focuses her content writing on education, business, technology, and academic topics. You can reach her at jessica1986freeman@gmail.com.

 

 

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