The Nonprofit Marketing Ideas Blog

This is a post about selling social change. This is also a post about selling innovations. Veganism, policing by consent, solar power co-ops are, what? Innovations. People adopt new behaviors and use new products or services.  Innovation is not a technology thing - "We've just launched the most fun and useful personal fitness app on the planet! Download it today!"  Innovation is not a financial thing - "We offer the most innovative products in personal investing! Click here to learn more!" If you want to advocate for something or get people to adopt a new behavior, you are promoting innovation. To do this successfully, you need to understand some things that fall outside the usual realm of marketing and fundraising communication. You need to understand what makes innovations take hold or fade away. Let's take a closer look at the characteristics of successful innovations.  Characteristics of Successful Innovations:  Many nonprofits have selling social or tec...

This article dives into behavioral science and social marketing. You might want to review Part 1 before continuing. Last time I focused on fundraising and behavioral science. I'll assume you are somewhat familiar with things like framing and hypothesis testing.  To review something else, social marketing is about using advertising and persuasive writing tactics to convince people to change their behavior for their own benefit versus to benefit a company. You get people to do things for themselves rather than buy this product or select that service.  How you do this is a subject of several books. I can introduce some of the scientific concepts you need right here.  Literature Review: Don't make things up. Figure out what's work on similar campaigns in the past. And find out what academic literature has to teach you about "selling" your ideas. Scholars have published research on public health initiatives like vaccination. If you are trying to promote vegetarian eati...

This post marks the beginning of a series on insights from sociology and psychology to raise more money, gain more supporters, and change behaviors. If you have a cause to promote this series will be helpful. If you are just starting a nonprofit and want to get decent fundraising or marketing results faster, this series will be helpful too.  First, let's look at some basic scientific concepts that might be valuable in your digital marketing efforts. Then we'll dive into some psychological insights you can use to raise more money or keep your supporters loyal to the organization.  Social Marketing Science 101 If you've never taken a course on psychology, sociology, or behavioral economics...well, you've been missing out on some valuable insights. We'll return to the point in future posts. For now,, I want to focus on some basic scientific terms that can and should, come up often in nonprofit marketing efforts.  Theory - In science, a theory is the best available exp...