Should nonprofits and charities choose to spend on advertising during the pandemic?
Historic Shift Against Traditional Marketing
In 2018, digital marketing spend tipped over the 50% mark of total spending. For the first time the spend on traditional print marketing was less than on online. This contributes in favour of digital in the long-lasting debate of traditional over online marketing budget splits. While the shift has been clear ever since, it was not widely accepted, until now.
Covid19 Propelled Us into the Future
The Pandemic propelled businesses and other organisations to 10 years ahead. It has forced digital adoption on businesses and individuals who were not keen on prioritizing digital adoption. It shifted everything from the way meetings are done and projects are managed to how sales are made. It has shifted a vast amount of marketing budget to online channels. With more than half the world facing lockdowns for prolonged periods traditional marketing did little to convert into income for charities. We were all stuck at home and could not donate or even become aware of a cause that did not reach our mobile screens.
More Room for Digital Spend
Nonprofits and charity organisations cancelled events, cancelled promotional campaigns in stores and put a hold on all spend on print marketing from leaflets to billboards. This gave rise to the only channel that not only remained healthy during lockdowns, but outperformed all previous stats for any peak seasons! With only their phone and laptops everyone started to consume ever more social media, movies, TV shows, books, online learning on Youtube and full online courses.
Does high digital marketing spend mean guaranteed success? No.
Charities new or experienced in advertising that have a healthy presence online shifted budgets to online marketing, but others took months to catch up and some are still oblivious to the importance of it. It is not the fault of charity boards or executive committees, some are faced with sudden drops of donations, others struggle to quickly gather resources to get online. Yet others are approached by marketing agencies charging tens of thousands for their services from creating simple landing pages to running ads on social media.
Charities need a unique set of tools and services to accelerate initial growth which can be done for relatively cheap but can only increase advertising spend when they are fully online with the right strategy in place. This sudden chaos, lack of time and direction has made more nonprofits struggle for an industry that has a lot of potential online.
#Non-profits #charitymarketing
