I love a grass roots group or a small nonprofit. These groups are typically beaming with promise, excitement, and enthusiasm. What they lack is typically all the money they need to get where they want to go.
Having walked in the shoes of a grass roots group on more than one occasion I wanted to share my formula for slim budget marketing. A grass roots group or small nonprofit needs to build awareness. If they don’t have a great marketing budget using this simple method that utilizes free tools to assist with outreach and automation will help bridge that gap. As awareness grows so will the ability to fund their cause.
Slim Budget Marketing Formula
- Get a Gmail account. Multiple people can check the account and it will be the log in id for the other services you sign up for using this system. In addition it creates a shared space for email, google docs for the other people you are working with. You can even get a phone number with your gmail account. Create a professional image instead of sending all the inquires to your personal email or cell phone.
- Get a website with blogging capability. Godaddy and Bluehost for a small fee. Wix and other hosting companies have very basic free plans. If you have a few bucks to spend get the website. Post announcements about upcoming events, share intriguing articles about your mission. Share your story on the blog and let the next set of tools deliver that information to new visitors.
- Get a Mailchimp account. They have an amazing free version. Mailchimp is an excellent email list host with some customer relationship options for tagging and segmenting your lists for specialized mailings. Using Mailchimp tools create a newsletter subscribe option on your website. Using their RSS automation system to automatically publish to your website/blog article to your email list. Their RSS services delivers a snippet of your article to your subscribers and includes a link back to your website. Subscribers interested in what you have to say will click the link and come back to your site. When they are on your site you have more opportunities for them to become intrigued with the information living on it.
- Get social media accounts. Facebook, Instagram, Twitter. Set those up in your new Mailchimp account. When Mailchimp emails your blog content out it will automatically send that same information to your social media accounts with links back to your website.
The point I’m making is use the free tools until you make. Automate your systems because its likely you won’t have a dedicated marketing staff to do it.
Build your awareness using these free tools so that you can create relationship for your mission. Relationships fund missions.
For more information on creating plans that move your mission forward contact me today!
~Charity Adams – Vision Fusion Consulting
Click the image to download our Slim Budget Marketing Cheat Sheet
