Ready for automation?! – Marketing Automation für NGOs

Is my organization ready for Marketing Automation? – A checklist

As an executive or fundraising manager, you have heard of Buzzword Marketing Automation for NGOs, but you are not sure if it is useful for your organization? After all, marketing automation has a cost. And the donations you raise should mainly go to your projects and only be spent on investments that really make sense. Maybe your organization is already investing in email marketing? So the question arises:

Is your organization even ready for marketing automation?

To answer this question, organizations pay a lot of money to agencies that help them find the answer. So answering them with the help of a checklist is not that easy. But to give you a personal assessment, we have done it anyway and listed the most important points for Marketing Automation for NGOs:

Your prospects (donors and leads) come via digital channels.

If you still generate most of your donation revenue through print mailings or your website does not offer an online donation option, your organization is not yet ready for marketing automation. The same applies even if there are not enough website visitors.

Your organisation has a broad target group.

One thing first: Every club has its fanbase and the work and commitment of everyone who is involved in a club or organisation, either full-time or on a voluntary basis, is valuable! For small clubs, however, the focus should first be on gaining reach and awareness before the next step – towards automation – can be taken.

You can offer content to the users.

And at best it is exciting, varied and entertaining. You have nothing exciting to report? Then offer your users added value! This way donors stay interested and interested people become donors.

Your database should already have a certain size and is at best not outdated or Excel based.

A guideline is about 5,000 contacts with data protection-compliant double-optin. (With a double-optin the user confirms the registration for a newsletter again by mail).

You have some traffic on your website.

Again, just a guideline: You should have about 5,000 visitors per month on your site.

And the most important thing: You’ re up for it!

Until Marketing Automation runs smoothly and relieves your employees of a lot of work, it is first necessary to invest money and personnel. In order for this to pay off, you and your employees should be open, eager to learn and willing to familiarize themselves with new topics.

It is important to understand that this list is not a generally applicable checklist. Not every organization that meets these criteria is ready for marketing automation. On the other hand, not every organization that does not meet every point is unsuitable for Marketing Automation!

What is indispensable?

Leads. Some points are conditional. But leads are your starting capital. If your database is not big enough, it is important that you generate traffic first, i.e. get as many people as possible to visit your site. Through exciting content and clever online marketing you can generate traffic and convert it into leads, i.e. visitors who interact with your organisation. Through interactions (for example: signing up for a newsletter or signing a petition) your database grows in accordance with data protection regulations. If you still generate most donations via print mailings, it is absolutely necessary to optimize your website for online donations.

Target group-oriented approach. In principle, potential and real donors must receive coordinated content at the right time through appropriate channels to stimulate individual motivation. This is how you turn interested people into donors and donors stay interested. Those organisations that manage to save costs and reach the donors with an optimal automation target group-specific, individual and immediate will be successful in the future. In this way you can use your valuable resources where they are needed most.