Random Apps of Kindness: Using mobile for nonprofit and cause-based marketing
According to Web.com, 84% of small and medium businesses saw an increase in business activity due to their mobile marketing efforts.
This got me thinking … how could mobile marketing help another segment that, much like SMBs, often has limited budgets and time to invest in new marketing tactics – non-profit and cause-based marketers.
So, I asked a few experts in the industry, and they shared a few basic considerations to help you with your mobile marketing efforts …
Consideration #1: Determine if you need a mobile app
Apps have gotten a lot of buzz lately, but they are not the only way to reach a mobile audience.
“Building a mobile app, a good one at least, isn’t cheap,” said Amy Sample Ward, Digital Advisor, Good360.
You might want to start by optimizing your website and email marketing for mobile first.
“Be sure to update form pages for signing up or donating so that people aren’t turned off when they can’t even make out the fields and complete the page,” Amy said.
Once you’ve optimized your current presence for a mobile audience, how can you decide if an app is a logical next step?
“See if mobile views and navigation, opens and clickthroughs on emails, etc. go up as you mobile-ize those areas of content,” Amy remarked.
“The second indicator is the unique content or service an app would provide,” she added. “Unless you have information or data that people will want to access regularly and will actually help them in their day-to-day life, an app probably isn’t a fit.”
“For example, if you are an organization working on clean water access and conservation, an app that shares facts about water is not interesting, nor is it helpful. An app that helps people geo-locate and navigate to places where they can refill their water bottle for free is very helpful and reinforces an organization’s mission.”
