How to Maximize Your Nonprofit's Reach with Offline Marketing

While digital marketing has made a great impact on expanding the reach of nonprofits and businesses, you shouldn’t rule out the impact of offline marketing. Using offline marketing channels such as tv, radio, newspaper, and direct mail is particularly beneficial for nonprofits since they are generally newsworthy content. In fact, nonprofits should focus on syncing their offline marketing with their online marketing to maximize their reach. We’ll discuss the right content to promote through offline channels.

Why Offline Marketing is Still Relevant

Fun Facts:

Here are some statistics that show how offline channels are still relevant to one of the most important audiences for nonprofits, the baby boomer generation.

• The baby boomer generation makes up 43% of charitable giving.
• On average, baby boomers watch 36 hours of live tv a week, which is 63% more than millennials do.
• According to research done by Nielsen, the median age of radio listeners is 44, while readers of magazines and newspapers are 45 and 48 respectively.

Due to the baby boomer generation being very involved with charitable giving, they should be considered a primary target audience for most nonprofits. It’s imperative to reach out to such an impactful audience through these offline channels.

Content to Promote Through Offline Marketing

Just like online marketing methods, offline marketing is not a one size fits all solution. Content works better on certain offline marketing channels than on others. We’ll break down what content is best to promote on different channels.

Events

Events are the type of content you promote on any platform, both online and offline. Nonprofit events are generally for raising money for a cause, so that will be buzzworthy for local news and radio stations. It’s also a good idea to contact local newspapers to spread the word. Sending event save-the-dates or invites by mail to your target audience is effective because they have their personal copy of the event details and can put it somewhere visible, like on their fridge. Use as many offline platforms as possible to promote your events.

Post-Event

After your event, contact your local newspaper to report the results of your fundraising event. This will let the community know what an impact your organization’s event makes and further increase your brand awareness.

Newsletter

Even if your organization has an e-newsletter, consider sending newsletters through direct mail as well. Chances are that in your e-newsletter, you are only able to include small blurbs and then hope that your subscribers click through to see the rest of your content. With traditional newsletters sent in the mail, you are able to include full stories, so your readers don’t have to take an extra step to read your content.

Urgent needs

If your nonprofit is in drastic need of supplies or volunteers, then reach out to TV stations, radio stations, and newspapers. Urgent news for a good cause is newsworthy enough to promote on those platforms. If there is enough time, consider sending out mailers to your organization’s advocates to convey urgency.

Organizational News/Success Stories

If your organization hits a special milestone or completes a project, then contact the local newspaper. If it is a large success that directly affects the community, then try contacting the TV and radio stations, too.

Build Connections in the Offline Marketing World

To make sure that you can promote your nonprofit’s content through offline channels, you have to build a network with people in the TV, radio, and news industry. Here are some tips to help you achieve that:

• Don’t put all of your eggs in one basket

If you make a great connection in the TV or news industry, then that’s great! However, don’t stop making connections once you’ve found one. It’s important to constantly make different connections because the media industry has a high turnover rate, and you always want to have an “in.”

• Follow up with people

It can be discouraging to not hear back after reaching out to someone in the media sector but don’t assume it’s a dead end. People are busy and sometimes small requests may get pushed to the backburner. Try following up if you don’t hear back, and make it as convenient as possible to meet with them so that they are more likely to go through with your request.

Using these offline methods along with your online marketing methods will help maximize your content’s reach to your target audience. The most beneficial offline channel will differ depending on the content you are trying to promote. Refer back to this post when planning to promote your content to make sure you’re using the right platforms.