Increasing donations is an ongoing goal for nonprofits, and your organization is likely to have multiple methods for achieving it. These can include paid digital ads, direct mailers, fundraisers and other tactics that typically involve a notable investment. In fact, nonprofits spend about four cents in digital ads for every dollar they raise online. But there’s another, often overlooked method that can help you increase donations at a much lower cost. That method is your nonprofit landing page.
Nonprofit landing pages can be one of the most powerful tools in your marketing arsenal, with the ability to achieve two main goals. The first is to generate donations without spending money on ads. The second is capture contacts you can nurture.
A nonprofit landing page set up for donations can achieve both goals, with the donor information automatically being added to your customer relationship management (CRM) system as new contacts.
Your pages are most likely to result in landing page conversion when they’re designed using a number of nonprofit landing page best practices.
Each nonprofit landing page you create needs to have a single goal in mind. That means you only want one call-to-action (CTA) per page. Landing pages designed to generate donations should have a CTA to donate, period.
Landing pages that include too many CTAs can overwhelm or confuse visitors, resulting in them choosing none of them. A Columbia University study found people are more apt to purchase more when presented with fewer choices, while presenting a larger variety of choices resulted in a people purchasing less.
Embedding a form on your landing page makes it easy for visitors to provide the required info and easy for your organization to capture it. Stick to only the essential info you need to complete the requested action. For donation landing pages, this may include items such as name, email address, donation amount and frequency, and details relating to the payment method.
The goal of your landing page copy is to convince the visitor that taking the desired action is worth their effort. You can craft copy that achieves this in a number of ways, such as:
Read More: 8 Storytelling Ideas to Engage Volunteers and Donors
Visitors that land on your page should have a clear, straightforward path to follow that leads them right to an obvious way to take action. Don’t overwhelm visitors with copious amounts of information or too many colors, images, clickable links or other elements that distract from the main goal. Choose imagery and pleasant visuals, coordinating colors, and a highly visible CTA button.
Use a CTA button color that contrasts with the rest of your landing page color scheme so it stands out from the surrounding elements. Keep your CTA copy concise and convincing, both as text above the button and on the button itself.
Transparency helps to build trust, and it’s especially important on a nonprofit landing page that requests donations. Let visitors know exactly how their donation is spent, which you can do by outlining where a percentage of each donation goes. Sharing actual numbers can add another layer of trustworthiness, as can showing progress toward your goal.
The more people who land on your nonprofit landing page, the higher the chances of landing page conversion. Generate traffic to the page by posting a link on your social channels and including a link in your marketing emails.
A/B testing lets you compare two different versions of your nonprofit landing page to determine which performs better. The most accurate way to A/B test a page is to change one element at a time, such as the headline, body copy, imagery, color or other variable. Continuously A/B testing your nonprofit landing pages allows you to continuously improve them.
Continue Reading: What Marketing A/B Tests Does Your Nonprofit Need to Use?
Now that you see why landing pages are so important and have a set of tips to follow for creating them, your nonprofit should be well on its way to making them work for you. One final note is to ensure each landing page you create is crafted to appeal to a specific target audience, a feat you can achieve by developing nonprofit buyer personas. Download our free guide that walks you through developing those personas today.