3 Reasons Nonprofits Struggle with Content Marketing

Nonprofits have a natural opportunity to be incredibly effective at content marketing. Why? The story you have to tell is often a lot more compelling and easier to tell than for-profit entities. Because of this, you would think that nonprofits would see much greater results from content marketing. Unfortunately, the opposite is true.

According to a recent study by Content Marketing Institute, most nonprofits are struggling when it comes to figuring out content marketing. While 61 percent of nonprofit professionals use content marketing, only 35 percent say they are effective at it.

3 Reasons Nonprofits Struggle with Content Marketing

So why are so many nonprofits missing the opportunity to leverage content marketing to reach more donors and raise more money? Here are three reasons:

1.  They don’t understand the requirements of successful content marketing. Nearly 50 percent of nonprofit professionals said they were challenged with a lack of knowledge and training about content marketing. In order to achieve content marketing success, you need to be a journalist and a marketer. Some nonprofits don’t even know how to tell their story effectively. Those that do are great at telling how their nonprofit makes a difference, but they don’t know how inspire action.   
2. They never develop a strategy. Nearly 70 percent of nonprofit organizations featured in the study have someone in place who oversees content marketing, but only 23 percent have a documented content strategy. The nonprofits that are seeing the most success are the ones taking a strategic approach to content marketing. Content marketing is not about sharing as much information as you can as quickly as you can. It’s about strategically providing content in the context your audience understands to move them to action.
3. They don’t provide a call-to-action. This is probably the simplest solution for most nonprofit’s content marketing struggles. If you want content marketing to produce results, you’ve got to tell your audience what to do next. Don’t assume they know or make them guess. The key to using content to move people action is to show them what action they should take.