Market Your Nonprofit like Movies

Yes, you read that right! Marketing your non-profit like movies are will take your fundraising to the next level. Movies make a ton of money every year across the globe. Hollywood alone makes net profit of over thirty billion dollars a year. Analyze how the last movie you saw was marketed to see if there are any ideas that will click with you. Your marketing initiative will, of course, depend on the size of your organization and your budget constraints but rest assured that this technique will bring you the ROI you’re looking for.

Besides the star power that boosts a movie’s success, marketing plays a huge role in putting the movie in the forefront of everyone’s mind. Below is a chronological step by step process of how movies are marketed and how you can be inspired by the techniques to market your non-profit organization.

1. Initial Teasers
For your non-profit organization, sending out a teaser in a newsletter and spreading it across your social media pages will create anticipation for what’s coming. The teaser can be text-based but if you want to go all out consider making a video teaser. Within this step, you can also publish a first-look type of image that features various aspects of the cause you’re supporting without any description.

2. Series of Trailers
Just like movies push out trailer one, two and so on, you can create a series of trailers for your marketing campaign that caters to varying demographics. This is your chance to entice people into supporting your fundraising campaign so give them all the reasons they should not only give donations but also inspire them to take it upon themselves to promote your campaign to their circles of influence.

3. Press Releases, Conferences & Interviews
This requires a lot of involvement from your team: your salesperson, public relations manager, social media coordinator but most importantly the individual that is the face of your marketing campaign. For the United Nations, stars like Angelina Jolie are selected to be brand ambassadors so that they can embody the values of the organization as well as promote the features of your product or service.

4. Commercials, billboards and social media ads
All three of the above mediums can display video ads which happens to be the most effective to grab people’s attention. Commercials are slightly different from trailers because they are usually more compact.

5. Movie premier
Movie premiers are big events with a lot of media hype, great food and an after party. Hollywood stars dress up in their most lavish outfits and have fun while celebrating the work they have completed. If you can have a great gathering for the launch of the cause you’re endorsing and invite the who’s who of your industry.

6. Post release marketing
This is a great time to gauge how the campaign was received by your audiences so put your team to work to create surveys, make phone calls and set up interviews with your supporters as well as the prospects that didn’t end up committing to your cause. Find out the hits, misses and the opportunities so you can take the lessons learned to your next campaign.